Artificial Sweeteners and Cancer
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- When we released a recent episode about the artificial sweetener erythritol, many of you brought up questions about recent news on other artificial sweeteners - sucralose and aspartame - so we went to take a look and That’s the topic of this week’s Healthcare Triage.
Related HCT episodes:
Is the New Artificial Sweetener Erythritol Safe?: • The Latest on Artifici...
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With how much artificial sweeteners have been studied and the general distrust of anything artificial, it's not surprising at all that these weak links have been overblown in the media and populace. My mother completely freaks out when I drink anything with artificial sweeteners. Personally, I'll keep an open mind but won't be making any changes to my diet.
Agreed, my great Aunt has been drinking diet sodas for 50 years, no problems whatsoever, yes that is anecdotal at best, but as a diabetic diet sodas are a godsend.
The term "possibly carcinogenic" is a prime example of how ill considered technical labels can hurt science communication.
It's really no surprise that many people see the label in isolation and think it means "this might give you cancer", rather than "we have weak evidence for a correlation between this and elevated rates of cancer, but no causal link has been established". Because the label is literally saying "this might give you cancer", that's the most logical interpretation of the phrase "possibly carcinogenic" anyone not versed in the classification system is likely to derive from it. So unscrupulous writers don't have to work very hard to make it sound scary in a headline, and they can quote the official language to make their fearmongering articles seem more legitimate
It's probably optimistic to think better official language around things like this would meaningfully deter media fearmongering, but surely we can do better than this.
It's worth noting that the IARC classifications also contains Group 4: "Probably not carcinogenic to humans", defined as "There is strong evidence that it does not cause cancer in humans."
To this date, there is only one singular compound on this list known as Caprolactam. Everything else studied are in the other categorizations, being shuffled about as studies continue.
IARC Group 4 was removed in 2019, and caprolactam was relisted as Group 3 "Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans"
As you frequently point out, the risks of negative health outcomes from *sugar* are *far* greater than anything that has even been *possibly* hinted at by any of these studies. These days, if I'm being offered a soda, except as a special treat, I generally try to stick with the sugar-free. (Now if only I could quit ice cream and cookies, though I'm doing better!)
The funny thing is that I'm very much not prone to addiction when it comes to any substance that's labelled as a hard drug or even other substances that are supposedly very addictive.
The only two exceptions are nicotine and sugar!!
Never had any trouble with my opiate usage, for chronic pain, over the years. I often go without, for a few days or over a week, to reset my tolerance. Sometimes, it can be a hell, but for some reason, I don't have a problem with suffering through it once I've made the decision.
However, I've been picking up both nicotine and sugar addictions many, many times in my life and quit them as many times. The only thing that truly helps is just not buying/procuring said things. Or keep myself away from situations where the cravings might become too much.
When it comes to sugar, I've noticed that once I get a taste of it once, I might already easily fall back to wanting to consume it all the time. whereas when I don't consume it, the opposite happens. Very quickly, when I cut out sugar and rely on healthy foods, will my tastebuds and cravings change. Often within a week or maybe two. I'll start really enjoying and being able to taste the full spectrum of vegetables and such. It might have something to do with that 'gut microbiome feeding our brain signals' thing.
I'm also working on reducing my sugar and I gotta say, cookies and ice cream were the hardest ones for me!
Sugar is fine in moderation. Aspartame is the shortcut to depression and cancer.
I too believe that *refined* sugar is addictive. I also believe it should be considered for reclassification as a drug.
There are many other substances that are considered fine/recreational unless refined. Cocaine and aspirin would be two examples. So it's not unprecedented.
Refined sugar is actually used in NICUs as a pharmaceutical product. The hospital pharmacy makes liquid sucrose preparations, and nurses give oral drops of it to babies. It acts as a mild painkiller/sedative. Useful for taking blood draws, etc. It's not because of the flavour - it's not very sweet. It's because it's refined sucrose.
@@DeltaNovumI'm curious what people mean by sugar, cause your bread, milk and fruits all contain sugar, and "added sugar" does not actually mean it doesn't already have simple sugars just from the nature of the food itself. Like would you fall back into sugar addiction if you ate a grape?
