Hacker News Reader

Comment by outworlder | Hacker News Reader

No! Aspartame is known to cause serious issues for decades now, even before it was finally approved by the FDA.

Oh? Who is that 'known' by? Certainly not any of the over 100 regulatory agencies around the world who have made aspartame one of the most studied compounds on earth. Unless you have PKU or migraines there is literally no widely accepted science that says otherwise.

Aspartame is linked to an 18% increase in stroke:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/sugar-substitute...

According to Betteridge's Law of Headlines - "Sugar substitutes: New cardiovascular concerns?" means we can assume the answer is "No".

“Now, a large study has found a potential link between artificial sweeteners and an increased risk of strokes, heart attacks, and related cardiovascular problems (see "Fake sugars and heart health").”

There's plenty of issues with the 'widely accepted' aspartame safety. There's indeed a lot of research that says aspartame is safe, but not as many if you exclude those that are not financed directly or indirectly by the industry. I will not even get into the circumstances around the Bressler report and the fact that it took a change of FDA leadership to get it approved.

There's a good list here: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/event/documen...

I feel like this is a fallacy. For most of us, the choice isn't between artificial sweeteners and never consuming anything sweet ever, it's between artificial sweeteners and sugar.

Given the glut of well-documented harmful effects of sugar, I'll take the "kinda sorta maybe" of aspartame any day, because I'm not about to give up every pleasure in life just because they all seem to kill me.

> just because they all seem to kill me

Thing is, if by 'they' you mean processed foods, you are basically right.

A little bit of sugar that you add to a coffee or whatever won't kill you. The problem is that just about all the processed food available has been spiked with sugar.

A little bit of a thing that has documented harmful effects won't kill me, but a little bit that we studied a ton and still aren't sure if it's harmful will? Why?

Isn't this a many times debunked myth that just keep coming back?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com