12 ms·
Aspartame is not that bad? (2022)
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- kakaz 5mo ago[dead]
- pfdietz 5mo agoSucralose-6-acetate, however, an impurity found in sucralose and produced in vivo from sucralose, is genotoxic. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37246822/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37246822/ I would avoid sucralose. I have a suspicion it may be responsible for the observed increase in colon cancer in younger age groups.
- gadflyinyoureye 5mo agoDid we just start adding this chemical in the ast five years? I can think of any other widespread roll out of a new technology in the same period.
- pfdietz 5mo agoThe increase is cancers in younger age groups was noticed earlier than that, and the cancers can't be expected to occur instantly upon exposure to a carcinogen.
- moooo99 5mo agoWhere does the confidence that it is due to sweeteners come from? This isn‘t about your comment in particular, more of a general observation. Many people instinctively attribute this rise in colon cancer to diet products, almost pretending as if it is the only thing that has meaningfully changed over the past 40 years or so. Others like to point to changing consumption habits in people drinking more sugary beverages. It is almost as if everyone is projecting their personal believes into this. But the truth seems frustratingly simple: we really just do not know yet
- pfdietz 5mo ago> Where does the confidence that it is due to sweeteners come from? Probably from your inability to read what I actually wrote. The word "suspicion" does not connote confidence.
- strictnein 5mo agoI'm still expecting the cause to be HPV and increase in anal sex. Some studies seem to point that way (and other studies that say it might not), but it hasn't been proven yet. However it would make sense, considering that it leads to cervical cancer, throat cancer, etc. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9610003/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9610003/ Not an expert on this by any means, just went down this rabbit hole when deciding if I should be asking about my son getting the HPV vaccine when it was first made available to males, and before it was broadly recommended for men.
- mapt 5mo agoA rise in meat (esp red & cured meats) consumption and a drop in vegetable consumption would also do it, particularly if it were disproportionately occurring in certain cohorts. 12% of Americans eat half the nation's supply of beef, and members of that group are disproportionately male and disproportionately middle-aged.
- rcxdude 5mo agoYeah, it's a frequent target of the naturalistic fallacy. But to me the most honest criticism of it is not liking the taste. Health-wise, almost certainly better than the sugar it's replacing.
- doublerabbit 5mo agoSugar please. I can't stand the taste of aspartame. They've started using Dextrin to replace sugars in confectionary (Mars Galaxy minstrels) and they taste awful. I liked Pepsi more than Coke but now that in the UK is using Aspartame in Pepsi it ruins the taste tenfold.
- hagbard_c 5mo agoSounds like aspartame is a boon for your health if its addition means you eat fewer Mars bars and drink less sweetened bubbly water. Hooray for aspartame!
- soopypoos 5mo agofreedom is unhealthy
- hagbard_c 5mo agoIt certainly can be. You're free to jump off a cliff but you'll have to suffer the consequences.
- soopypoos 5mo agomaybe I like the consequences
- hagbard_c 5mo agoIn that case feel free to jump. Eat candy bars, drink sweetened coloured preserved bubbly water and do all those other things you want. Isn't freedom great? As long as your freedom does not curtail another's feel free to do what you want within the bounds of the law. I'll even go so far as to add that some laws can be violated without consequences because they're outdated, superfluous, bought and paid for by those who stand to profit from their establishment or otherwise not conducive to a thriving society. Of course there is that problem with the consequences of your and my freedom: if you decide to indulge in too much freedom and as a result of that incur large medical bills from cliff-jumping, the mentioned candy bar and sweetened water diet and other similarly unhealthy habits it would not be fair to limit my freedom to do what I want with my hard earned money by claiming the tax payer (where I live) or insurance customer (where most people on this forum live) need to pay for your habits. As it stands this is the case but it doesn't have to be that way. Maybe there should be extra insurance premiums for habitual cliff jumpers and candy bar customers? Of course this is not easy to implement since it would not be fair to those eating one of those bars every other month or people who jump from 2 m high cliffs.