Thanks for clarifying that so quickly lmao because I thought this was a re-release before I clicked on it haha
Me: “I’ll have a large snow cone with sugar-free strawberry.”
Worker: “You know that gives you cancer, right?”
Me: “You know sugar gives me diabetes, right? I’ll take my chances with the cancer.”
sugar doesnt "give you" diabetes... Sugar mixed with poor health and a sedentary lifestyle make your more prone to diabetes...
Sugar also "gives us" cancer
@@chrismcaulay7805 whomp whomp
@@MarkSanso Ya, it really doesnt. All digestible food breaks down into sugar... If sugar. That would mean all digestible food gives you cancer...
Artificial sweeteners are not digestible, that is the issue...
Yes, there are so many studies alert medical concerns that are unfounded or at lease unbalanced.
I used to joke that in a recent study exposed that water was a huge health hazard. Ten mice were placed in a 50 gallon drum of water resulting in 100% mortality.
I watched a toxicologist going over poisions, toxins, etc. and which was deadliest. They mentioned that dose is more important than type when it comes to poison, anything is toxic at the right dose. Seems like that would apply to aspartame as well!
Personally, I’ll just aim to keep both my sugar and artificial sweetener intake low.
You didn't clearly state it and it was basically assumed... but a clarification that IARC's classification system is built around hazard and not risk.
So things that do get classified in class 1 "carcinogenic"... doesn't mean that exposure could mean cancer. Some of the things in there that are classified as cancerous are cancerous at ridiculous amounts of exposure that no person would be ever exposed to.
What else is in that 2b category of 'possibly' causes cancer?
Would it have things like, bananas for their high potassium (and hence very slightly more radiactive than average), and some other foods sometimes accused of being cancer causing, like burnt food or processed meats?
Some comparison like that might help us understand how non-serious the classification is. Hypothetically if artificial sweetener is suspected to be about as dangerous as bacon or burnt toast, then, yeah, maybe not ideal, but hardly a huge concern.
Processed meats are a grade above with alcohol, just to give you some context.
Thank you for discussing and providing context on this. Aspartame has been my favourite sweetener for years and it makes me feel more safe seeing this.
Thank you for this video! I've been using artificial sweeteners in my coffee now and tried to cut out soda entirely from my diet (diet and zero sugar are ok for me though) for more than a year and this video is reassuring.
Thank you for this update. I was one of the ones who saw the sucralose paper and asked you for help interpreting it. I'm still curious about the proprietary test equipment. To me, the paper made it sound like a perfect simulation of the gut (of which was duely skeptical) , but since I couldn't find any specs on it, I had no way of judging its scope. Maybe you could do an episode on these types of testing apparatuses and how to interpret the data when the methodology is obscured to the public.
I have since done my own test regarding my personal health, 3 months without sucralose (or any other artificial sweetener). This anecdotal data point agrees that, baring other dietary changes, sugar substitutes are a good way to reduce sugar intake, and that sugar has a more easily identifiable correlation with negative health effects.
All these sweeteners taste like cancer to me. I don't understand their popularity.
Taste is very very individual, not just from personal preference, psychology or culture, but also genetically. Just like cilantro tastes like soap or not based on which receptors are expressed, sweetener side-tastes also depend on genetic differences. Plus taste bud density and many other factors play big roles in taste perception.
@@Shaqiliciouss it’s mostly due to what you eat in your childhood. If you grow up eating these chemicals, then they won’t bother you as much.
You might be a super taster. I am. Every artificial sweetener tastes like poison. I can't understand it either, I think we must be in the minority. Battery acid would be more appetizing than sucralose.
@@djp1234 no not at all, my mom never bought us sugar free because she was concerned about cancer but I started drinking them after college and I prefer diet coke over even Mexican coca cola. Stevia, monk fruit, allulose all of it is pretty inoffensive to me but straight up aspartame is the best tasting
@@SandTiger42 yeah. They even add it to non-diet drinks and I can instantly taste it. It’s horrible.
Another great video!
