Bet there's microplastics even in water. Did read there is teflon in water too a few years back. Seems a good fit for here.

  • mittens [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    there's no provable causal link between aspartame and cancer. yet again the WHO/IARC releases another confusing recommendation which the press picks up as some sort of dire danger, which is disencouraging because this may undermine their previous recommendations against stuff like glyphosate (an actual fucking carcinogen). that being said aspartame tastes bitter wtf do you seriously like diet coke?

    • HiImThomasPynchon [des/pair, it/its]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      do you seriously like diet coke?

      i-do

      Regular coke (or any non-diet soda for that matter) has a consistency that's just too gross for me to drink. It's like drinking syrup.

      • SerLava [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Yes! I have a sugar soda like once every couple months and it's so syrupy. I can feel it on my mouth and teeth. Way worse than diet soda in every way

          • mittens [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            my dad fucking swears on pineapple jarritos, i dont see the appeal

          • SerLava [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            My SO has to go under anesthesia every few years for some medical diagnostics, and theres a clear liquid diet. The previous time we stupidly got our normal gatorade zero for it. Felt horrible, bad migraines, etc.

            The most recent time, we realized how dumb that was and got frickin sugar gatorade, sugar jello, and some of those Nitro Pepsis. Pretty fucking good. Felt waaaaaaay better not missing all those calories.

      • ssjmarx [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I compare it to drinking skim milk. Once you make the switch whole milk starts tasting worse - same thing with regular soda once you start drinking diet.

      • Oomfart [none/use name]
        hexagon
        ·
        1 year ago

        Some UK food bodies once classed it as a syrup iirc. (But I might be remembering it wrong. Was to do with the volume of sugar to water ratio)

      • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        God I completly disagree with this. Diet flavoring tastes fucking disgusting to me and always has. Meanwhile I like nondiet sodas a lot, even though I know they are terrible for me.

        • UlyssesT
          ·
          edit-2
          24 days ago

          deleted by creator

    • UlyssesT
      ·
      edit-2
      24 days ago

      deleted by creator

    • RoabeArt [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Diet Pepsi for me. Every time I try a regular Pepsi it tastes like stale unsalted popcorn.

      • mittens [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        diet pepsi and pepsi max are underrated for sure

  • Aryuproudomenowdaddy [comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I mean, almost everything is listed as a 'possible' carcinogen. Coffee and some herbs like thyme and sage fall under this grouping.

    • mittens [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      yep, people should go to the actual source because the IARC has a tiered system. alcohol and processed meat is listed as tier 1 carcinogen, this stuff is probably going to be on 2A or 2B or some shit

      • facow [he/him, any]
        ·
        1 year ago

        alcohol ... is listed as tier 1 carcinogen

        Honestly shocked that alcohol a literal poison is only tier 1. Doesn't matter though I'd still keep drinking that garbage either way

        • mittens [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I mean, it's the same tier as HPV, Hep B & C, X-rays and gamma radiation lol

      • Aryuproudomenowdaddy [comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_2B

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeic_acid

        Free caffeic acid can be found in a variety of beverages, including brewed coffee at 0.13 mg per 100 ml[7] and red wine at 2 mg per 100 ml.[8] It is found at relatively high levels in herbs of the mint family, especially thyme, sage and spearmint (at about 20 mg per 100 g), and in spices, such as Ceylon cinnamon and star anise (at about 22 mg per 100 g). Caffeic acid occurs at moderate levels in sunflower seeds (8 mg per 100 g), apple sauce, apricots and prunes (at about 1 mg per 100 g).[9] It occurs at remarkably high levels in black chokeberry (141 mg per 100 g).[10] It is also quite high in the South American herb yerba mate (150 mg per 100 g based on thin-layer chromatography densitometry[11] and HPLC [12]). It is also found at lower levels in barley and rye.[13]

  • Albanian_Lil_Pump [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Me, liberal, reading accounts from Victorian era life where children eat sawdust cereal and asbestos soup at the job factory:

    “Wow. That’s harrowing. Imagine if that was happening today.”

  • Zodiark
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    deleted by creator

  • Big_Bob [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    "A leading global health body"

    Why not just say the name?

    I have no doubt that sugar free alternatives aren't that much healthier than regular sugar-filled slop, but the vagueness makes my crank-alarm go off.

  • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Did people not know that about artificial sweetener. People were talking about artificial sweetener being carcinogenic as common knowledge for at least 10 years

    • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      that was based on mice or rat studies and completely unreasonable doses so most of us rightly ignored it

      • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        As I'll probably ignore this one. Lots of things are in the "possibly carcinogenic" category. It's only slightly less meaningless than rat studies with absurd doses.

    • RoabeArt [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Hell, Weird Al Yankovic even mentions it in his song Dog Eat Dog, and that was in 1986.

      Well, do I smell jelly donuts? This is my lucky day / I'll have some coffee with a carcinogenic sweetener

      • Aryuproudomenowdaddy [comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        My favorite prop 65 warnings are on the windows of restaurants and hospitals. Like you didn't need to tell me Arby's is going to give people cancer.