- misthop 5mo agoIt might not be bad for you, but it tastes like crap
- hawk_ 5mo agoAn important missed angle is the effect of artificial sweeteners on gut microbiome. They cause intestinal inflammation which is relevant for IBD sufferers. My take is that I don't miss out on much by being conservative with food, as we still don't understand these complex interactions well enough. What's the harm in sticking to a balanced whole diet of ingredients that were available to our ancestors 200years or more ago.
- AlexandrB 5mo agoThere's no harm to doing that if you can do it. But advice like "just eat healthy, natural food" is not really something most people can stick to long term. I know I can't! When I find myself in a stressful situation the craving for sweets is very strong and artificial sweetners at least mean I have options that won't dump a bunch of calories/refined sugar into my body.
- Forgeties79 5mo agoThere’s also the cost element on top of the realities of sugar addiction
- BirAdam 5mo agoAlso, what is a natural food? Wheat, maize, oranges, bananas, broccoli... those are human made.
- malfist 5mo agoAnd there's plenty of unnatural, ultraprocessed food that's good for us. Try telling the body builder he can't have a protein shake.
- pizzafeelsright 5mo agoI believe in you.
- kibwen 5mo agoAs the article mentions, this is a false dichotomy. If you're an ordinary person driven to be healthy, drink water. Water is great. If you're already drinking water, you should absolutely not replace it with whatever bottled crap that Coke or Pepsi is peddling, be it "smart water" or otherwise. But for people with sugar cravings bordering on addiction, which describes a depressingly enormous proportion of the population in the developed world, replacing sugary drinks with zero-calorie artificially-sweetened drinks can be a net health benefit. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are bad for your health, and consumption of sugar water is a significant driver of these. Yes, you could be even healthier by drinking water instead; see above. But sugar is an addictive chemical (sugar withdrawl is, in fact, a thing), and not everyone is going to quit cold turkey. (And for the record, I fully agree that people should be more cognizant of their gut biome and how their diet affects it, including being skeptical of aspartame and other random synthetic ingredients.)
- GolfPopper 5mo agoIt's a reliable migraine trigger for meyself, and my nephew. That makes it bad for us.
- msephton 5mo agoSimilarly, it makes me dizzy/sick a little like travel sickness
- cluckindan 5mo agoThat’s probably because 10% of ingested aspartame breaks down into methanol. Or, you might just be sensitive to phenylalanine.
- tptacek 5mo agoA six-pack of aspartame-sweetened Diet Coke has about as much methanol as a single apple.
- cluckindan 5mo agoBut crucially, it has no ethanol.
- adzm 5mo agoSame here. People keep telling me it's not, but it is, even when I happen to ingest it while unaware I've done so.
- PyWoody 5mo agoI can tell when a mixed drink uses a soda with Aspartame in it. My mouth instantly feels like it's covered in a thin film of plastic and the migraine is usually just around the corner. Everyone in my family, including uncles, aunts, cousins, have the same reaction, too.
- teunispeters 5mo ago
- bronlund 5mo agoIt is bad. Don't belive the hype. Just the simple fact that it has a sweet taste, but contains no sugar, disturbs the body's natural production of insulin.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- diabeetusman 5mo agoAssuming, of course, that one's body _does_ naturally produce insulin. I'm glad it and other artificial sweeteners exist and are as prevalent as they are.
- lormayna 5mo agoIn Italy we have an "indipendent research lab" that become really famous for a study that demonstrates that aspartame may cause cancer. The same institute published few years later a study about 5G emissions that may cause cancer.
- eduction 5mo ago“ However, a number of major issues with the study were identified by the Panel which made interpretation of the findings difficult. Notably, a high background incidence of chronic inflammatory disease in the lung and other organs was observed in all the animal groups including controls which did not receive aspartame, as reported by the European Ramazzini Foundation. This was considered to be a major confounding factor.” https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/efsa-assesses-new-aspartame-study-and-reconfirms-its-safety https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/efsa-assesses-new-asparta...