How come there are so many studies that basically tell us "This thing is fine" but the general public belief doesn't change? Instead we keep paying for more and more studies on the same things. What's the mechanic in play here? Is there a funding dynamic?
because most people are doomers
also why so many videos and articles have some sort of negative spin
@@MorbidEel They seem to only be doomers when the good news are scientific, the same people will believe magical mushrooms will cure your cancer
Because the medical/research industry is simply not trusted anymore... We know we feel worse with those things around, we dont need a study to tell us that. So if a study comes out saying "nope nothing wrong" we know that it is false...
This is a great video, I never really put much thought into sweeteners but it seems like everyone making content on the topic is trying to sensationalize the possibility of it being carcinogenic or 100% safe
How about talking about scaling of animal studies to humans? Can you talk about the challenges involved in these?
My neighbor was berating his mom bc he thinks her colon cancer came from drinking diet soda and I was like babes, no, it's all the stressors from a lifetime of poverty! I pointed out that my parents who are white college educated upper middle class professionals and 20yrs older then his mom had been drinking diet soda since the 80s and neither had had any health issues outside of mechanical (my mom got both knees replaced in her early 60s and my dad tore a ligament in his shoulder while exercising at 66). My mom has also been obese since the 80s but she didn't live always one paycheck away from homelessness and it's the lifetime of stress that's killing people
How about a video about Sugar alcohols (polyhydric alcohols).
Is there made any studies on them?
At the beginning of the video he said he already made a video about that.
@@SandTiger42 I didn't even know that Erythritol was an sugar alcohol, there are so many a there names are so hard to remember.
But yes they have made a video on Erythritol, the video is called "The Latest on Artificial Sweeteners and Health".
But the conclusion is the same, the studies are not grate.
And I don't know if Erythritol basically is the same as Sorbitol or Maltitol, or maybe they should be treaded individually. Who knows.🤷♂
"I won't put that in my body, it's terrible for you and causes cancer"
*Immediately pours a glass of wine*
Question. Are there studies on the causation of IBS like symptoms from artificial sweeteners? Like people that are allergic to artificial sweeteners if that’s been studied. Thanks!
was thinking the same, they may not cause cancer but I think they have been shown to cause stomach problems in some people
Very difficult to study as only a very few people have demonstrable negative reactions to artificial sweeteners. For myself one piece of gum will give me a migraine for one to four days. For my youngest son a glass of a certain "healthy" drink targeted towards children would leave him wired for about 12 hours, think force feeding a child 10 tablespoons of sugar - once we identified the link he started to see similar reactions in some but not all of his friends but none had as severe of a reaction as he did.
There is plenty of evidence that a specific type of sweetener called sugar alcohols cause IBS symptoms in people who are sensitive to it, including many people diagnosed with IBS. They are low insulin response sugars like xylitol, sorbitol, erythritol, etc: most are “low calorie sweeteners” added to food that end in “itol”, though some may go by other names. They are difficult for humans to digest and end up being digested by bacteria in our gut, which can cause bloating, pain, flatulence, and discomfort in some people.
As for other artificial sweeteners like sucralose, aspartame, saccharin, etc I haven’t found any link between them and IBS, and as someone with IBS, they don’t have any negative affect on me. I can’t speak to those with allergies to these things, however.
Are there any studies that looked at the effect of artificial sweeteners on our gut microbiome? Dr. Rhonda Patrick suggested it might disrupt it.
I use allulose in my tea and grapefruit
I heard once, and would love to hear this clearly debunked, that the combination of Aspartame and Acesulfame-Potassium was shown to reduce a person's ability to resist cravings, so if you're walking past a fast food restaurant and get a craving for a burger, you're more likely to walk in and buy a burger than you would have been if you hadn't been chewing some sugar-free gum recently.
I believe I read this on Newscientist back in the day, but I have no idea if this was a real study, or if it was correlation and not causation. Stopping consumption of the stuff had, at the very least, a placebo affect on me and I stopped purchasing as many foods I craved but didn't need; which was a big deal for me because I was already in credit card debt at the time.
"studies are done in petri dishes. Or in mice. Or in observations in humans...."
Or in laboratory rats that smoke cigars.
And in any case, dose matters, and scaling up in mice or rats is dubious at best.
