Revealed: WHO aspartame safety panel linked to alleged Coca-Cola front group

We've studied this chemical literally more than any other food additive and there's still nothing definitive. Also mice are not a good stand-in for humans. They are really only used for acute toxicity and such.

But the mice genetically predisposed to getting tumors got tumors. What more proof do you need?
- It's official: Cancer causes cancer.
I honestly have no clue on the studies but I can't drink anything with aspartame in it at all, even a single sip bloats me and screws up my bowel movements hard. It might just be an allergy but it took me 3 years to find the cause and I'm happy to avoid it that's for sure.
- I believe there are studies showing it messes with gut bacteria. Seems consistent with what you describe.
- I get the worst migraines from the heavy concentrated juices that use aspartame instead of sugar. And I mean two to three days of constant head pounding, I stopped drinking the “sugar free” ones and I have not had a migraine ever since.
- I get this weird ass headache from it.
Even if aspartame does cause cancer you get the choice of cancer or diabetes when you drink cola, so whatever. Just don’t drink it.
My gripe is that swapping out sugars for fake ones doesn't seem healthy long term regardless of any direct impact aspartame itself may have. Just have less sugar imo.
Edit: didn't realise how controversial that soft opinion would be lol. Look, drink what you want but I'm going to stick with water unless it's a treat. I know it's not healthy for me to scratch the dopamine itch with sugary tasting treats all the time; fake sugar or not. My perspective is less about trying to say, diet soda is bad but that there must be better alternatives to suggest than just sweetener filled copies?
- How do you mean?
  I've heard of things like the sensation of sweetness being decoupled from satiation leading to a greater urge for sweetness in compensation, but at least personally that's not happening to me lol.
That's not what this is saying. This is saying the studies saying it IS harmful were real, and the part saying "it's probably safe in small amounts" was industry-influenced.
- No, this is just saying the safe dosage level was biased by people from the industry being on that particular panel.
  Despite the IARC’s new designation, the Joint FAO-WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), which determines safe doses of food additives, did not change its recommendation for daily intake of aspartame. JECFA still says that consuming 40 milligrams of aspartame per every 1 kilogram of body weight (about 2.2 pounds) per day is acceptable, according to a news release.
  This is just 1 panel that determined the safe dosage level. This does not affect the findings of the study at all which concluded that aspartame is "possibly carcinogenic to humans" but that "We don’t know enough about the possible link between aspartame and cancer, but we can’t ignore that there’s something going on"
  So they haven't even found a definitive link or even said it's definitively dangerous. And the 40 milligrams per 1 kilogram of body weight is the same as the recommendation from the FDA.
  Also the thing it is replacing, sugar, IS known to cause cancer, diabetes, and other diseases. So take that as you will.
- I don't much care what one study is saying. We've studied this chemical so much and we still have no conclusive proof it's harmful. At some point you really gotta focus money elsewhere.

Okay, corruption like that should be corrected. Regardless, there's no scientific evidence that aspartame is harmful. Let alone a biochemical reason for why a dipeptide of two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, that dissociates in the stomach into its constituent components and some byproducts would be harmful in the first place.

Unless you have phenylketonuria, but you have much bigger problems in that case and, if that is the case for you, kudos on being at an age and capability to read and understand this post, you are incredible.

Edit: Also, just noticed the part about US Right To Know, which is a well known anti-science group that's been pushing pseudoscience and fearmongering about other topics, such as biotechnology, for years. So them being involved here raises questions.

I want to get rid of it because I want a non sugar coke that doesn't taste like burned tar soaked in urine
- Then drink the Diet Coke with Splenda one? There's also Coke Life that has stevia instead. They basically made sure they have a version with each type of sweetener.
- Drink Olipop or Poppi.
Absolutely... Aspartame is safe
- Aspartame isn't only safe, it also goes GREAT with a cold glass of Coke Zero™! *
  these statements have not been approved by the FDA
I especially like the part where they get away scot free, and the guy is just telling us to ignore them… maybe fire them for the conflict of interests? Ugh.

