7 ms·

Here's a nice write up about the results: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329872.600-artificial-sweeteners-linked-to-glucose-intolerance.html http://www

Here's a nice write up about the results: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329872.600-artificial-sweeteners-linked-to-glucose-intolerance.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329872.600-artificia... Note that the mice were given the human equivalent of 18 to 19 cans of diet soda a day.

dang 12y ago
Thanks. We changed the url to that from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13793.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu... because the paper is paywalled. There is also http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21613311-sugar-substitutes-may-mess-gut-bacteriacausing-obesity http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2161331..., via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8331143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8331143.
kazinator 12y ago
This write up also only implicates saccharin in the harmful alterations of the gut flora, not other sweeteners. Yet the introductory text talks about artificial sweeteners are a group. You cannot confirm the effects of "artificial sweeteners" as a category with an experiment that is based on saccharin. They are all different molecules. A bacterium that thrives on saccharin might not consume sucralose or aspartame. Also glaringly absent is any mention of the sugar alcohols: sorbitol, xylitol, maltitol. Who cares about saccharin. It is an outdated sweetener which is not widely used. Where can you find a diet soft drink or protein bar sweetened with saccharin?
- randallsquared 12y ago
  First, I care, since saccharin is (was?) my preferred sweetener, for coffee, etc. Second, saccharin is very widely available at restaurants and so forth, coming in a very close second to aspartame, in my experience.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    I know that it's available if you want it; but then, so are alcohol and cigarettes. If a study could link popular, widely-deployed sweeteners found in processed foods and drinks, that would point to a big public health issue. A problem with saccharin doesn't point to a wide-spread public health issue. Sacharrin has been vilified on and off over its entire lifetime. My parents' and grandparents' generation believed that it was a harmful poison, for instance; I remember hearing that as a kid. Only in the year 2000, in the US, were requirements for warning labels lifted, which had been in the effect since the 1970's, when saccharin was linked to cancer in rodents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin#Warning_label_addition_and_removal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin#Warning_label_additio... In spite of the lift, it doesn't seem that saccharin has made a comeback. Part of the reason could be taste. Particular mixtures of sweeteners are used in diet foods sweeteners in order to better simulate the taste of sugar.
    - randallsquared 12y ago
      People who use saccharine probably are unaware that that's what "sweet n low" or even "the pink packet" is.
      - kazinator 12y ago
        Sweet'n'low packets are very common, and so are an easy way for anyone to get saccharin just by reaching into a jar. Interestingly though, here in Canada, Sweet'n'Low is sodium cyclamate. Saccharin continues to be banned here as a food additive because of that (now long believed to be flawed) 1970's research which linked it to cancer. I had no idea that Sweet'n'Low is saccharin south of the border!
        randallsquared 12y ago
        Further, when Equal introduced saccharin and sucralose packets a few years back, it produced them in exactly the same color as Sweet n Low and Splenda, meaning that consumers can continue to just reach for the pink packet or yellow packet to get what they expect. There was some question about trademark infringement, I recall from somewhere. So, yeah, in the US, "pink" means saccharin.
- tedunangst 12y ago