- lormayna 5mo agoNot a medical professional, but inflammation is something different from cancer that they mentioned in their website. And we need to understand also the trial scenario: in the one about 5G they expose rats for more than 20 hours to a radio power more than 10 the law limits.
- eduction 5mo agoI think you and I agree. This is about the Italian cancer aspartame study you referenced (Ctrl-f on cancer). This is EFSA saying the study has major issues and reiterating that aspartame is safe.
- Forgeties79 5mo agoI know this lab! Ramazi Institute or something right? We covered it in this podcast I used to produce (not explicitly the subject, they came up re: artificial sweetener studies and we explored them a bit). They’re very good at appearing legitimate while pushing wild claims.
- mmastrac 5mo agoI don't understand how prevalent Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners are when they taste so bad. They don't even taste sweet to me, just "wrong" in a way that permeates my entire mouth. Is this a genetic thing?
- cwnyth 5mo agoI've wondered this myself. The aftertaste on some of them is vile. The disappointing thing is that so many products use them when they reduce sugar, but sometimes I just want a reduced sugar product without any additional sweeteners. That seems hard to find these days.
- robotomo 5mo agoI've been curious about the just-less-sugar idea myself. Like how would a Coca-Cola "dry" taste? Maybe the fact that nobody is offering this just means it doesn't taste good.
- cwnyth 5mo agoSome other countries have products with less sugar than the US's version. Fanta is a noticeable one. I just want a late afternoon beverage that isn't alcohol, doesn't have a crap ton of sugar, has no sugar substitutes, and isn't too heavy on the caffeine. Might go back to decaf.
- tredre3 5mo agoCoca-Cola tried at least twice to market half-sugar Coke (C2 and Life). But instead of just doing half-sugar, they added aspartame and stevia respectively to compensate...
- moooo99 5mo agoMaybe, while I can relate to this feeling when it comes to some sweeteners commonly used in baked goods, I genuinely habe a hard tile distinguishing between sugar and sweetener containing beverages at this lokng.
- cael450 5mo ago> Half of the world’s aspartame is made by Ajinomoto of Tokyo—the same company that first brought us MSG back in 1909. There is nothing wrong with MSG either
- cestith 5mo agoIndeed. It turns out that “MSG headaches” are just high sodium level headaches, either through dehydration, unbalanced electrolytes, elevated blood pressure or whatever else higher than normal sodium levels cause headaches. The same headache could be caused by salt. MSG actually makes recipes require less of other flavor ingredients, including salt. It’s also often found in dishes that still contain relatively massive amounts of salt. So a little MSG to get your taste buds extra sensitive to other flavors is a net good. Just don’t eat too much sodium altogether, balance your electrolytes, and stay hydrated.
- kccqzy 5mo agoThis effect is very obvious on me. I consistently get headaches when my sodium intake is too high. I don’t even use MSG in my own cooking but occasionally I add too much salt.
- tracker1 5mo agoMight consider a mix of electrolytes instead of just salt. I usually keep a container mixed with "snake juice" ratios for electrolytes and use that to season with instead of salt alone. I'll also sometimes put a pinch in my water, not nearly snake juice amounts, when I get a bit off and start getting leg cramps.
- cubefox 5mo ago> So a little MSG to get your taste buds extra sensitive to other flavors is a net good. Salt and MSG are sometimes said to strengthen existing flavors, but I'm pretty sure they mainly just contribute their own unique taste: salty and umami. (There could of course theoretically be some interactions with other taste receptors, similar to how sweet things make things taste much less bitter, e.g. cocoa, but that is a relatively specific effect and not one that acts as a general flavor enhancer.)