I was under the impression the research showed that there was a risk but you needed to consume an exorbitant amount to get there. Around 20+ cans of coke a day which the majority of people don’t do.

The World Health Organization said it was safe up to a certain level. The people in the WHO who said that work for Coca-Cola.
This means we can't rely on the recommendation, and the actual "safe" amount may be much lower than that. The article goes into good depth and gives counterarguments too.
It is important to note that in reality there is no safe amount for a carcinogen. Sometimes a threshold is set to reduce risk to a reasonable amount in necessary workplace exposure or medical treatments.
The truth is, I think we'll all eventually realize any sweetener should be seen as candy, not a thirst quencher.
- Thank you being basically the only person in the thread who actually read the article.
  The part where they said "aspartame is probably bad" wasn't the corrupt part. The corrupt part was when they put an addendum saying "a little bit of cancer is okay as a treat"
- I read somewhere that asparteme doesn’t accumulate and just passes through the body, which was an argument for having a regular intake below the threshold to be not a risk. With this revelation though, that seems sus now too.
Don't want to share my life story, but I did for a time, got to about a twelve pack and a half a day of diet coke when I was 20.
My reward was not weight loss, but an a-fib. and half a life expectancy.
I don't blame the diet coke because I was the one buying and drinking it. But it is important people understand that something is wrong in that stuff.
Just as I wouldn't blame cigarettes for giving me lung cancer, but I would want others to know it can.
- Apart from the aspartame, that's also like 900mg of caffeine a day, which is over twice the recommended amount, and 700mg of sodium.
- Not to defend diet coke (any kind of soda is not healthy for you, regardless), but I would generally assume that drinking 144oz (assuming 18x8oz cans/day) of any type of beverage that isn't plain old water would tend to cause some level of serious health effects, given that's more than your entire general recommended daily fluid intake from all sources. I feel like the general takeaway is that most food and drink is bad for you in excess, and companies constantly slapping "diet/low fat/low carb/etc." labels on junk food products that are marginally healthier than their peers gives a false impression that you can have your cake and eat it too in terms of negative health effects from these foods/drinks.
- That's so unfortunate, thanks for sharing that. Hope you're doing okay.
- You should absolutely blame the Diet Coke and the execs that push it. Almost every aspect of eating the food we need to live is distorted by people trying to make as much money as possible at the expense of our health. They know it. They spend billions doing it. You likely wouldn't have been consuming it or so much of it if it wasn't on every billboard and commercial and was at the back of the store in plain boxes without the big 'sale' or 'bogof' stickers. It doesn't have to be this way and you shouldn't blame yourself or any other individual for a social problem.
Around 20+ cans of coke a day which the majority of people don’t do.
This guy has never met an American. Ever heard of a Big Gulp? We literally had private companies engineer bigger soda cups to handle how much fucking soda Americans drink.
- I dont necessarily disagree with your overall point about Americans drinking a lot of soda, but I don't think pointing out that a company makes a cup a little smaller than 3 cans of soda is a very strong counterargument to the claim that it takes 20+ to be harmful...
- A Big Gulp is 30 ounces, 20 cans of coke is 240 ounces of soda. That's a lot of Big Gulps. That said the Double Gulp, the largest size 7-11 offers, tops out at 50 ounces. Yet you'd have to drink almost five of those to reach 20 cans.
  in 2018 The United States consumption of soda per capita was 38.87 gallons per year, or 13.6 ounces of soda per day. Which was down from 45.5 gallons per year in 2010.
- We literally had private companies engineer bigger soda cups to handle how much fucking soda Americans drink.
  This is a really weird statement. Like it was some sort of feat of engineering to manufacture larger cups.
- This is fair lol. I’m Canadian and when I was 17-20 I’d consume around 4-6 cans a day which was a crazy amount to myself and most people. 20+ seems nuts just financially.
- Remind me of the "Parks and rec" joke about "child-sized soda": it's the size of a small child!
They do in Múrica. I've seen it

Regardless of this corrupt shit, in general studies show that it's safe in normal quantities. Health wise it's much better then sugar.

