Aspartame has been studied for more than 40 years and no regulatory body in any country has found it to be cancerogenic; it is a risky substance for people with a rare desease called Phenylketonuria.
So, the reader will be under the impression that it will cause cancer, which is pretty dubious, all while obesity for which sugary drinks are partially responsible is a very real cancer risk.
There's something to say about lists where people put substances we don't know a lot, to call attention for studying more. But I haven't actually seen one of those, it's always lists of substances people study a lot, and publication bias set them marginally into statistical relevancy.
This is part of how the medical regulation leaders in every country are the most insanely cautious, neurotic people on earth. They all recommend not to eat steaks rare. Everything is a carcinogen. When they have such a low tolerance for danger, it just means everyone learns not to listen to their advice.
Personally, I'll drink a Mexican Coke with cane sugar maybe once or twice a year, knowing it's not great for me and treating it as a dessert.
But I do agree, it's not good reporting. Pretty much no info on the actual scientific research, but hopefully WHO will give more in depth data.
Why on earth would you think that?
It's carbonated water with a tiny amount of food dye, sweeter and caffeine. The latter of which, iirc, has generally positive effects.
It’s very vague though
2. ???
3. In no world can I imagine ¬X
[1] shows that artificial sweeteners lead to higher insulin resistance. It is so because they provoke insulin level increase due to their sweet taste.
Caffeine is a tricky one.
If you can drink 6 cups of espresso a day, you have 50% less chance developing dementia. But, how can you drink 6 cups of coffee per day if you do not have good health? It can be that the "small positive effects of caffeine" are due to caffeine consumers have a little better health overall and these with worse health have to consume less caffeine.
For an anecdote, I once went completely off caffeine for a month and haven't noticed a thing after first three days, when I was unusually sleepy. Even training results followed the same progression.
Unless California has aspartame on its list, prop65 says nothing about this.
The BBC has a reasonably good article on this subject today
Saying it's "partially responsible" in essence is ridiculous, though, when it's also a critical nutrient we eat in virtually every food. Aspartame is not. It's the sheer volume of sugar ingested that's the issue.
Don’t like it? Bring it up with the WHO.
LONDON, June 29 (Reuters) - One of the world's most
common artificial sweeteners is set to be declared a
possible carcinogen next month by a leading global health
body, according to two sources with knowledge of the
process, pitting it against the food industry and
regulators.
The IARC's decisions have also faced criticism for
sparking needless alarm over hard to avoid substances or
situations. It has four different levels of
classification - carcinogenic, probably carcinogenic,
possibly carcinogenic and not classifiable. The levels
are based on the strength of the evidence, rather than
how dangerous a substance is.
IARC is only nominally under WHO. It is a weird French agency founded by some French activists and politicians in the 1960's.
They use a 5 class classification
Group 1: The agent is carcinogenic to humans.
Group 2A: The agent is probably carcinogenic to humans.
Group 2B: The agent is possibly carcinogenic to humans.
Group 3: The agent is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans.
Group 4: The agent is probably not carcinogenic to humans.
For IARC, everything is either at least possibly carcinogenic, or there is insufficient evidence (Group 3) to yet declare it carcinogenic.
Also:
"In 2019 IARC was accused of cooperation with "toxic tort law firms" who make profit of suing companies for compensation for alleged health issues based on IARC classification. IARC was accused from hiding conflicts of interest impacting a few invited experts, especially those related to large-scale cash flows from US law firms."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Agency_for_Resea...
Many countries have perfectly capable chemicals agencies and food safety agencies, who are much more reliable than the IARC.
Today, I'd still avoid aspartame, but also sucralose, because it's unnecessary and may even cause insulin to be artificially raised in response to the sweetness. And I also just don't drink nearly as much as I used to now that I'm metabolically healthy.
I know enough about pharmacology to know that I know nothing.
Can you provide an example of a chemical which has effects on the human body that are completely unrelated to the size of the dose? Just because the effects of a carcinogen may be non-linear in relation to the dosage, that doesn't mean that a greater risk of cancer incidents with a greater dose is an unreasonable expectation. Some thing can be assumed unless an exception is identified.