- swiftcoder 5mo ago> The history of aspartame and the FDA is contentious and sort of infuriating Is it? They've been dealing with conspiracy theorists on this topic for more than half a century (it was initially approved as a tabletop sweetener back in 1974), including extensive public hearings in the 1980s. There is no more thoroughly studied or litigated food additive in the department's history.
- fabioyy 5mo agomigraine trigger for me too
- m4ck_ 5mo agoIt's probably not great if you're drinking dozens of cans of sugar free soda every day. All I really know is don't take health advice from influencers, especially if they're selling something, and don't take health advice from people who support deregulation (less industry transparency, oversight, and consequences won't make food or anything safer.)
- tptacek 5mo agoWhy not?
- perching_aix 5mo agoBias?
- WarmWash 5mo agoThe larger the impact of the information you are sharing, the more clicks and follows you will get. People trying to become content creators quickly realize that pointing out a 30cm rock headed towards Earth gets no money, err, attention. So they drop the 30cm part, call it a massive chunk of rock that will rip through the atmosphere, and suddenly they are getting much more money, sorry, attention. This is what makes social media so depraved, any idiot who makes a good word salad can profit from being an idiot.
- ranger_danger 5mo agoIs it really so "depraved" if they are simply smart enough to notice what generates revenue and acting on that? Of course we could argue that making money off people is wrong, but I think that is a losing battle in a capitalist society, which is most of the world right now from what I understand.
- Cthulhu_ 5mo agoI want to say a "well duh", but it seems it's not common sense that too much of anything is generally bad for someone. (For science, I'll be a willing test subject to test whether "too much money" is bad for me though)
- 1970-01-01 5mo agoFact 5 is a false fact. Taking facts 1-4 into consideration with the (0th?) fact that it is considered the most studied ingredient is enough evidence. This is how scientists come to a consensus. Going beyond that is obscene to science.
- nicole_express 5mo agoHonestly I believe there's a puritan streak in the aspartame controversy; you don't deserve to experience sweet taste if you're trying to avoid sugar, you need to suffer for your diet, and it's unfair to have a zero-calorie soda that tastes good. I could be convinced otherwise by data, but when I'm seeing decades of attempts to prove it's dangerous and none actually pan out, I'm not going to feel bad about drinking a few diet cokes a day.
- mapt 5mo agoNothing else explains the observed cultural confidence in putative harm than this "puritan streak", combined with sugar industry lobbying. It's gotten other sweeteners like cyclamate and saccharine banned (or voluntarily withdrawn pending a ban) over the years. The same comments are repeated about every new sweetener coming on the market.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- Lerc 5mo agoI don't drink things with Aspartame because it makes me feel queasy. I don't know of any mechanism that causes that effect. Occasionally I encounter something that I would not have expected to contain Aspartame that I notice the feeling before I have even considered the possibility that it might be present. I take that as a sign that it is not psychological.
- herbst 5mo agoSame here. Very little amounts already give me a weird tummy feel. A normal amount (ex. Half a can) gets my tummy turned around for a few hours.
- goolz 5mo agoEven so, it has a weird aftertaste that lingers on the palette. All sugar-free elixirs I have found to be subpar.
- malfist 5mo agoSome people are super tasters and they'll always have that problem. But most people stop noticing the aftertaste after a week or two of regular consumption. But I agree, when I started sugar free that aftertaste was nasty. Now, the aftertaste of sweetened drinks is nasty, the lingering coy sweetness is vile.
- paulinho1 5mo agoI think it's just human nature. We assume anything good has to have a catch. Diet Coke feels like that to me
- cestith 5mo agoThe one we’re trying to avoid the most in my household is sucralose. Genotoxicity and upregulating inflammation and oxidative stress are bad things. Accumulating unchanged in the environment and resisting biodegradation is a bad thing. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12251854/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12251854/
- happygreybanana 5mo agoThere's also an ever-escalating sweetness issue. When fresh fruit was plenty sweet enough and you get used to this level of sweetness, everything else seems to taste pretty bland. If this becomes the normal (I suspect it kind of has), everything gets sweetened; yogurts, crackers, bread, etc. The method those things get sweetened could be aspartame, but many will not be.
