Why Aspartame Isn't Scary
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stevencloser wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Been a year since I've been on this site but for whatever reason decided to check back in. Hi again Myfitnesspal community.
Got a good chuckle to see that the accusations of me being a paid shill haven't died down yet. Honestly I wish there was a way to get paid for posting things you believe on public community forums on the internet but I have this thing in the back of my mind that tells me that job probably doesn't actually exist.
Great to see you back. Things didn't get better, we still get occasional "aspartame killed my family" posts.
I don't know what chemicals are. I don't know what LD50 is, or what your plans for it are. I don't have a BS in science.
What I do have is a very vocal ignorance, and I will use it to hunt down your favorite drink, and force them to change their formula.
It's sad how accurate this is.0 -
Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Been a year since I've been on this site but for whatever reason decided to check back in. Hi again Myfitnesspal community.
Got a good chuckle to see that the accusations of me being a paid shill haven't died down yet. Honestly I wish there was a way to get paid for posting things you believe on public community forums on the internet but I have this thing in the back of my mind that tells me that job probably doesn't actually exist.
Great to see you back. Things didn't get better, we still get occasional "aspartame killed my family" posts.
I don't know what chemicals are. I don't know what LD50 is, or what your plans for it are. I don't have a BS in science.
What I do have is a very vocal ignorance, and I will use it to hunt down your favorite drink, and force them to change their formula.
It's sad how accurate this is.
+1
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Okay I read the paper linked here:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109841
Here is my summary of what they did and what their findings were in an unbiased fashion. If you doubt my summary feel free to read the paper, I linked it above.
The study was comprised of 44 Sprague-Dawly rats split into 4 test groups (so a sample size of 11 rats total per test group).
The four test groups were high-fat diet with water, high-fat diet with aspartame, standard diet with water and standard diet with aspartame. Aspartame dosage was 5-7 mg/kg/d which is equivalent to a human consuming 2-3 cans of diet soda per day. Animals were allowed to free-feed and free-drink during this time.
After 7 weeks the total amount of food and water consumed was measured and the rats weight, blood glucose, plasma insulin, plasma fatty acids and plasma insulin related gut hormone (GIP) was measured:
For whatever reason the authors displayed the results not as a CHANGE in those values from day zero but rather just the 7 week value. That makes it hard to say how much those values changed for each individual rat as there is no indication in the paper if the rats all weighed exactly the same at day zero (which is unlikely).
The results are provided in table 1.
No difference in bone mineral density was observed. Liver triglycerides were elevated in the high-fat diet group but not with aspartame. The aspartame groups drank more water (containing the aspartame) but ate less food than the other groups. Remember that they allowed these animals to free-feed as they wanted and therefore the amount or frequency they fed was not controlled at all.
Fasting blood glucose was elevated in the aspartame groups (the groups that ate less food and drank more water remember).
There was no difference between insulin-related gut hormone between groups.
Not suprisingly since the aspartame groups ate less food overall they weighed less on average at the end of the 7 weeks than the non-aspartame groups. This is actually the opposite result of what was claimed by the poster who brought up this study who said:
"There has been a study done that shows artificial sweeteners affect the bacteria in your gut. Which in turns may result in an increase absorption and resulting in weight gains and decreased production of a hormone that suppresses appetite"
At week 10 they sacrificed the animals and looked at gut microbiota composition. They found that high-fat feeding perturbed the gut microbiota with an increase in total bacteria. (because your gut microbiome is affected by eating in general). There was little difference seen between the non-aspartame groups and the aspartame groups except a slight rise in Clostridium leptum relative population.
Ratios taken of different bacteria populations between the groups showed little change between aspartame and non aspartame groups (Table 2 and Figure 2)
Blood metabolites were checked and aspartame breakdown products including aspartate methanol and phenylalanine were not elevated in the aspartame groups indicating rapid metabolism of the sweetener.
