“Genotoxic” Warning: Chemical Found in Common Sweetener Damages DNA | Hacker News Reader

“Genotoxic” Warning: Chemical Found in Common Sweetener Damages DNA

scitechdaily.com

33 pointslunaru14 comments

The TK6 cells were exposed to 20 concentrations of sucralose-6-acetate (maximum 4.5489 mM or 2000 μg/ml) or 20 concentrations of sucralose (maximum 10 mM or 3980 μg/ml)

If you look at the genotoxic Multiflow results (tables 3-4), the genotoxic signals only showed up at the highest concentrations (>300 ug/mL).

Peak concentrations of sucralose in blood after consumption is ~300 ng/mL, so about 1000x fold less.

Also note the paper showed non-mutagenicity in the bacterial reserve mutation test (Ames Test).

So the results are interesting, but I'm not sure how applicable they are to actual exposure in humans.

I like to think of it on the cell basis. All you need is to nick off a tumor suppressor gene and you're much closer to a cancerous cell. That tends to be how cancer proliferates, right? One bad cell and then a tumor, metastasis - cancer.

If you consider it on a particle scale, there's 4.5x(10^23) particles/mL. That's about 15 particles per cell per mL, and there's 3^13 cells in the body. Some of which are protected, others susceptible.

I'd take a risk, just not one for funky tasting sweets. Of course I don't do it for regular sweets, either, which possess their own dangers.

Every time one if these stories pops up, I feel compelled to point out that artificial sweeteners have been tied to weight gain, so unless you are diabetic, there’s no reason to ingest them.

In general, they cause your metabolism to slow down, and make you feel hungrier. Giving them to mice on calorie restricted diets causes weight gain and lethargy in the mice.

Giving a subjectively identical amount of sugar to the mice (on top of the calorie restricted diet) causes less weight gain than the artificial sweeteners. (Because the mice stay active.)

Source for "metabolism slowing down" (in humans)?

While your claims are fairly popular, AFAIK there is no evidence to suggest that non-nutritive sweeteners cause weight gain in humans. They are highly associated with weight gain, likely because people likely to choose diet beverages are people who have difficulty with weight gain in the first place.

Murine models are not particularly generalizable to humans, particularly when it comes to diet and nutrition.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/artificial-sweeteners-a...

It seems like the jury is still out on this. I get the impression, like most nutrition research, the answer will be "It's complicated."

> Some researchers believe that artificial sweeteners don’t satisfy people’s biological sugar cravings in the same manner as sugar and could lead to increased food intake. Still, the evidence is mixed.

> The strong sweetness of artificial sweeteners may cause you to become dependent on sweet flavor. This could increase your desire for sweet foods in general.

> Some observational studies link artificial sweeteners to weight gain, but evidence is mixed. Controlled studies suggest that artificially sweetened drinks don’t cause weight gain and may even aid weight loss.

Do you have any evidence of these claims? The research I'm aware of strongly contradicts your initial statement.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4744961/

I hate headlines that can't just give you the obvious information: which sweetener?

Its suraclose, known as Splenda.

Sucralose.

Sureclose

Interesting that this refers to "Enhanced intestinal permeability (leaky gut)", which wikipedia insists is very different than "leaky gut syndrome" which it describes as "a hypothetical, medically unrecognized condition"

Is this a legitimate site or one of those sites that e.g. showed NOAA ocean waves height data after the Fukushima tsunami and claims it shows radiation levels across the Pacific?

You know the type, generic domain name that sounds vaguely news-related, cheap-looking logo, suspicious by-lines...

Edit: well the content is legit, but since it's stolen from [1], that proves this "SciTechDaily" is a content farm..

[1] https://bme.unc.edu/2023/06/chemical-found-in-common-sweeten... - an .edu URL is more trustworthy...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10937404.2023.2...

I still can’t believe that sucralose ever passed a safety trial. When has it ever been sensible to eat chlorocarbons? It’s amazing that it took this long to find some kind of genotoxic effect.

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