What's a normal quantity? Keep in mind that caffeine is addictive, driving consumption. Not a good combination to use chemicals that are safe in small quantities, in a product designed to be addictive.

Literally every fucking health org has studied the chemical and found no evidence of health issues connected to it. It's only this one study that the IARC cites. And IARC doesn't take dosage into account either.

Regardless of people's taste for aspartame, it is literally not dangerous. It does taste dry. It doesn't taste like sugar. You do not have to enjoy it. But it is not bad for you.

edit: my badly worded comment got some discussion going which is great. I just want to say that I was being as hyperbolic as the worried people and I'm sorry. Of course it's not black or white. There are factors to consider, but what I was trying to express was that aspartame leans to the safe side rather than dangerous.

Obviously do not drink 25 cans of soda a day, obviously do not compensate for the fact that you're drinking a "light" product by consuming more of it. But a can a day isn't gonna ruin your health.

Except for the fact that a decade ago aspartame was shown to create pre-diabetic conditions in the gut, like sugar, except worse. And that studies proved that because psychologically people think it's "light" they drink more soda and actually gain weight. Yeah if you ignore those pesky little facts it's totally is 100% harmless. So definitely go around telling people it's 100% harmless.
Do you have stock in diet Coke or what?
You can almost never say that something is not dangerous, unless it's practically mathematically proven...
This applies especially for food etc.
I think we have to be much more conservative with food and substances we put into it. A lot of (Meta-)meta-studies suggest, that processed food is a health risk.
And this may sound a little bit far-fetched, but I think a good amount of the idiocracy in (especially) the USA may be related to the food (as also a lot of studies have found connections to brain/psychological health).
- Yeah, actually.
  And, like, literally EVERYTHING has an LD50 value.
  For some things, the value is astronomically gargantuan, though.
  Like, if you have to consume more than your body weight of a substance within thirty minutes in order for it to have a lethal effect, it's very improbable to ever happen by accident, and very difficult to make happen on purpose.
  Allegedly, the LD50 for aspartame is 10,000 mg per kg of body weight
  (I fucked up the math on the line that used to be here and got justly called out for it; 10,000 mg is only 10 grams. If someone weighs 60kg it would only be 600 grams which is still A LOT but not nearly what I thought it said at first) (And that's how much to get to a fifty percent chance of dying - I don't know what the shape of the curve was leading up to this point, it could be nonlinear.) HOWEVER, I can't recall if LD50 only accounts for acute mortality, or if it also accounts for chronic mortality; like, if it gives you a type of cancer that takes 20 years to kill you somehow, is that even known? no idea.
One thing I always like to remind people of: The fact that these effects are, if at all existent, so small that they can barely be observed also means that if they do turn out to be harmful, it's not too bad, as the harm is also small. It's not like e.g. lead in the water where you can very clearly prove a significant harm.

This kind of shit makes people distrustful of science in general. Way to go, guys.

Don't worry, it's all worth it in the end because the corpos made more money! /s
It should make you distrustful of politics, lawmakers, lobbyists, and capitalism not science itself. Pure science is unbiased and systematic, by definition.
- Science is done by people, and people are inherently biased at all times and about all things, consciously or not.

I don't understand how people are so surprised to discover that experts in a particular field or industry...

GASP!

Have worked or continue to work in said field or industry!

Is it really a surprise that an expert in the subject of aspartame works or has worked for one of the biggest users of aspartame? You think aspartame experts are going to work for car companies?

Like if you wanted to find an expert on say... petroleum, it shouldn't be a surprise that they have worked for an oil company. That said, any obvious conflicts of interest should be noted in any reports so that others are aware, but someone's expertise shouldn't be immediately discounted.