Short chain fatty acid levels showed an increase in the levels of butyrate and acetate in normal diet groups while formate and isobutyrate remained unchanged. Aspartame increased circulating propionate levels by 2.5 fold in both the normal and high fat diet groups which was the one change they recorded for aspartame (Figure 3 and Table 3)
In the discussion they list their conclusions:
"Major findings were as follows: i) APM lowered net energy consumption and body mass in both CH and HF. In HF, APM resulted in lower body fat percentage as well as a decline in plasma insulin levels; ii) APM consumption was associated with fasting hyperglycemia and impaired insulin tolerance in both CH and HF; iii) APM resulted in distinctive changes in the gut microbiota including increases in Enterobacteriaceae and Clostridium leptum. Within HF, APM attenuated typical HF-induced increases in the Firmicutes:Bacteroidetes ratio and resulted in an elevation in Roseburia ssp.; and iv) APM increased serum propionate, a SCFA of bacterial origin."
(in the text APM is aspartame). Note that they say their findings show lowered body fat percentage and lowered body mass in the aspartame groups (probably because they ate less).
What did I get from this study?
Well they didn't control at all the amount the rats ate or drank which was a major flaw in my opinion. The result of this was with the aspartame groups the rats liked the sweet water, drank more of the sweet water and therefore ate less of their food which of course had an effect on insulin resistance, the gut flora and the levels of small fatty acid chains in the blood because they ate less.
Do I think this shows that if you imbibe aspartame you will eat less? No I don't. I think it shows that in that circumstance with rats they like the sweet water and they drink more of that and eat less of their food. And that is it.
I'd be curious what the result would be if they had another control group where the water was sweetened with sugar.
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Here is another study on the topic that perhaps is what is refered to by the Scientific American article you read (I found the Sci American article but they don't actually cite anything so its hard to say what study they are talking about).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7521/full/nature13793.html
Unfortunately this study is closed access so you have to have a subscription to the journal or you have to pay $32 for the article. I have access so if you are interested in a copy I can provide one via an email.
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Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Been a year since I've been on this site but for whatever reason decided to check back in. Hi again Myfitnesspal community.
Got a good chuckle to see that the accusations of me being a paid shill haven't died down yet. Honestly I wish there was a way to get paid for posting things you believe on public community forums on the internet but I have this thing in the back of my mind that tells me that job probably doesn't actually exist.
Great to see you back. Things didn't get better, we still get occasional "aspartame killed my family" posts.
I don't know what chemicals are. I don't know what LD50 is, or what your plans for it are. I don't have a BS in science.
What I do have is a very vocal ignorance, and I will use it to hunt down your favorite drink, and force them to change their formula.
It's sad how accurate this is.
I was trying to reword the speech from Taken, but it is probably too far from the base. I needed to slap that on top of a Liam Nieson on the phone image.1 -
Here is the Sci American article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-change-our-gut-bacteria-in-dangerous-ways/
I put it here because it was referenced but I do wish to add the caveat that scientific american is a magazine with journalists who write stories, it is not a scientific publication.
The sci american article does not reference the study directly with a citation but they mention it was last year, that it was an Israeli group and that the author was Segal. With that info it seems like the study is likely the one from the scientific journal Nature that I linked above which has Segal as one of its authors.
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So what's the difference in aspartame and sucralose? My boyfriend just got chewed out by his dentist for using splenda... he was told he would get cancer. I obviously know this isn't going to happen, but I'm still curious.0
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So what's the difference in aspartame and sucralose? My boyfriend just got chewed out by his dentist for using splenda... he was told he would get cancer. I obviously know this isn't going to happen, but I'm still curious.
Might want to get a new dentist.
Aspartame is a chemical that tastes 200x sweater than the sugar sucrose, breaks down into mainly aspartic acid (so technically, it does have some calories but nothing worth calculating). It is sold under the brand name nutrasweet.
