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Comment by gdoug | Hacker News Reader

Does this change the scientific consensus? It seems like aspartame is actually safe in the concentrations we use - noted bad effects happen at very high amounts, like the equivalent of 150 cans of diet coke level high. Has anything absurdly changed on this front?

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> Does this change the scientific consensus?

No. This "possibly carcinogenic" classification (IARC group 2B) comes from IARC. While nominally IARC is an agency under WHO, in practice IARC is known to operate very independently. Independent of WHO, and independent of scientific consensus.

For example, cell phone radiation is also in IARC group 2B "possibly carcinogenic". While the scientific consensus is that cell phone radiation does not cause cancer.

Also, IARC never classifies anything non-carcinogenic. See the empty group 4 here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Agency_for_Resea...

Scientific consensus may change, but the odd nature of IARC is somewhat well known. If scientific consensus changes, it will be after some influential new studies, not because IARC has published a report.

I've been deeply skeptical of studies claiming artificial sweeteners to be harmful, because we know refined sugar is harmful. Sugar producers have a lot to gain from spreading FUD about artificial sweeteners.

BUT.. there isn't much evidence that Big Sugar is interfering with the science, while there is a lot of evidence that Big Soda definitely is. What I've read is that the WHO was able to say aspartame might be harmful because it's not compromised the way American agencies are. This article in particular:

https://www.vox.com/2023/7/1/23780348/aspartame-cancer-carci...

I think the bottom line is soda is not healthy, diet soda is not healthy.

We don’t really have enough studies to show that artificial sweeteners aren’t harmful, and plenty that show that they are likely at least somewhat harmful re: changes in glucose metabolism and gut flora. But at the same time, we don’t have any concrete evidence that they are significantly harmful, or at least any more than the hundreds of carcinogens we’re exposed to on a daily basis.

Microplastics and PFAS, anyone? Or chromium-6 contamination above recommended limits in almost the entire nation’s water supply?

> I've been deeply skeptical of studies claiming artificial sweeteners to be harmful

Your body has a certain reaction to sugar.

You give it a different "sugar" but it will be fooled.

science is finding new significance in the role of the gut biome ; if a food additive is destructive to the ecology of the gut, that may have emotional health implications with real causality

Science is publishing all sorts of papers about the gut biome, and almost all those papers will turn out to be misleading or wrong.

There's studies on it destroying the gut flora that is continuously being ignored.

Also sending "sweet" signals from the mouth can't be good in the long run, - pretty sure it spikes insulin somewhat, and even if not we need to understand diet in a holistic way - if something is too good to be true, it probably is.

That said i've consumed a lot of the stuff in my time and is not that worried.

There are millions of people with cgms that drink soda with artificial sweeteners that see no spike in their blood sugar. There are enough people in this world that would have to deal with serious health complications if aspartame caused BG spikes that we'd know for absolutely certain if it did. And we don't.

> Also sending "sweet" signals from the mouth can't be good in the long run

Well that's a bold statement based on nothing...

> pretty sure it spikes insulin somewhat,

Pretty sure "pretty sure" isn't the basis upon which to set health or food safety policy.

Funny enough their guesses are backed by recent studies.

Funnily enough 'sweeteners' as a class are so diverse that any claim that 'recent studies' universally show a common effect can be thrown straight into the rubbish bin.

Erithritol, Stevia, and Aspartame are all so wildly different that it is implausible they share a common mode of action.

My psych seems to worry way more about sugar, caffeine, and blue light than she worries about harmful thoughts and habits. I managed to please her by switching to cases and cases of flavored sparkling water. It tastes pretty good.

I don't enjoy drinking a lot of soda, but god, it's so ubiquitous, it's not easy to drink anything else. I mean, I usually choose iced tea instead, but a lot of times, if I go to a restaurant, I have a menu of crap where I choose the least harmful thing possible.

How would it spike insulin, if it does not contain carbohydrates (or any micronutrient for that matter)?

Destroying, or changing? I've read these articles in the past, and the wording is careful. Or has this changed recently?

There's a lot of other things I'm going to die from before I die from artificial sweeteners.

That's an overly simplistic model. The factors leading to your demise are interrelated in a complex way. Diet (including sweeteners) can affect your weight and diabetes risk, which can affect a number of downstream morbidities (heart disease, kidney disease, cancer), any of which can be the one to take you out.

A quip from Adam Eget on one of Norm Macdonald's podcasts: A lot of things would have to go very right for me to end up dying from too much salt.

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