I don't think the shock is that they work in the industry as much as it opens up a LOT of possibilities for a conflict of interest.
When you're taking ANY measurement ever, conflicts of interest are bad. And what's at stake here is the health and safety of anyone who eats aspartame, which is a lot.
- Point taken and why I think any conflicts just need to be noted and weighed with the rest of the facts, as opposed to completely discarding someone's expertise.

these kinds of conflicts of interests need to be disclosed properly, clearly and up front, and folks need to be critical until its sufficiently peer reviewed

whether other findings agree with these isnt relevant, its still extremely important that folks know that corporate interests might be colouring any given paper

researchers in a given field are practically always going to have jobs with big players in those fields, but taking biases into account is still important for interpreting findings

I think it’s sort of a catch 22. The people that tend to be the most knowledgeable about a particular science often have industry experience doing the exact thing you want them to study now. The idea that people could study the effects of aspartame for decades but are now “tainted” because they used to work for a soda company doesn’t necessarily square up to economic reality.

If however, you choose to put your foot in the sand there you’re going to have a bunch of people on a committee that have no idea what they are doing (which by the way people will also criticize you for) Remember when Trump appointed senior cabinet positions to people with completely unrelated experience? Such as Ben Carson (a former medical doctor) being appointed secretary of housing.

It’s a lose/lose situation I’m not sure what you all are expecting.

Similar to how oil companies researched global warming. They have the scientists in the right field and the data, but corporate interests will cover up things that don't align to their business models.
Overall if the study is sound, other scientists can chime in and prove or disprove their results. Really the laymen should take studies (done by anyone) with a grain of salt until the wider community comes to a consensus,
- It's almost as if it's not necessarily a dichotomy at all
- That situation is a bit different. Oil Companies performed proprietary research internally and promoted those results as scientific. Whereas, the implication in this post here is that anyone who ever worked for an oil company in climate science can no longer do climate science for an agency.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In May, the World Health Organization issued an alarming report that declared widely used non-sugar sweeteners like aspartame are likely ineffective for weight loss, and long term consumption may increase the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults.

A few months later, WHO declared aspartame, a key ingredient in Diet Coke, to be a “possible carcinogen”, then quickly issued a third report that seemed to contradict its previous findings – people could continue consuming the product at levels determined to be safe decades ago, before new science cited by WHO raised health concerns.

It uncovered eight WHO panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame consumption who are beverage industry consultants who currently or previously worked with the alleged Coke front group, International Life Sciences Institute (Ilsi).

That same day, WHO’s Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (Jecfa), which makes consumption recommendations, reaffirmed the acceptable daily intake of 40 mg/kg of body weight.

Ruskin said the move also marks a change in direction for WHO, which in 2015 distanced itself from Ilsi when its executive board found the group to be a “private entity” and voted to discontinue its official relationship.

In the “avalanche” of media coverage of WHO’s designation of aspartame as a possible carcinogen, many outlets noted WHO’s split decision, or reported that WHO found the product to be safe.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Okay, so, let me get this straight. This panel said aspartame is safe, but it's got a conflict of interest, so we should ignore all that and fall back to the conventional wisdom that…aspartame is safe?

A lot of strange defending of this corrupt behavior here. The fact that this corruption exists immediately calls into question the safety of the recommendations. It won't be the first time Americans were killed for corporate profits.

A lot of scientists who actually know the studies and biochemistry involved, actually. Not "defending of this corrupt behavior", but just pointing out that corrupt behavior doesn't negate the science itself.
Corruption is a part of companies and capitalism. Even the "good" companies, like renewables, are corrupt and do corrupt things.
- just pointing out that corrupt behavior doesn’t negate the science itself.
  But when corruption doesn't let the science happens? You know, in 2020.
- Um no https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/theminewars-labor-wars-us/

This type of corruption should require those involved getting lengthy prison sentences to.

