Why Aspartame Isn't Scary

Sassie_Lassie wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

sylkates wrote: »

Some animal studies have showed it messing with the gut biome, even at normal consumption levels (not the absurd consumption levels you sometimes see in animal studies.)

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109841

I'm cautious about my gut biome, I'd rather not take a substance that has been shown to mess with it if there's no good reason to take it (for example, yogurt can change your gut biome, but yogurt is delicious so I eat it anyway, antibiotics can wreck your gut biome, but if I got a gangrenous limb, hand me the antibiotics, please.)

The thing with animal studies is, they can at best give you an indication to look for something in people.
Chocolate or grapes will make a dog extremely sick but not people, just as a single example.

The amount of chocolate that a dog has to consume in order to make it sick depends on its weight. A chihuahua will get very ill -- maybe even die -- if it eats a pound of chocolate. I'm pretty sure that I would be sick if I ingested a pound of chocolate. I give chocolate to my current dog. Gave it to my old dog. Old dog died of cancer at the age of 12. Current dog still alive.

Grapes were found to be poisonous to dogs when there was a pattern in sick dogs.

Do you even know why they do studies on mice? It's because their genetic, biological and behavior characteristics closely resemble those of humans, and many symptoms of human conditions can be replicated in mice and rats. Also they're inexpensive and can be bought in large quantities.

No, as someone who has done studies on rats when in grad school, they're actually pretty bad models.

The reason that they are used is because they are cheap, easy to raise, easy to do studies on, and there's no better animal that is as cost effective and will pass IRB scrutiny. If you wanted reliable animal studies, you'd basically have to use other great apes like chimpanzees, and besides being prohibitively expensive, try getting a review board to approve experimenting on an endangered species that is among the most intelligent and humanlike of animals.

rankinsect wrote: »

Sassie_Lassie wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

sylkates wrote: »

Some animal studies have showed it messing with the gut biome, even at normal consumption levels (not the absurd consumption levels you sometimes see in animal studies.)

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109841

I'm cautious about my gut biome, I'd rather not take a substance that has been shown to mess with it if there's no good reason to take it (for example, yogurt can change your gut biome, but yogurt is delicious so I eat it anyway, antibiotics can wreck your gut biome, but if I got a gangrenous limb, hand me the antibiotics, please.)

The thing with animal studies is, they can at best give you an indication to look for something in people.
Chocolate or grapes will make a dog extremely sick but not people, just as a single example.

The amount of chocolate that a dog has to consume in order to make it sick depends on its weight. A chihuahua will get very ill -- maybe even die -- if it eats a pound of chocolate. I'm pretty sure that I would be sick if I ingested a pound of chocolate. I give chocolate to my current dog. Gave it to my old dog. Old dog died of cancer at the age of 12. Current dog still alive.

Grapes were found to be poisonous to dogs when there was a pattern in sick dogs.

Do you even know why they do studies on mice? It's because their genetic, biological and behavior characteristics closely resemble those of humans, and many symptoms of human conditions can be replicated in mice and rats. Also they're inexpensive and can be bought in large quantities.

No, as someone who has done studies on rats when in grad school, they're actually pretty bad models.

The reason that they are used is because they are cheap, easy to raise, easy to do studies on, and there's no better animal that is as cost effective and will pass IRB scrutiny. If you wanted reliable animal studies, you'd basically have to use other great apes like chimpanzees, and besides being prohibitively expensive, try getting a review board to approve experimenting on an endangered species that is among the most intelligent and humanlike of animals.

Last I heard nih had either stopped or was talking about not finding research on primates anymore. Those that have colonies can maintain their current animals, but they can't breed or buy new ones.

And IRBs are humans, it's the animal welfare committee that reviews animals (and their regulations are much stricter than IRBs since animals can't give voluntary consent).

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

<<everything you said even though it's an old post>>

I know it's old, but someone had this appear in my feed and I LOVE YOU @Aaron_K123

georgyporcupine wrote: »

I don't drink fizzy drinks because they make me burp really loud for a good hour

this is a bad thing?

stevencloser wrote: »

sylkates wrote: »

Some animal studies have showed it messing with the gut biome, even at normal consumption levels (not the absurd consumption levels you sometimes see in animal studies.)

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109841

I'm cautious about my gut biome, I'd rather not take a substance that has been shown to mess with it if there's no good reason to take it (for example, yogurt can change your gut biome, but yogurt is delicious so I eat it anyway, antibiotics can wreck your gut biome, but if I got a gangrenous limb, hand me the antibiotics, please.)

The thing with animal studies is, they can at best give you an indication to look for something in people.
Chocolate or grapes will make a dog extremely sick but not people, just as a single example.