  I, for one, care. About 100% of my artificial sweetener consumption is saccharin mixed in coffee or iced tea. I much prefer the taste over sucralose or others, but that preference is based on the assumption they are all otherwise biologically equivalent.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >You cannot confirm the effects of "artificial sweeteners" as a category with an experiment that is based on saccharin. // Hmm. Yes you can, you just can't generalise the result. If you want to test the hypothesis that "artificial sweeteners cause ..." then you start by testing if something from that category causes whatever effect. That shows that "artificial sweeteners cause the effect" but as you note it doesn't show that "all artificial sweeteners cause the effect". Of course you follow up by looking at other sweeteners as this feeds in to understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Logical analogy: Do birds sit on telephone wires? Yes, I saw one. Does that mean all birds sit on telephone wires, no. Indeed it's demonstrable that some birds never even see a telephone wire.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    When you conclude the <category> has <trait> you are implicitly assuming that the elements of that category are somewhat representative. If you only saw some pigeons sitting an the wire it would be better to conclude that pigeons sit on wires because the assumption that those pigeons are representative of pigeons is much more reasonable than assuming that those pigeons are representative of birds. For a more contrived example I could do a study and conclude that liquids are poisonous. Technically true but extremely misleading.
    - curun1r 12y ago
      When it comes to health effects, it's not necessary to prove that all members of a category share those effects. Simply showing that at least one member of the group is dangerous can be enough to recommend that people alter their behavior. For example, not all snakes have venom that's harmful to humans. But some do and that's enough to assume than an unknown snake is venomous until it's been shown to be otherwise. Similarly, your "liquids are poisonous" study is enough to conclude that we shouldn't be ingesting liquids that haven't been shown to be safe. Similarly, if we can conclude that one or more artificial sweeteners are harmful to our health, we can and should be consuming unsweetened foods until such time as individual artificial sweeteners are shown to be safe.
      - 12y ago
- lambda 12y ago
  No, the study covered three sweeteners in mice. From the original study (paywalled, accessed via my university): > To determine the effects of NAS on glucose homeostasis, we added commercial formulations of saccharin, sucralose or aspartame to the drinking water of lean 10-week-old C57Bl/6 mice They found effects from all three sweeteners, though the strongest effects were from saccharin. The followup study confirming the effects on humans, which was a much smaller study, only involved saccharin.
diminoten 12y ago
From that article: > The dose of sweetener was the equivalent to the maximum acceptable daily intake in humans, as set by the FDA. Now I realize that I, random commenter from the Internet, am unlikely to find a fatal flaw in an experiment designed and carried out by folks who do this professionally, but can someone explain to me why it's okay to give mice a human-amount of sweetener, and not a mice-amount? It just seems to me that our larger bodies are probably better capable of handling... well, most everything, and to start dosing mice with human levels of sweetener is actually going to cause a much worse reaction than if humans were to consume that amount. Edit: Also, it looks like the effects are reversible by "wiping" gut bacteria via antibiotics. If mice can survive the process of "wiping" gut bacteria, can humans? Is there a cure for this pre-diabetic state?
- Eiriksmal 12y ago
  I read "was the equivalent" to mean "Is the same ratio of grams of sweetner to pounds of mouse-flesh as the maximum ratio set by the FDA," not "is the same numeric amount."
- malvim 12y ago
  Doesn't "equivalent to" in this case mean "the mice equivalent to the maximum accetptable in humans"?
  - sentenza 12y ago
    It does. I'm no experimentalist, but my naive assumption (gut feeling, heh) would be that the way to do this is to scale by body mass.
    - jimcsharp 12y ago
      That's a really charming synonym for 'scientist'
      - raverbashing 12y ago
        The theorists disagree with you, and I'm sure they have a long paper with lots of equations explaining why. (it's a joke)
el_duderino 12y ago
Here it is on one page: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329872.600-artificial-sweeteners-linked-to-glucose-intolerance.html?full=true&print=true http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329872.600-artificia...