Where is this episode on Erythritol? I can't find it.
ruclips.net/video/5glJijpvzmk/видео.html
To what extent can observational studies be useful? Because the studies often report they control for the other factors you mention (likely with varying degrees of success).
Imagine placing people on a 2D plane, grouping them by similarity. This creates clusters of similar individuals that can be further differentiated. It's like running a generalized trial to try to target more nuanced differences. EG there are overweight people that don't drink as much sugar as others, or people that maintain a more active lifestyle.
@@TreesPlease42 Вообще-то, можно и в трехмерной модели, современные мощности это позволяют, не находите? Сортировка по сотням признаков, одновременно. Маркировать можно и с математической моделью, и на основе статистических данных. Почему нет? )))
they are useful to manage resources. they can debunk hypotesis if there is no correlation or negative correlation and can be a way of select wich ones are worth doing more research and other kinds expesive research.
And the bradford-hill criteria can help too. dose-response, etc
They basically generate new hypothesis from previous ones, in a more specific topic.
They usually funnel broad hypothesis into useful randomized controlled trials and thus meta analysis, etc.
What about the effect of artificial sweeteners triggering the release of insulin due to our 'sweet = sugar' receptors in the mouth, which then results in LOWERED blood sugar levels as the amount of sugars in the consumed food is actually lower than our body expects to find in them? This MAY result in higher amounts of hunger levels as the lowered blood sugar levels trigger our 'hunger' response, which may result in HIGHER consumption of high caloric foods as a result? How do these studies fare in scientific terms?
Are they valid?
Are their results a) peer-reviewed, and b) do their correlations actually translate into causation results?
I'd be much obliged if you could do a video about that.
I believe they touch on this in an older episode "Are Artificial Sweeteners Harmful?" ruclips.net/video/Mf82FfX-wuU/видео.htmlsi=PO5P26iwGLrKZQEB&t=275
There are likely lots of ways to control for such a study but maybe legally problematic . If i tried to recruit all Quest bar customers for a trail for cancer ,you can imagine the issues it could cause Unless it were already maybe part of a class action lawsuit toward a manufacturer .
It's also fair pointing out that a lot of "gym bros" are monitoring their weight and calories with artificial sweetners. These people are generally very healthy.
👍
Can you please do an episode on long covid and how severe and it is? I'm sick with it, so many people I know are sick with it. The medical research I read is sobering, and the public's interpretation of it makes me feel confused and terrified, and the government health agencies don't have answers or guidance.
You made a video 3 years ago, but so much has changed since then in the research.
Метаболизм, как мне думается, решает многое, в этом случае!
I'd like to hear you review "ultra processed food" (UPF) evidence, rather than looking at individual ingredients. Is the hype there well-founded?
Also, I stay away from sweeteners for the same reason I always have. They taste funny, and they mess with my digestion. Much more important day to day than mythical cancer risks.
I heard that sucralose can have negative effects on gut bacteria. Though I didn't look into it, so who knows. I do know that I am a super taster, and ALL artificial sweeteners taste toxic to me. I can INSTANTLY tell if even the smallest amount is in anything. So, if it tastes toxic I treat it as toxic. I hate that it's becoming so prevalent in everything, and manufactures just slip it in secretly with a change in formulations. Something I've loved for years all of the sudden tastes like poison. What do they taste like to normal people? Can you even tell?
Most people (non-super tasters) can't taste that difference, in my experience. My taste bud density is a little above average, but even so sometimes sweeteners taste off or even metallic to me. I've accidentally added artificial sweeteners to coffee and had to throw it out, using regular sugar instead.
Taste is probably not a great way to determine toxicity considering lead is apparently sweet tasting as well.
@@LabGecko They have gotten a lot better as masking it. It used to be that whenever we accidentally buy one we would know as soon as we taste it. More recently there has been a lot more cases of "hey did you know this has artificial sweetener?" "really?" "yeah, it's in the ingredient list" for us.
@@MorbidEel bro... taste is an EXCELENT way to test for toxicity... that is literally natures way to tell you not to eat something...
@@chrismcaulay7805 but that is apparently also the reason kids were eating lead paint ... are you telling me lead paint is actually okay to eat?