Splenda is the brand name of sucralose, a chemical sweetner that is made by chlorinating the sugar molecule sucrose. Splenda is undigestable and about 3 times the sweetness of aspartame.0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Here is the Sci American article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-change-our-gut-bacteria-in-dangerous-ways/
I put it here because it was referenced but I do wish to add the caveat that scientific american is a magazine with journalists who write stories, it is not a scientific publication.
The sci american article does not reference the study directly with a citation but they mention it was last year, that it was an Israeli group and that the author was Segal. With that info it seems like the study is likely the one from the scientific journal Nature that I linked above which has Segal as one of its authors.
Thanks for the overview. That was an interesting read.
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So what's the difference in aspartame and sucralose? My boyfriend just got chewed out by his dentist for using splenda... he was told he would get cancer. I obviously know this isn't going to happen, but I'm still curious.
Might want to get a new dentist.
Aspartame is a chemical that tastes 200x sweater than the sugar sucrose, breaks down into mainly aspartic acid (so technically, it does have some calories but nothing worth calculating). It is sold under the brand name nutrasweet.
Splenda is the brand name of sucralose, a chemical sweetner that is made by chlorinating the sugar molecule sucrose. Splenda is undigestable and about 3 times the sweetness of aspartame.
Thanks!0 -
Apologies, apologies. 200x sweater:
The rats lost weight preferring aspartame-sweetened water over their food, eh?0 -
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Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Here is the Sci American article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-change-our-gut-bacteria-in-dangerous-ways/
I put it here because it was referenced but I do wish to add the caveat that scientific american is a magazine with journalists who write stories, it is not a scientific publication.
The sci american article does not reference the study directly with a citation but they mention it was last year, that it was an Israeli group and that the author was Segal. With that info it seems like the study is likely the one from the scientific journal Nature that I linked above which has Segal as one of its authors.Thanks for the overview. That was an interesting read.
Hah, thanks. I know this makes me a bit of a pain in the a** but I feel fairly strongly that if you are going to reference to some source you need to be able to present that source so that others are free to evaluate it for themselves. If you do not have a link to the original source and you still want to refer to it you should just replace the name of the source with "my cousin Ted".
So for example:
"I read an article in a scientific journal that said that aspartame causes cancer!" (no citation provided)
becomes:
"My cousin Ted said that aspartame causes cancer!"
because if you do not cite, then it is akin to heresay and you may as well present it as such.
The reason for this is because you are denying others the ability to look at your source critically and forcing them to rely solely on your personal interpretation of it.
And yes I realize holding people to this standard makes me a bit of an a**hole but I think if you want to state your case and attempt to support it with evidence from external sources you can at least be bothered to provide said external source as a matter of common courtesy or intellectual honesty.0 -
This review of data may have already been mentioned, too:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3496.htm
The facts are in-- aspartame won't rot anyone's brain. My personal issue with aspartame is the sweetness factor. It's hundreds of times sweeter than regular sugar, and my concern is people become accustomed to such a high sweetness level. It's kind of like salty food. Once people are accustomed to it, it can be very difficult to scale back-- which has the potential to lead to unhealthy habits (and have your dentist chew you out for legitimate reasons).0 -
yes and in 10 -20 yrs the things we consider safe today will be judged bad for us in some way....chemical sweetners? really? Problem is the FDA is using us as the lab rats....they don't require the years of practical testing they should...follow the money on that one$$$$ ...example....why so many recalls on prescription drugs now?...
i've done saccrin of the old days and I am fine with my Aspertame...follow the money on where each study is done....wait till they come out on some silly study about the plastic chemicals leaching into your water from the bottles...why do you think they recommend not re using them too many times?1 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Here is the Sci American article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-change-our-gut-bacteria-in-dangerous-ways/
I put it here because it was referenced but I do wish to add the caveat that scientific american is a magazine with journalists who write stories, it is not a scientific publication.
The sci american article does not reference the study directly with a citation but they mention it was last year, that it was an Israeli group and that the author was Segal. With that info it seems like the study is likely the one from the scientific journal Nature that I linked above which has Segal as one of its authors.