- jiaosdjf 5mo agoFresh fruit has gone through selective breeding over the decades to increase sweetness. This was discovered by a zoo in Australia IIRC, when it was noticed that animal dental issues had increased despite diets remaining the same over a long period. Yes it is ever-escalating, I found that after weaning myself off sweetness for a while, when I did try a sweetened product like a typical piece of chocolate it tasted sickly sweet and unappealing.
- jiaosdjf 5mo agoSo basically there's no scientific consensus either way, there's no tradition of using it and there are extreme commercial incentives for harm so it's a no from me
- shlant 5mo ago> So basically there's no scientific consensus either way "The current science says that the health impact of aspartame is essentially zero. Every credible body that has studied this question has reached the same conclusion." Did you even read the article?
- jiaosdjf 5mo ago"While informative, this does not prove aspartame is safe" There is no such thing as "it's just a normal chemical". Sugar is "just a normal chemical" that doesn't mean refining it and injecting it into products with a commercial incentive to habit form hasn't helped create a health crisis
- shlant 5mo ago> "While informative, this does not prove aspartame is safe" You just cherry-picked this from where they are only talking about the chemicals it breaks down into which yes, does not alone prove it's safe. But then it (right after in the section titled "The scientific consensus") goes on to list the science from most major health organizations and concludes with the quote I shared. Did you just ignore all the evidence presented because it doesn't fir your confirmation bias?
- latch 5mo agoNot sure how you get to that conclusion from the article when it ends with the conclusion from 5 health agencies that it's safe (and then more references from the scientific community that it's safe).
- jiaosdjf 5mo ago
- shlant 5mo agoI have tried multiple times to find this article after reading it a year or so ago ! thanks for sharing again
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- zaphar 5mo agoI don't like aspartame because it's sickeningly sweet. I could care less if it's healthy or not.
- mountain_peak 5mo agoI'll impart my n=1 experience, since I've been using powdered Aspartame (in combination with Stevia) in drinks and baking for almost 20 years, and I've tried almost all available sugar substitutes over the years. We already know from glycemic index charts that almost all sugar substitutes impact blood glucose to a certain degree, and there are only a few that have no impact. When sucralose became widely available, I bought some to try to bake with, but the carrier was maltodextrin - a starch, which prevented me from using it. Undeterred, I purchased pure sucralose drops in a neutral liquid. The sickly-sweet mouth feel after consuming sucralose is a bit tough to take [0], but that wasn't the worst of it. It actually impacted my blood glucose, and when I read more of the research, sucralose actually did cause an insulin reaction in many people who consumed it ("Several studies have shown that sucralose is not physiologically innocuous").[1] Then I read how sucralose is produced; literally thousands of pounds of sugar is used and converted to produce a few pounds of sucralose. It's being pushed hard by the industry, and I can only think of the 'vilification' of cheaper sweeteners such as Aspartame by industry, much in the same way that saccharin was vilified by flawed [2] studies in the 1970s - just as Aspartame was being developed as a commercial product. Alcohol is a class 1 carcinogen, and sugar causes irreparable damage to millions of people around the world. I find it somewhat odd how people react to what appears to be a flawed and dubious Aspartame study, when there are much larger elephants in the room. [0] https://nationalpost.com/news/world/after-sales-plummet-diet-pepsi-classic-returning-to-u-s-shelves-with-aspartame https://nationalpost.com/news/world/after-sales-plummet-diet... [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7155288/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7155288/ [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3185898/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3185898/
- tracker1 5mo agoI'm pretty sure that the minor glycemic spikes after sweeteners (artificial, zero calorie) is because they're sweet it's a combination of some glucose mobilization and insulin response that shapes the results after use of artificial sweeteners. You're carrying a fair amount of glucose in the kidneys which is quickly available and glycogen the muscles that can be activated nearly as quickly. The impact from this on those that consume a lot of sweetened beverages over the course of a day may not be such a good thing and may even contribute to insulin resistance. Aspartame is really inexpensive compared to real sugars... the sugar industry really doesn't like it and that was well before sucralose was an option. My personal take is it's probably best to limit sweetened drinks to with meals, and to limit meals to 2-3 a day in a relatively narrow window of 6-10 hours.
