Soda additive linked to thyroid toxicity may finally get banned by FDA | Hacker News Reader

Soda additive linked to thyroid toxicity may finally get banned by FDA

arstechnica.com

140 pointsRadixDLT104 comments

Synthroid, synthetic thyroid horomone, is the 2nd most prescribed drug in the U.S [2]. Like all other drastically rising health problems in the United States, it happened all by itself, doctors are mystified, anyone with an explanation is criticized as an opportunist.

[1] https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/patient-advocate/the...

Part of the reason does include better blood testing and the definition of hypothyroidism changing. American Endocrine Society has adjusted the bounds of the amount of T4 present in the blood upwards throughout the years, increasing the number of people who are affected by hypothyroidism with no meaningful change to the population.

In what way is that an issue?

Practically everything on that list is associated with diseases that become more prevalent with age. Hypothyroidism is no exception: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279005/

So, basically, because fewer people drop dead in their 50s due to heart disease or cancer, we see way more prescriptions for chronic, systemic diseases from later in life. There is a high probability that anyone taking one of those drugs on the list is probably taking multiple drugs on that list.

I don't see a problem here.

If you want to claim a chemical basis, you're going to need to prove a much stronger correlation in the younger age cohorts. Since different places banned this at different times, you should see hypothyroidism drop at different times. Has that happened?

This is a really weak and dismissive explanation. The rates of chronic illness - especially if we include mental illness, have been steadily going up in all age cohorts.

alongside better medicine, more widespread testing, and a better understanding of the human body. Some things we might have just put down as "old age" have names and medicines that help now, when we didn't have it before. We were pretty silent about mental illness at one time - of course being open about it is going to seem like an increase.

That’s also what I’d expect to see in any successful and continually advancing system of biological understanding and medical treatment.

> The rates of chronic illness - especially if we include mental illness, have been steadily going up in all age cohorts.

Obesity has been on the rise, especially in younger cohorts, and we know that all kinds of chronic illness is correlated with that.

And, as I pointed out, bans on these chemicals have been staggered. If the chemicals are causative, you should see it in the data.

HPV vaccine comes online--cervical cancer cases collapse in the cohort. HRT is abandoned--breast cancer cases decrease with a step function. etc.

These things are not invisible.

My understanding is radioactive fallout is a likely contender, as children exposed during peak testing have been getting older.

Not the case?

It's been one of the most prescribed drugs for decades.

In case you're curious like I was, BVO (the additive in question) is commonly found in off-brand, citrusy sodas. My dear diet coke is safe, and PepsiCo apparently doesn't use it at all, at least in the US. (This is all on the second paragraph)

This article has a list, it claims https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/nutrition/the-full-list-of-...

Though it borders on chum bucket ad quality. Proceed at your own risk.

If you got to the list, you would see that Mountain Dew is on the list. I don’t think PepsiCo is any less culpable.

IIRC this was in Mountain Dew for a very long time but removed in the last couple of years.

It just seems insane to me to ingest any bromine molecule and not expect it to react or oxidize in some fashion eventually.

Got some bad news for you about chlorine.

Halogens that are already tightly bound will not suddenly unbind and go off causing trouble.

This is why, in general, bromine is more trouble than chlorine is more trouble than fluorine: bromine can't bind as tightly to begin with, so it gets loose more easily. Fluorine is so reactive that elemental fluorine is just not a problem unless something has gone Truly Wrong. It can't be used as a chemical weapon in the same way chlorine can, for example.

I think the chlorine added to water will react with anything organic. Depends how much organic stuff (including the micro-organisms you're trying to inactivate in the first place) you have in the source water.

At least some water systems are moving towards ozone treatment instead of chlorination.

I assumed GP was referring to the high levels of chlorine humans add to our food and that we’re taught readily dissociate in water.

Most households have a chlorine shaker on the table and many takeaway places offer packets of the stuff for free.

That's why I don't drink city water...

I hope you don't drink bottled water... it's just tap water from some exploited municipality

I have a well with reverse osmosis filtration system... I could do the same with city water but I would not call that city water

RO is great, I wish I had that at home. I have a feeling we'll see larger scale RO systems being installed especially due to PFAS, etc. The Florida Keys muni water is all RO now, for example.

