In the past couple of years I have tried to become healthier, which included cutting out and adding new foods into my diet. I am a huge fan of a good coca-cola but realized the sugar content is not what I needed to lose weight. A can of cocoa-cola contains 44 grams of sugar, while your suggested daily limit is between 25-35 grams (depends on gender). After seeing this I stopped drinking regular soda and switched to diet coke. I hear all the time “Diet Coke is so bad for you” and “You’ll get cancer from drinking it”. Is that really true? Will I end up killing myself from trying to reduce my sugar intake by drinking a diet soda?
Aspartame is the key ingredient in diet sodas, and is what is said to make them so bad for you. On aspartame.org explains the benefits of actually consuming aspartame. One of the main benefits is weight loss and control, and is claimed to even help people with diabetes. The fewer calories and no sugar aspartame helps diabetics manage their weight. On another aspect of the site is the expert opinions, which all give aspartame a good review. The American Cancer society states that aspartame does not cause cancer because of the way it’s digested, it does not reach your organs.
After reading the American Cancer Society’s review I clicked on their website to read more. Aspartame is broken down into three chemicals, phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol. High doses of methanol can be deadly, but the amount of methanol from aspartame is a lower dosage than methanol from natural foods. Phenylalanine and aspartic acid are naturally found in foods that contain protein, and don’t cause health issues. An Italian study was conducted on mice and resulted in the conclusion that aspartame in rats may increase blood related cancers , such as leukemia and lymphoma. The results of this caused the FDA to investigate because of the lack of publishing information done by the scientists.
A similar conclusion was founded by an experiment on humans. A study done on 125,000 people by the National Cancer Institution found a link between the aspartame soda and blood related cancers. The scientists who conducted this search found the results to be by chance.
Despite the results founded by the NCI, the FDA concluded in a statement that they feel no need to change their view on the safety and consumption of aspartame in the U.S. The result of this is an example of correlation vs. causation. Based on the scientific research done by the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute, proves the statement to be true. These two organizations show through their research that because two things happen at once, does not always mean one object causes another. Other factors can come into play such as age, gender, and hereditary with humans. Also experiments done on animals don’t always show the exact result as humans.
In the end, the chemicals that are the result of broken down aspartame show no signs of causing cancer, and the experiments showed the coincidence of the objects having cancer at the time of consuming aspartame. As long as I stay within my daily limit of aspartame, I will not develop cancer, and I nor anyone else will die from drinking diet soda.
I am immediately intrigued by anything related to this subject because my mother is literally convinced that a sip of diet Pepsi is the equivalent of a cyanide tablet. I always wondered myself if the correlation between aspartame consumption and blood cancers was coincidental, and if there was a third variable involved. It’s also interesting what you about staying within the limit of aspartame. According to the FDA and the European Food Safety Authority, it’s best for a person to consume between 40 and 50 mg of aspartame for every kg of their body weight. From what I could find, a typical diet soda has between 100 and 125 mg per eight oz. serving. This may seem strange, given that a non-diet serving of soda will contain at least 40 grams of sugar, but I was also fascinated to find that, according to the American Cancer Society, aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than regular sugar, and thus the ratio of aspartame and sugar in diet vs. non-diet sodas is extremely low. As long as we stay within our limits of aspartame consumption, which doesn’t seem terribly hard, we should be fine. I am interested, though, to see how research involving this develops in the coming years.
I hear this so much. How drinking diet soda is bad for me and will kill me. I’m glad to know those correlations were just by chance rather than direct causation. However, I’m curious as to why it directly affected the rats and not the humans?
As I was reading through this blog my mind went back to yesterdays class with the smoking and mad cow disease. Soda companies are very well off and they sponsor many different organizations, so it seems like there is a lot of evidence that would point people away from claiming that the aspartame causes blood cancers. The facts that it was linked to cancer in rats and has not been ruled out for humans, should put the debate on a more public scale. Hopefully this is all correlational and there is a third factor involved, otherwise I hope that many people don’t die before it is discovered.