- freediddy 5mo agoWhen I drink a single can of Diet Coke or anything with aspartame, I get crippling stomach aches and then sudden diarrhea, all within about 2 hrs and very predictable. It's definitely not harmless. This doesn't happen to me with stevia or sucralose, and I know sucralose isn't good for your either.
- tracker1 5mo agoI have a similar negative response to legumes... but billions of people eat them without issue every day.
- jjice 5mo agoBut a lot of people don't have that effect. So maybe it's not harmful for everyone.
- amelius 5mo agoFunny, I have this with Coke Zero (which I believe uses stevia), but not with aspartame. The sale of this stuff should be prohibited, especially on long intercontinental flights.
- bitwize 5mo agoCoke Zero is sweetened with aspartame and phosphoric acid. It's just formulated differently to avoid the taste associated with Diet Coke, which some find unpleasant.
- amelius 5mo agoStrange, Google says this: > Coca-Cola updated the recipe for Coca-Cola Zero Sugar in the US, quietly adding stevia to the existing blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) in late 2023/early 2024 Did they change it back?
- freediddy 5mo agoCARBONATED WATER, CARAMEL COLOR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, ASPARTAME, POTASSIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE), NATURAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM CITRATE, ACESULFAME POTASSIUM, CAFFEINE, STEVIA EXTRACT. PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE ZERO SUGAR
- ck2 5mo agophenylalanine is DLPA which many people use to deal with chronic fatigue and mild pain management there's a reason why the President guzzles gallons of it per month I'm not convinced large amounts of Methanol is harmless but DLPA is harmless, maybe even beneficial
- amluto 5mo agoNot mentioned in the article: there is a really obvious biological effect of aspartame: it triggers your sweetness receptors. And you have them in your mouth (duh!) and elsewhere in your body including in your gut. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6288399/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6288399/ One might imagine that aspartame triggers the receptors in the gut and that this has some effect. Maybe different sweeteners have different effects, too, since they are metabolized differently.
- tptacek 5mo agoThere's not much question that there's some linkage between perception and chemical processes in the body, but there's also no real evidence that those pathways are causally linked to significant metabolic impact. Your upper GI system quickly transforms aspartame into constituent substances that are widely present in ordinary food. Different sweeteners certainly have different impacts, but this thread is about aspartame, the best studied and probably the safest of all of them.
- guywithahat 5mo agoThis was a really well written article, I enjoyed it. I had always assumed there were a bunch of hidden cons but it sounds safer than I had assumed
- teunispeters 5mo agoinstant migraine ingredient. Mind so's sucralose and some others for me. shrug as long as they're not universal, will be ok.
- helf 5mo ago[dead]
- ladyanita22 5mo agoHow does saccharin held in this case?
- jditu 5mo ago[dead]
- khelavastr 5mo agoThe right response is "we need to profile phenylalanine and glutamate metabolism better"...
- stefantalpalaru 5mo ago[dead]
- erelong 5mo agoWell, from the comments we see: -possible disruption of gut microbiome -possible trigger of migraines as well as from other places: -those with phenylketonuria (PKU) must avoid it -there are concerns that aspartic acid which is produced "can act as an excitotoxin, overstimulating nerve cells and potentially leading to neuronal injury and cell death" with chronic exposure or high doses -potentially carcinogenic -no nutritional value (thus no "need" to consume it) Fruit, honey, or maple syrup in contrast are natural without some of these concerns in the same way