Over ten year fight is almost over - at least in the USA. Pepsico was the first to remove BVO from their Gatorade beverages.

see https://www.today.com/health/teen-wins-battle-against-gatora...

from 2012 Dec. 18, Toronto Star, https://www.thestar.com/news/world/brominated-vegetable-oil-...:

"Brominated vegetable oil: PepsiCo and Coca-Cola not removing chemical from Canadian drinks

Major soft drink-makers and Health Canada say the use of brominated vegetable oil in Canadian beverages is safe, despite a growing movement elsewhere to ban its use. ..."

the additive is brominated vegetable oil (or BVO)

can we change the headline to be less clickbait?

I don't see how "brominated vegetable oil linked to thyroid toxicity may finally get banned by FDA" is much different than "Soda additive linked to thyroid toxicity may finally get banned by FDA"; the original title seems to provide more context. Surely you're not saying the "linked to thyroid toxicity" is clickbait, as that's reflected by 50 years of science.

It's classic clickbait because it makes you click to find out what the one weird trick, sorry, one common toxin added to food is.

Exactly. I just came here to confirm my suspicion (already thought about the toxin being BVO)

Except most people wouldn’t really know what BVO is (or what it is used for), so soda additive is actually informative here.

Then they can literally write "Soda additive BVO linked..." and the headline has the same meaning. Everyone who knows what BVO is can decide for themselves if they're interested, everyone who didn't can still click to find out what this mysterious "BVO" is.

There room for 3 characters and a space in that headline. The only reason not to do that is to get clicks from people who wouldn't click if they knew what the article was actually about. It's clickbait.

Doubly so because it's not like BVO is the only dodgy chemical in soft drinks. Aspartame even is suspected of being related to thyroid wierdness.

Yes, you are right. They should have gone with that headline.

The crazy thing about the process is even when there is a strong suspicion the chemical is NOT safe companies still were allowed to sell products with it for decades, until it was PROVEN to be not safe. One can imagine a system where it was required to prove safety before use instead of the other way round, but that is not what we have.

Apologies for being pedantic, but you can’t prove safety in the same way that you can’t prove any hypothesis. I agree that new chemicals should undergo better safety screenings, but we must be honest with ourselves: a screening does not “prove” something is safe, it merely reduces the uncertainty that it is safe. As such, we must balance the costs and benefits of such testing regimes.

I'm not disagreeing with you but in this case it's adding the most unnatural weird ass shit to soda for no really good reasons.

Any chemist looks at "brominated vegetable oil" and they'll tell you to chuck it into the waste container labeled "halogen rich organics" -- you know, the one waste container organic labs have to collect stuff thats Really Not Supposed to end up in living things. You don't really need a safety assessment to intuit that this is just a grossly weird thing to put in a drink.

I was a Chemist and the only thing I can say sadly is that it also took Chemists to come up with brominated vegetable oil sadly...

Isn't it essentially a surfactant? Edible soap seems an odd thing to put in a beverage, but I do think mountain dew tasted better with it. The same argument regarding thyroid health can be made against flouridated water and toothpaste, but that concern already got shut down as a conspiracy theory.

IIRC from a technological point of view these things are pretty clever, as they have a very high specific gravity (because bromine), you can use them to emulsify other oils that are less dense than water and end up with something that's at almost the same density as water.

From an historical point of view, food and soap industries were essentially one industry sharing the same raw materials.

We know what chemicals are safe in foods (assuming no excess) because we have eaten them through the entire human history: starches, fats, sugars, proteins and micronutrients.

Any non-established chemical should have to be vetted before being added to food. There is no inherent right to poison people.

By your logic, we can't add any new substance to food anymore, because we haven't eaten them through the entire human history and there is no other way to prove their security.

We've already got enough substances for humans to survive and thrive. To add more to food should require crossing a high barrier, especially since almost all new substances are driven by profit motive rather than improvement of health and lives.

That's exactly what OP said, but without the catch that it can be added once it has been vetted for safety.

And that vetting should include simulated "in the wild" testing. Isolating a chemical and testing it's safety ignores the fact that in the wild there are other chemicals. That is, A is safe. B is safe. But when exposed to A + B your gut's microbes go bonkers.

I get it. That's a high bar. So be it.

Not all food toxicity risks are immediately obvious. E.g. hijiki seaweed is a traditional food in Japan, but it often contains dangerous quantities of inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijiki

Just because some foods slip through doesn't mean there shouldn't be a process. Also hijiki isn't a new chemical but a food that has been eaten for thousands of years, so not really comparable.