dang 12y ago

Thanks. We changed the url to that from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13793.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu... because the paper is paywalled. There is also http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21613311-sugar-substitutes-may-mess-gut-bacteriacausing-obesity http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2161331..., via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8331143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8331143.

kazinator 12y ago

This write up also only implicates saccharin in the harmful alterations of the gut flora, not other sweeteners. Yet the introductory text talks about artificial sweeteners are a group. You cannot confirm the effects of "artificial sweeteners" as a category with an experiment that is based on saccharin. They are all different molecules. A bacterium that thrives on saccharin might not consume sucralose or aspartame. Also glaringly absent is any mention of the sugar alcohols: sorbitol, xylitol, maltitol. Who cares about saccharin. It is an outdated sweetener which is not widely used. Where can you find a diet soft drink or protein bar sweetened with saccharin?

randallsquared 12y ago
First, I care, since saccharin is (was?) my preferred sweetener, for coffee, etc. Second, saccharin is very widely available at restaurants and so forth, coming in a very close second to aspartame, in my experience.
- kazinator 12y ago
  I know that it's available if you want it; but then, so are alcohol and cigarettes. If a study could link popular, widely-deployed sweeteners found in processed foods and drinks, that would point to a big public health issue. A problem with saccharin doesn't point to a wide-spread public health issue. Sacharrin has been vilified on and off over its entire lifetime. My parents' and grandparents' generation believed that it was a harmful poison, for instance; I remember hearing that as a kid. Only in the year 2000, in the US, were requirements for warning labels lifted, which had been in the effect since the 1970's, when saccharin was linked to cancer in rodents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin#Warning_label_addition_and_removal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin#Warning_label_additio... In spite of the lift, it doesn't seem that saccharin has made a comeback. Part of the reason could be taste. Particular mixtures of sweeteners are used in diet foods sweeteners in order to better simulate the taste of sugar.
  - randallsquared 12y ago
    People who use saccharine probably are unaware that that's what "sweet n low" or even "the pink packet" is.
    - kazinator 12y ago
      Sweet'n'low packets are very common, and so are an easy way for anyone to get saccharin just by reaching into a jar. Interestingly though, here in Canada, Sweet'n'Low is sodium cyclamate. Saccharin continues to be banned here as a food additive because of that (now long believed to be flawed) 1970's research which linked it to cancer. I had no idea that Sweet'n'Low is saccharin south of the border!
      - randallsquared 12y ago
        Further, when Equal introduced saccharin and sucralose packets a few years back, it produced them in exactly the same color as Sweet n Low and Splenda, meaning that consumers can continue to just reach for the pink packet or yellow packet to get what they expect. There was some question about trademark infringement, I recall from somewhere. So, yeah, in the US, "pink" means saccharin.
tedunangst 12y ago
I, for one, care. About 100% of my artificial sweetener consumption is saccharin mixed in coffee or iced tea. I much prefer the taste over sucralose or others, but that preference is based on the assumption they are all otherwise biologically equivalent.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>You cannot confirm the effects of "artificial sweeteners" as a category with an experiment that is based on saccharin. // Hmm. Yes you can, you just can't generalise the result. If you want to test the hypothesis that "artificial sweeteners cause ..." then you start by testing if something from that category causes whatever effect. That shows that "artificial sweeteners cause the effect" but as you note it doesn't show that "all artificial sweeteners cause the effect". Of course you follow up by looking at other sweeteners as this feeds in to understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Logical analogy: Do birds sit on telephone wires? Yes, I saw one. Does that mean all birds sit on telephone wires, no. Indeed it's demonstrable that some birds never even see a telephone wire.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  When you conclude the <category> has <trait> you are implicitly assuming that the elements of that category are somewhat representative. If you only saw some pigeons sitting an the wire it would be better to conclude that pigeons sit on wires because the assumption that those pigeons are representative of pigeons is much more reasonable than assuming that those pigeons are representative of birds. For a more contrived example I could do a study and conclude that liquids are poisonous. Technically true but extremely misleading.
  - curun1r 12y ago
    When it comes to health effects, it's not necessary to prove that all members of a category share those effects. Simply showing that at least one member of the group is dangerous can be enough to recommend that people alter their behavior. For example, not all snakes have venom that's harmful to humans. But some do and that's enough to assume than an unknown snake is venomous until it's been shown to be otherwise. Similarly, your "liquids are poisonous" study is enough to conclude that we shouldn't be ingesting liquids that haven't been shown to be safe. Similarly, if we can conclude that one or more artificial sweeteners are harmful to our health, we can and should be consuming unsweetened foods until such time as individual artificial sweeteners are shown to be safe.
    - 12y ago
lambda 12y ago
No, the study covered three sweeteners in mice. From the original study (paywalled, accessed via my university): > To determine the effects of NAS on glucose homeostasis, we added commercial formulations of saccharin, sucralose or aspartame to the drinking water of lean 10-week-old C57Bl/6 mice They found effects from all three sweeteners, though the strongest effects were from saccharin. The followup study confirming the effects on humans, which was a much smaller study, only involved saccharin.

diminoten 12y ago

From that article: > The dose of sweetener was the equivalent to the maximum acceptable daily intake in humans, as set by the FDA. Now I realize that I, random commenter from the Internet, am unlikely to find a fatal flaw in an experiment designed and carried out by folks who do this professionally, but can someone explain to me why it's okay to give mice a human-amount of sweetener, and not a mice-amount? It just seems to me that our larger bodies are probably better capable of handling... well, most everything, and to start dosing mice with human levels of sweetener is actually going to cause a much worse reaction than if humans were to consume that amount. Edit: Also, it looks like the effects are reversible by "wiping" gut bacteria via antibiotics. If mice can survive the process of "wiping" gut bacteria, can humans? Is there a cure for this pre-diabetic state?

Eiriksmal 12y ago
I read "was the equivalent" to mean "Is the same ratio of grams of sweetner to pounds of mouse-flesh as the maximum ratio set by the FDA," not "is the same numeric amount."
malvim 12y ago
Doesn't "equivalent to" in this case mean "the mice equivalent to the maximum accetptable in humans"?
- sentenza 12y ago
  It does. I'm no experimentalist, but my naive assumption (gut feeling, heh) would be that the way to do this is to scale by body mass.
  - jimcsharp 12y ago
    That's a really charming synonym for 'scientist'
    - raverbashing 12y ago
      The theorists disagree with you, and I'm sure they have a long paper with lots of equations explaining why. (it's a joke)

el_duderino 12y ago

Here it is on one page: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329872.600-artificial-sweeteners-linked-to-glucose-intolerance.html?full=true&print=true http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329872.600-artificia...