Usually, you pick the animal model based on the mechanism you are interested in. Dogs cannot metabolize theobromine, whereas we humans can. For them, it builds up, and will produce a result similar to caffeine overdose in humans. If I'm interested in theobromine toxicity, I choose a dog, not a rat.

If you're interested in gut reactions, you choose pigs. If you're interested in eyes, choose rabbits or pigs. Each animal is chosen based on what you'd like to observe in a human-- then the animal model which most closely mimics that is chosen.

Bumping

singingflutelady wrote: »

queenliz99 wrote: »

Bumping

Great idea

Always needs more bumps

Sounds like someone work for a soda company??

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/06/aspartame-most-dangerous-substance-added-to-food.aspx

Since Monsanto is involved you know it can't be good.

I don't like the after taste of aspartame

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

sylkates wrote: »

Some animal studies have showed it messing with the gut biome, even at normal consumption levels (not the absurd consumption levels you sometimes see in animal studies.)

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109841

I'm cautious about my gut biome, I'd rather not take a substance that has been shown to mess with it if there's no good reason to take it (for example, yogurt can change your gut biome, but yogurt is delicious so I eat it anyway, antibiotics can wreck your gut biome, but if I got a gangrenous limb, hand me the antibiotics, please.)

Out of curiosity in what way specifically are you "cautious" about *your* "gut biome"? What specific species of bacteria do you promote the growth of and how do you do so? In the study you quoted all of the different diets they provided caused shifts in the population of the animals gut microbiome, why are you focusing on aspartame? If you change your diet it is going to change your gut flora, that is true...but to assume that the change is "bad" in the case of aspartame while being "good" in the case of other foods is based on what exactly?

This idea that there is some "ideal" microbiome that is typically homeostatic regardless of your diet but is somehow disrupted specifically by aspartame is false. It is not what the study you cite says, it is not what any study says that I am aware of.

All "substances" "mess" with your gut biome. Your gut biome survives off of your diet and if you change your diet at all then your gut biome will adapt accordingly and change as well. This idea that there is some perfect "gut biome" that one must preserve by eating XYZ and avoiding ABC is just made-up and not based on anything we have actually studied or understood.

We don't know enough about the microbiome yet. But, there can indeed be disorders from a messed up microbiome in extreme cases. I experienced severe medical injury which messed up my gut microbiome. I developed a malabsorption disorder. And could no longer digest foods. This led to multiple medical issues that completely changed my life and that no rational person would be ok with. Most of the time a person is healthy enough to withstand the day to day microbiome changes from diet. But, there are actually ways in which a person's microbiome can be in a very bad state. They can have bacteria which causes ulcers as an example. And more. I have been working hard to regain my gut health and it's been paying off.

Edit to add: I see people saying this on mfp. And I don't understand how people can say this. It's an oversimplification. Yes, our microbiome changes in harmless ways due to diet. Yes, we don't know enough yet about the microbiome. But, we do know quite a bit about the existence of good, bad, neutral, and unknown bacteria and fungus, etc. And about their harmlessness in small quantities and harmfulness in overgrowth. And medical research and understanding is continuing to go on and expand. As it should because it's needed.

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

Yes, our microbiome changes in harmless ways due to diet. Yes, we don't know enough yet about the microbiome.

That is pretty much all I said. Our microbiome changes due to changes to our diet in general and we don't know enough to make claims about how "good" or how "bad" certain changes are. The poster I was responding to cited a study as evidence that aspartame negatively impacts the microbiome but in reading the study that isn't what the study actually states. It stated that in the animals tested there was a change in their microbiome when aspartame was introduced. There was also a change in their microbiome with any other shifts in their diet. None of these changes were identified as being "bad".

Sure, there is such a thing as negatively affecting your microbiome. Long course treatment with antibiotics can wipe out your native flora giving you digestive issues until you can repopulate and then at that point your gut flora might be different from what it once was. When your flora is wiped out that is clearly bad. If it is repopulated with a different population of bacteria is that "good" or "bad" or neutral...hard to say.

There is, however, quite a leap between "one can harm ones microbiome to deleterious effect" and "this specific ingredient causes harm to your microbiome because it changed your microbiome".

Aspartame itself likely had no real effect, there is very little too aspartame and the amounts used in foods and drinks are measured in small milligram quantities. It would be like claiming that a small nibble of chicken changed your microbiome significantly. The more likely cause, as stated in the study, is that the animals provided aspartame ate less of the provided food which in an of itself would cause a shift.

My point was this:

1. Changes in your diet cause shifts in your microbiome
2. Changes in your microbiome could be bad, could be good or could be neutral.
3. You cannot point to a "change in the microbiome" and attach the "bad" label to it without reason or evidence beyond just that a change occured.