        • ssjmarx [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          IMO they ruined prop 65 on purpose. If they had only labeled things that were strongly linked to causing cancer, there would only be a few Prop 65 warnings and people would actually read them - but they made it absolutely ubiquitous and as a result everyone ignores them.

          • RoabeArt [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            First time I came across a Prop 65 warning label was on a box of Christmas lights, and that was like in 2005 or so. I was freaking out until I read up on it and it turned out it's because of the solder (which has some lead) that's used to join the wires together inside the light sockets. I suppose as long as you're not chewing on the lights you should be good.

      • Oomfart [none/use name]
        hexagon
        ·
        1 year ago

        I wouldnt know about that. I live in the UK where we still dump all our sewerage and chemicals in the rivers.

        • 7bicycles [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          wdym still. There was a very long time of not doing that

  • berrytopylus [she/her,they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Lots of things can potentially cause cancer. The question is how much risk actually comes from a normal consumption level of aspartame.

    • wild_dog
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      deleted by creator

    • sootlion [any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Some studies suggest sweeteners are more likely to cause diabetes than the equivalent level of sugar. So, plausibly it was a bad choice of alternative for sweet things at least.

      • mittens [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        That's no hard proof, there's a correlation between people who consume lots of non-sugar sweeteners and diabetes. This could very well mean that people who are prone to eating lots of non-sweetener sugars are also prone to eating just plain sugary foods. A few causal mechanisms have been proposed, like non-sugar sweeteners making your glucose spike but there's really no evidence to support this. The new advice from the WHO makes sense in this aspect, switching to non-sugar sweeteners is not enough to lose weight or avoid diabetes, people need to consume things that are less sweet in general. It also explains why the new recommendations don't extend to patients who already have diabetes. It just strikes me that switching from normal coke to diet coke is a poor way to avoid diabetes.

          • mittens [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            I think the main difference is that I don't believe non-sugar sweeteners directly cause diabetes and are, by themselves, harmless, but we agree more than we disagree it seems.

  • DoghouseCharlie [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I like my stevia sweetened drinks and it's gotten me off of caffeine addiction and helped me in avoiding the high fructose cornsyrup minefields. I'm too much of a baby to just drink water.

    • Oomfart [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      We're kind if lucky here. We dont have corn syrup. We just use standard sugar/glucose in drinks. But we do have lots of bad food like transfats.

    • THC
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      all of us knew it caused cancer right?

      Not me. The only people I've ever heard say it with any seriousness were crazy 'fluoride closes your third eye' and 'essential oils will cure my child's autism' types. I'm genuinely surprised.

      ETA after reading this thread I'm not sure what to think. Guess I'll keep drinking that trash tromp

        • ElHexo
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          deleted by creator

        • SlyBlue [they/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          It does lol. If you hit over 350 in a vape (most go higher) you get benzene, which is just car exhaust basically and yes is a carcinogen (and in all our air if you live anywhere near a mildly busy road or city)

  • Tripbin [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    jfc I expected the science literacy here to be at least better than reddit-logo but this is some facebook boomer shit you guys are parroting

    • eatmyass
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

      • spectre [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Aspartame had been very well studied for decades. It's highly unlikely that it's going to suddenly be found to be dangerous or toxic to consume as it is used currently.

        As others have pointed out, the WHO does some weird shit with classifying substances as carcinogenic, and the media is happy to run headlines based on it for clicks. Others itt have pointed out that red meat and alcohol are classified as "top carcinogens" in the same scale, but you won't see those discussed in the same way.

        "Actually aspartame is carcinogenic" is in the "man gets slight rush from telling people John Lennon beat his wife" sort of territory.

  • iridaniotter [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Does it actually cause cancer or is this one of those experiments where they gave a mouse its body weight in aspartame?

  • Marvont [comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    big sugar, a provably addictive and harmful substance, has a vendetta against sugar substitutes. i feel like a crank saying 'do your own research' but it's perilous to blindly follow a secondary news article and not read the studys themselves

  • Discopanda [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Fortunately, I can't stand the insipid taste of artificial sweeteners, it hurts my stomach at the very thought. Bleh.

    • CarmineCatboy [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      It's all about exposure. Most artificial sweeteners will taste like medicine to people who are used to refined sugar. But it's something that changes overtime. Convince a diabetic that asparthame at least might help them lose weight, and they'll re-wire their brain to enjoy it just by drinking it over time.

      • Discopanda [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Does it really work for diabetics to control their blood sugar? Or it's just a placebo effect?

        • CarmineCatboy [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Though it isn't sugar, asparthame rewires the same reward mechanism. But it doesn't come with the other endocrinal feedbacks. Artificial sweeteners end up generating further craving for actual sources of sugar. Furthermore, people who drink diet coke just end up eating more calories as they overestimate their room for maneuver. At the end of the day artificial sweeteners will not help with leptin resistance, as the body craves more sugar. And it doesn't help with insulin resistance, most likely because you aren't losing weight and probably still has fatty liver disease.