Instead they'll get a reprimand and a reminder not to do it again

Just looking at the list of topics ("All topics" button in the menu) raises some major alarm flags about the trustworthyness of usrtk.org as a source.
- They're a pretty well known anti-science group.
- I deleted it, it was linked to a WHO article so they got me. Sorry about that.
That site is sketch as fuck. Covid bullshit, the works.
- Oh shit, you're right. I'll delete.
The biggest issue I’m seeing is there’s other research that is the opposite of that so it keeps going back and forth which is problematic and hard to parse.
Edit: Like others stated that site is extremely sketchy and I’m very skeptical of their credibility.
Also it tastes like ass

Did WHO know this before announcement? Lol

I mean .. the people at WHO who hired them, must have known? (Conflict of interest is important in these kinds of health subjects)..

Of course they still tell diabetics to keep chugging down carbs and just buying more and more insulin...

I dont trust them.

Of course they still tell diabetics to keep chugging down carbs and just buying more and more insulin…
To be fair, that's pretty much what a lot of non-diabetics do, except they make their own insulin.
They do?

A story as old as time: People who make decisions being paid by people who benefit from the "right" decisions.

I still wonder if artificial sweeteners mess with metabolism, say by training people to ignore satiety signals, which would be why we saw that study a few days back saying artificial sweeteners are associated with weight gain.

One theory is that the body doesn't know if the sweetness is sugar or sweetener. So it produces insulin to take care of it. When the level of insulin gets too high the body tries to compensate by eating more. If that "more" is more sweetener...
- Never experienced hypoglycemia while on keto and using sweeteners lol
- Unless I'm missing something this seems trivial to test. Just test blood sugar before and after drinking a diet soda. If bloods sugar goes down then the sweetener likely caused a release of insulin. If it doesn't change then it didn't.
  It seems petty far-fetched. If artificial sweeteners caused a runaway insulin spike then I would expect them to cause a lot of cases of diabetic shock.
- The insulin response you’re talking about is very small and it doesn’t lead to a chain reaction.
Sweeteners are worse than sugar.

From the start I've never drunk all these Zero drinks because after reading a little about just how poisonous aspartame is, it was obvious this stuff shouldn't be consumed.

I'd rather drink sugar sugar than aspartame. Having said that I've just stopped drinking all of these sweet drinks all together.

I hope the truth gets out to the public

"because after reading a little about just how poisonous aspartame is"
Presumably on websites with titles like "Natural News" and "Infowars".
- I can't remember it was years ago, but I got this from Mayo Clinic website today:
  "A popular artificial sweetener that's widely found in sugar-free foods and beverages is being labeled as a possible cancer risk by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO's cancer research agency, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), determined aspartame to be a possible carcinogen after reviewing and assessing the potential carcinogenic effect of the sweetener, but says it's safe to consume in limited amounts."
  So the WHO is saying it could cause cancer so drink it in limited amounts. So there may well be some issues with it. Definitely don't be drinking 5 or more diet sodas a day that's for sure.
  I don't know why they don't use something like sorbitol instead. It doesn't have these issues and I never have any side effect from it whereas the few times I drank aspartame my body rejected it and kept sending it back to my tongue for me to scrape off, until all of it was out of my system.
  No other food had ever done that to me.
Source for aspartame being poisonous? That's the precise opposite to scientific consensus and frankly sounds like conspiranoia.
There's no evidence of aspartame being harmful to humans and there's been a shit ton of research on it from various people
- All I can tell you is that the few times I drank it because I had no other option, I had the taste of it in my mouth all night and for several days afterwards. That's not normal.... My body was clearly rejecting it and sending it out though my tongue.
  The only way to get rid of it was to scrape my tongue each time my body sent more back until it sent it all out via my tongue ...
Same, I don't think it's a good habit to regularly drink sugary drinks even if they have "fake" sugar in them. It's just these companies finding ways for us to consume more of their product without the guilt of calories.
When I'm thirsty I drink water. And very rarely will I drink something else with real sugar like juice, a beer, or even rarer an actual soda.
In the end, the aspartame in the coke Zero is likely less harmful than the sugar, and I would pick a coke Zero every day of the week over coke with sugar.
Sugar is just not healthy.
- I've always wondered why anyone would drink beer without alcohol in it. I always assumed it was only ever used by alcoholics trying to kick their addiction, or desperate teenagers who can't get a fake ID.
  Do you just really like the taste of beer?
- There's something about the after taste of NA beer that irritates me. I've found a few I like (Heineken and Athletic Brewing) but even they have some weird aftertaste that I can't put my finger on. Maybe its the lack of alcohol that makes it taste off.
I moved to natural sources (sugar and stevia) and I only do half doses. All this stuff is way too sweet and it's crazy that the boomer generation just let things get so out of hand.
I'm the same, never drank zero for the same reasons and I pick ordinary sugar when I drink soda (not often).
I also don't use fluoride in toothpaste and that's another thing people think is weird. But my teeth are absolutely fine after over 20 years of doing this. I use kingfisher tooth paste without fluoride.
- Why the fluoride? Only heard about it from the "the pineal gland is the eye of the soul" kind of people