WHY NOT SACCHARINE!!??
the de-s'er really failing to keep up at the start of this video.
Probably doesn't give you cancer but I really don't get why you'd want artificial sweeteners anyway. What's wrong with eating real food?
Also seems from admittedly insufficient research that the real issue with artificial sweeteners is that when you consume them, your digestive system prepares to digest sugar, which never arrives, and this impacts everything from gut microbiome to insulin production.
I get migraines from sucralose and aspartame. I also get mild headaches from stevia and monk fruit. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this? It's definitive, so any comments trying to argue otherwise are not welcome. It has been confirmed by multiple doctors. I'm just wondering what others experience has been like. I'm not against artificial sweeteners and none of my siblings have the same issue, but my grandma did.
A previous episode referenced a study that was unable to find a link between headaches and aspartame with people who identified as being aspartame sensitive. ruclips.net/video/Mf82FfX-wuU/видео.htmlsi=me6jKNHIRKNbAvOQ&t=215
When I was younger, I used to have migraines triggered by aspartame. Then I changed my diet to keto and stayed away from sugar, since then I can have aspartame without a migraine. Not sure if it was the diet change that did it, but it was the same time frame.
I do also... I dont even have to know they are in the item, I get the headache and then check the label.
The current studies are there to protect the industry. Artificial sweeteners are always gonna be super bad for you...
@@ninja4344 Do you always just ignore what people say? Does this approach get you far in life? This comment was not for you, I could not have made that more clear. Just keep scrolling. I had already seen the video you are referring to.
In my case, it's not debatable. Even a little bit. Aspartame and sucralose give me migraines. I don't have to know that's what I'm ingesting to get the migraine. I have gotten more migraines than I can count en route to this discovery. I'm perfectly scientifically literate-- I know correlation is not causation. In my case, however, there was no room whatsoever for debate. We were thorough. It's extremely common for people to have food sensitivities, and those sensitivities can produce a diverse array of symptoms, often mild-- why would artificial sweeteners be the exception? Think about how stupid that is.
This is exactly the discussion I didn't want to have. Don't respond. Just move on.
@@chrismcaulay7805 I would need to see some evidence that the current studies are there to protect the industry. There's always going to be industry-produced studies, and doctors know that. I haven't been able to see how some of the university-produced studies are corrupted.
I also don't know that they're super bad for everyone-- They are super bad for me, but I don't extend that to everyone any more than If I were allergic to peanuts would I assume that they were bad for everyone.
However, I understand the sentiment, even if I am skeptical. There is a food problem in the world with over-processed foods.
Do you use artificial sweeteners?
I like extra aspartame sprinkled on my toast thank you.
Very cool, really! From Russian is love! 👍
Aspartame caused me to have paroxysmal movements, I did trial & reintroduction. So I am certain on this one. Also sucralose causes my migraine. I am sure on this. Sweeteners alter gut bacteria, my friend is an immunologist. I would not touch sweeteners with a barge pole now. My health has much improved since I have avoided them. So thank you but I know how these have affected me. Even the hospital magazine, said sweeteners can cause, diabetes. As well as Dr Miriam Stoppard
I just minimise my use of ultraprocessed crap. WHO is highly politicised and its pronouncements are pretty meaningless
This RUclips channel frustrates me. Every single episode on nutrition can be summarized as, "the evidence is bad". This makes it really, really easy to come away with the opinion, "science knows nothing about nutrition, eat whatever you want!" But that's just not true, even if nutrition research is really difficult. I hope in the future this channel can stop focusing exclusively on "debunking".
This isn't a criticism of ~this specific video~. Yeah, the evidence against artificial sweeteners isn't particularly good. But it's hard to take any specific "debunking" seriously when that's all there is to this channel's nutrition output. I think debunking was really important back in the day when people were genuinely worried whenever scientists found some alarming new finding. But these days, people in general don't trust science. Calling out bad science is important to bringing back trust, but not when the only thing you do is dismiss everything (~cough~ Sabine Hossenfelder). After all, every single study can be dismissed if you go through it closely enough.
There’s no evidence.