According to the article, yes, comprehensive studies showed it was strongly correlated to brain tumors back in the 90s. However big companies lobbied and did their own “research” to bury the studies that quite conclusively showed aspartame caused cancer.
“humans would need to drink the equivalent of 800 twelve-ounce diet sodas with saccharin daily to reach the carcinogenic doses that induced rat bladder cancer.”
There is a lot of public misunderstanding of the rodent studies that linked aspartame to cancer, which are very flawed and essentially come from a single Italian research group.
There is still no definitive link to cancer risk in humans so I would continue to be skeptical. The maximum recommended safe exposure for aspartame is the equivalent of 12 cans of coke, and the strong effects from the rodent study were using exposure amounts equivalent to 5 times that amount, or 60 cans daily, every day of their life after day 12 of fetal life (i.e. before birth).
Almost anything can cause long-term health risks and toxicity at such massive exposure levels.
Link to the free Pubmed link to one of the original source studies from 2008 so you can see their methodology and the absurdly massive exposure amounts needed to ovserve these effects:
the strong effects from the rodent study were using exposure amounts equivalent to 5 times that amount, or 60 cans daily, every day of their life after day 12 of fetal life (i.e. before birth).
This is why I hate rodent studies. They always up the exposure to whatever they are testing to hyper-extreme limits. Then point their flawed results to the world and declare “See! X causes Y!”
There are even similar rat studies for marijuana that try to link it to cancer as well, despite the fact that zero people have actually died from weed. It’s all overblown bullshit.
I disagree with the ‘massive’ exposure ‘needed’ to observe these effects exaggeration. First, the point of the study was to show it can be carcinogenic, not to parse at exactly what level in humans. Second, effects are seen at the 400ppm level which equates to 20mg/kg. This is 1600mg/day or 8 cans of Diet Coke (@200mg/can) for an 80kg male. That is NOT an impossible level of daily consumption for many.
I suspect further research was done to confirm your linked studies and refine exactly at what minimum levels of daily consumption elicit carcinogenic effects. That will likely be in the full report once released. Until then, you sound like you don’t want it to be true, rather than an impartial evaluator of the research.
the point of the study was to show it can be carcinogenic
Almost anything can be carcinogenic with a high enough exposure. You can pump a rat full of water until it dies and declare that water kills people. But, that doesn’t prove anything or serve a point.
Second, effects are seen at the 400ppm level which equates to 20mg/kg. This is 1600mg/day or 8 cans of Diet Coke (@200mg/can) for an 80kg male. That is NOT an impossible level of daily consumption for many.
In rats! You can’t just multiple a rat study by body weight and expect it to always correlate. That’s why studies are done in larger animals, and sometimes the concept just dies there.
A single study is a statistic. Until they duplicate the results multiple times, and upgrade to monkeys, pigs, or (in a safe way) humans, this is all just noise.
Almost anything can be carcinogenic with a high enough exposure. You can pump a rat full of water until it dies and declare that water kills people. But, that doesn’t prove anything or serve a point.
This is how science is done friend. You make no assumptions. You have reason to believe a theory predicts a testable outcome? You test it. Not everything causes cancer. Pure air doesn’t… Clean water doesn’t… The research shows us Aspartame does indeed have carcinogenic effects in rats. Now we know this, and the result can be used to support applications for more costly research using subjects much more similar to our anatomy because if it is carcinogenic in one mammal, it probably is carcinogenic in others.
You call the study flawed when it looks perfectly fine to me for the purpose it was designed for. It shows it is carcinogenic in the mammal it was tested on at dosage levels that translate to non-‘massive’, quite reasonable consumption rates for humans. As such, it warrants concern and all these claims by the European and US Food Agencies saying ‘we did 100s of studies decades ago and it is fine trust me bro’ is not enough. I’m not arguing this one study proves Aspartame causes cancer in humans. I’m saying your particular criticisms of it are unfounded as is your confidence that Aspartame is non-carcinogenic. You cite FDA claims ‘Aspartame is safe’ but show no research that supports this conclusion. Looking at the provided links I noticed things like “don’t feed to pregnant mothers because phenylalanine”, “methanol is a metabolite - nothing concerning there”, and ‘we plan on doing a systemic revaluation of aspartame as the research is over a decade old (the whole time with the biggest corporations in the world breathing down our necks)’ <a href="">https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/corporate_publications/files/factsheetaspartame.pdf</a>
Looks to me like somebody did more research and found contradictory results otherwise why would WHO say they are going to do this?
Almost anything can be carcinogenic with a high enough exposure. You can pump a rat full of water until it dies and declare that water kills people.
It would lead to death, but not to cancer. Not everything is carcinogenic, even with high exposure. Causing death by a method other than cancer doesn’t make it carcinogenic.
I could be wrong, and I’m too lazy to Google at the moment, but I swore this was made public information long ago. When I was young, aspartame was being phased out in favor of sucralose. I recall hearing stories about aspartame being banned in other countries as a child.
There's been plenty of talk about how dangerous aspartame is that is not based on any evidence.
You can find claims about it being a neurotoxin, causing cancer, causing autism, sterility and pretty much any ailment you wish if you just look.
This time it looks more official, but it still seems to only possibly cause cancer in very, very large doses.
I don’t think you can put “the” before WHO unless Roger Daltrey approves it.
I worry about a lot of the additives used today. Some products will say “no sugar added” but will include some artificial sweetener that you only see in the fine print.
I’m pretty sure the last I read about this it was an absurd concentration that showed to potentially cause cancer. Nothing a human could drink in such concentrations.
That being said maybe that’s changed very very recently, I’ll be interested to see what their actual findings are.
A lot of things potentially cause cancer in huge concentrations.
But again this is one source. There are others first heard about it from Reddit. But I also have first hand knowledge of the effects because my brother and father were heavy drinkers of the stuff and definitely effected their memories.
Add comment