Would this fall under the purvey of regulatory capture?

Regulatory bodies tend to act purely as pipelines getting people jobs in the industry they are supposed to be regulating.
Profits before people, as always.

A soft drink cabal dedicated to making sure we can still put poison in consumables.

The world just keeps getting weirder.

Fine. It still tastes nasty.

Nothing to see here move along

Why is it so hard for a company to be like... oh shit, our bad, we won't use this! Nah. Gotta make the poisoning legal.

how sweet of them

(chemical in consumer product) is made of SCIENCE therefore it is OBJECTIVELY GOOD and if you have issues with that chemical you must be a TREE HUGGING CRYSTAL HEALING HIPPIE!

Heard that sort of shit about glyphosate too, especially on

I'm sorry that people actually knowing biochemistry is such a problem for you.
Question: How can a dipeptide of two common amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, that dissociate in your stomach cause negative health impacts?
- Just as easily as a molecule with two carbons, one nitrogen, one oxygen, and a hydrogen. Just because chemicals are simple doesn't mean they are safe.
- Everything has a negative health impact, literally even water does. The question is always about cumulative and spontaneous dosage. At what point does it become bad for you.
  One common explanation I've seen for aspartame is that it makes your body think you're drinking sugar while no sugar is being absorbed. This is then potentially harmful for those with a predisposition for diabetes.

No matter what they say, i'll assume aspartamine is poison and refuse to eat anything that has it.

I think the same thing about everything! Never believe anything that doesn't align with my personal beliefs no matter how much evidence exists to the contrary!
- I just dont want to risk it, because i'll be the only one who faces the consequences if it causes cancer after all. It also tastes awful anyway, i'd rather drink completely unsweetened drinks.

The WHO is rotten to the core. They are in bed with WEF corpos.

You vote for this bullshit when you vote for the two party duopoly

How is the WHO affected by the 2 party system?
- Try a search engine

I'm shocked, shocked I say that some would accuse such an organization as the WHO of being highly corrupt and political! My good sir, I shall not stand thy slander of such a useless appendage whose perceived power lies only in the fact that it's named 'the World health organization'. Why, how dare you criticize an organization that has tippytoed around the associations between covid and China for fear of losing its precious funding and the sinecures they provide?

Good day, sir!

bad news : "Guideline on Diet Coke ingredient by consultants tied to industry is ‘obvious conflict of interest’ and ‘not credible’, report says"

protip : don't drink or eat anything with any amount of Aspartame in it, as it isn't safe, or, you know, party on garth, it's your life, how long and healthy it will be sometimes is completely up to you

People are on so much garbage now it's hard to pinpoint what makes them sick. I told someone about aspartame giving me headaches that felt like what they described and it cured them of the headaches they where getting bc they didn't realize it could be a factor.

Wait ‘til they unveil the shady business deals between Pfizer and the good folks who told us “safe and effective.”

Enjoy the ventilator
the good folks who told us “safe and effective.”
…weren't wrong, and we've got a global vaccinated population to prove it, so I'm not sure what your point is.