A change was shown however no reason or evidence was provided in that study that that change was "bad" nor did the authors even attempt to claim it was bad. That label was applied by the poster I was responding to and I was asking for an explanation as to what particular microbiome they considered "good" and which they considered "bad" given I don't think anyone really understands that yet.

If you never eat carrots and then one day you get a liking to them and start eating them all the time then chances are your microbiome is going to change and adapt to a different nutrient profile. Is that "bad"? The only reason that one would consider it "bad" is if one pre-supposed there was a problem with carrots. The same is true with aspartame or anything else for that matter, the reason to think that a microbiome changing with aspartame is "bad" is if you presuppose a problem with aspartame and are looking for anything to justify that belief. That introduces bias. If a microbiome change is evidence aspartame is bad then anything that introduces a microbiome change is bad and that clearly isn't true. If one presupposes that aspartame is bad and looking to microbiome changes as an example of it having a bad effect then presumably one came to the conclusion that aspartame was bad from evidence other that microbiome changes and it should be that evidence that first convinced that should be put forth.

I understand what you are saying. But, if a person develops problems from consuming certain foods and this is demonstrated to be repeatable and connected we can say the change was negative for that person. In my particular situation I was overtreated with antibiotics. It did change my microbiome. But, I had no GI problems. Just a very mild histamine reaction to a very small amount of foods. Six months later I was recovering great. A dermatologist wrongly prescribed a topical vasoconstrictor. This was because of the histamine reaction which was mild and had only happened a few times and lasted a couple minutes causing a very light flush to my face. The vasoconstrictor stopped blood flow to the trigeminal nerves and damaged them and caused a severe rebound disorder. So, when I ate food I had severe nerve pain in my face. I could barely eat. I rapidly became underweight because I was already lean and fit. I had muscle loss. I went from professional dancer to sedentary. I was barely able to sleep for four hours a night because lying down increased the pain. And severe stress from the severe pain and sleep deprivation. I mention these things because they must be contributing factors in what happened to my microbiome. And my diet changed. I could no longer eat the foods that had been helping me: fermented foods as an example because it increased nerve pain. I couldn't eat meat because the histamine reaction increased the nerve pain. I started eating a lot of grains such as quinoa and rice. I wanted to gain weight so I ate a lot of starchy vegetables (higher in calories). I ate a lot of beans. My microbiome became completely messed up. I had a number of severe health problems from it. And even though I was eating 2500 to 3000 calories a day I couldn't gain past 95 pounds (food passed through me undigested in five hours after eating). I had to keep a food diary to track my symptoms. I had to re-add foods that increased my nerve pain. And I had to eliminate a lot of foods such as grains, starches, and fodmaps. I improved immediately, dramatic change within a month, and much more change by three months. It wasn't the antibiotics that caused the severe problems. It was the diet six months later (due to the medical injury) which did. Though I assume I was more susceptible because of the antibiotics. And this is individual to me because I now have a malabsorption disorder we are still trying to figure out. So, I am just saying we can see positive and negative changes in the microbiome influenced by diet. I have gained weight and can keep the bad symptoms mostly away by sticking to a strict diet which helps me and doesn't hurt me. I hope eventually my microbiome and intestinal inflammation will heal and I will be able to expand my diet again. First I had to eliminate the foods which caused malabsorption and I improved significantly. Then I added good quality fermented foods and had even more improvement. We do at least know enough that I was able to make these choices towards improvement. I am now able to function again and dance. I still have pain and not all better. But, I am continuing to recover by sticking to the helpful diet. It's been ten months since the dermatology injury from the topical med. It's been three months since I began recovering.

Edit to add: we don't know enough yet. But, there is still stuff we know. We know about some of the bacterias and fungus, etc which is beneficial and some which is harmful. And we can make educated guesses to be able to help people that are suffering like I was.

cruisercrawler wrote: »

AnvilHead wrote: »

cruisercrawler wrote: »

Sounds like someone work for a soda company??

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/06/aspartame-most-dangerous-substance-added-to-food.aspx

Since Monsanto is involved you know it can't be good.

Quoting Mercola as "science" is one step below using Dr. Oz as a source. He's a complete and total quack.

Sorry, don't know anything about him, but I also don't know anything about the OP ethier.

Well, now you at least know that he's a quack.

ETA: I took a look at your link to see how Monsanto is involved with aspartame. Aspartame was discovered in 1965, Monsanto didn't have anything to do with it until 1985. Say what you will about Monsanto, but you can't say aspartame is bad simply because Monsanto is in the picture.