As someone in research who regularly reviews journal articles (albeit in a different topic area) and attempts to validate the results, I've found a lot of ripped off articles, forged results and padded results. I've seen duplicate articles in the same journal with a whole separate list of authors lol. I don't trust journal articles as far as I can throw them. Today, there are too many journals publishing and too many grad students required to publish work that many times isn't original or validated. Obviously, some journals are better than others for that and are ranked accordingly. I'm not arguing for or against anything here. I'm merely noting that a "journal" doesn't sway me any more or less than a "magazine" these days.0 -
Nerdycurls wrote: »This review of data may have already been mentioned, too:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3496.htm
The facts are in-- aspartame won't rot anyone's brain. My personal issue with aspartame is the sweetness factor. It's hundreds of times sweeter than regular sugar, and my concern is people become accustomed to such a high sweetness level. It's kind of like salty food. Once people are accustomed to it, it can be very difficult to scale back-- which has the potential to lead to unhealthy habits (and have your dentist chew you out for legitimate reasons).
It's 200 times sweeter but there's 200 times less in a bottle so it evens out.2 -
Nerdycurls wrote: »This review of data may have already been mentioned, too:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3496.htm
The facts are in-- aspartame won't rot anyone's brain. My personal issue with aspartame is the sweetness factor. It's hundreds of times sweeter than regular sugar, and my concern is people become accustomed to such a high sweetness level. It's kind of like salty food. Once people are accustomed to it, it can be very difficult to scale back-- which has the potential to lead to unhealthy habits (and have your dentist chew you out for legitimate reasons).
But the fact of its sweetness factor is WHY it is used as a low (nearly 0) calorie sweetener.
It's a protein. So it has 4 calories per gram. A can of soda contains about 200mg or so of aspartame. It's "comparable" in sweetness to a can of regular soda containing around 40 g of sugar. So it has 1/200th the amount but the same sweetness, hence 200x sweeter. (Side question, how does one measure sweetness?)1 -
Nerdycurls wrote: »This review of data may have already been mentioned, too:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3496.htm
The facts are in-- aspartame won't rot anyone's brain. My personal issue with aspartame is the sweetness factor. It's hundreds of times sweeter than regular sugar, and my concern is people become accustomed to such a high sweetness level. It's kind of like salty food. Once people are accustomed to it, it can be very difficult to scale back-- which has the potential to lead to unhealthy habits (and have your dentist chew you out for legitimate reasons).
But the fact of its sweetness factor is WHY it is used as a low (nearly 0) calorie sweetener.
It's a protein. So it has 4 calories per gram. A can of soda contains about 200mg or so of aspartame. It's "comparable" in sweetness to a can of regular soda containing around 40 g of sugar. So it has 1/200th the amount but the same sweetness, hence 200x sweeter. (Side question, how does one measure sweetness?)
It's measured using the universally accepted unit of measurement: Hersheys
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »Here is the Sci American article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-change-our-gut-bacteria-in-dangerous-ways/
I put it here because it was referenced but I do wish to add the caveat that scientific american is a magazine with journalists who write stories, it is not a scientific publication.
The sci american article does not reference the study directly with a citation but they mention it was last year, that it was an Israeli group and that the author was Segal. With that info it seems like the study is likely the one from the scientific journal Nature that I linked above which has Segal as one of its authors.
As someone in research who regularly reviews journal articles (albeit in a different topic area) and attempts to validate the results, I've found a lot of ripped off articles, forged results and padded results. I've seen duplicate articles in the same journal with a whole separate list of authors lol. I don't trust journal articles as far as I can throw them. Today, there are too many journals publishing and too many grad students required to publish work that many times isn't original or validated. Obviously, some journals are better than others for that and are ranked accordingly. I'm not arguing for or against anything here. I'm merely noting that a "journal" doesn't sway me any more or less than a "magazine" these days.
Hey I'm not saying don't read critically anything that you read, but if it is published in a journal presumably they at least have to cite their sources and provide their data which is something an opinion piece does not have to do and most likely wont.0
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