To prove something is safe you'd have to make thousands of people eat it for decades.

Short of that there is a selection bias on the test subjects, you also need to know how it goes for pregnant, elderly, children, tourists etc., put them in environments where you're absolutely sure they don't fall ill from other causes and do that until it's clear it's safe, so you need to at least see an infant build a family to know there's no reproductive impact.

That would be the minimum level of certainty, and that's just not realistic.

I'm reading the GP as not meaning "prove" as in a mathematical proof with absolute certainty, but rather that a rigorous process is followed to allow a new chemical in food, similar to vaccines and medicine.

Yes, but how rigorous? Some chemicals are only toxic when combined with others. Some may require years or even decades of exposure to show signs of toxicity. Some only affect a percentage of the population. Etc etc.

The reality is that it's basically impossible to prove absolute safety.

Perhaps it's better to assume there is always a risk, and to only a chemical if there is a really important reason for it, even if tested. So something like non-stick pans would be out.

They should use a similar process as with pharmaceuticals: Phase 1, 2 trials to show safety and then a rigorous post-market surveillance.

If this means new chemicals cost 1bn USD to bring to market then yes, this is a reflection of the true cost of these products.

We can't continue letting greedy corporations poison us just for the benefit of their shareholders.

It may not need to be as rigorous as a vaccine or medicine, but that doesn't mean there should be no process.

All that is needed for humans to survive and thrive robustly is already available. There is no excuse for new chemical to be introduced for the benefit of profit. It should be on the seller to prove the chemical is relatively safe rather than the public to prove it is not safe.

It would be great if non-stick pans were never invented.

I know, but this usage lulls people into a false sense of security because it’s “proven” to be safe.

I think it’s important to differentiate when discussing safety and risk. I can’t think of a better word, maybe safety “testing”, since this implies that the result hinges on the quality of the test and generally people are aware of the limitations of tests.

Absolutely. Proof is based on a specific criteria. It doesn't mean that the thing you are proving is 100% guaranteed.

Similar to Trump's warpspeed program. There was a specific criteria of a side effect profile that was acceptable. I don't know what that criteria was, but it was definitely there.

You are not pedantic but correct. This way we would die of hunger instantly, most (all?) of what we eat does not have a proof of safety cert.

Also people are drinking these for decades and still with us, like eating eggs and bread.

> This way we would die of hunger instantly

You're taking the proposal too literally. Obviously the people proposing this would support some kind of pragmatic middle ground. Oats and berries? Sold without any issue. Some untested exotic chemical that has been in the food supply for less than a year? Different story.

There are a lot of vested interest for a multitude of reasons in using those exotic chemicals. Chances are the middle ground solution is people have to register their oats and berries and the exotic chemicals will be deemed necessary to national food security and be given an exemption.

"Oats and berries? Sold without any issue. "

Minus the issue of with what chemicals they were treated and grown.

It's especially weird when these companies can comply with stricter regulations in foreign countries. Just make it without the weird shit everywhere!

This isn't true. The FDA process is a chemical must be on the "GRAS" list (generally regarded as safe) to be used as a food additive. To get on that list, but must be the same level of data to support the conclusion it's safe, as a new additive that is reviewed by the FDA. There was a grandfathering in of additives used before 1958, but the FDA reviewed those products as well.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-ingredients-packaging/generall...

General recognition of safety through scientific procedures is based upon the application of generally available and accepted scientific data, information, or methods, which ordinarily are published, as well as the application of scientific principles, and may be corroborated by the application of unpublished scientific data, information, or methods.

FYI a corporation can just notify the FDA that they believe a new substance is GRAS. That’s all you need to do to use the new ingredient in food.

No, that’s not accurate. You could just the FDA regulations on the website and know that.

Why reply with something that is clearly false?

It's not false. I have friends who've done this.

You just need to file a GRAS Notice. See https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B...

GRAS certification offers some clues on how this happened.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-ingredients-packaging/generall...

Banned in the EU since 2008.

Can't believe people still drink soda, or let their kids drink that shit.

I drink some Coke every once in a while when I'm partway through a long day and need something to give me a kick.

Between the burst of sugar and caffeine, that's one mighty kick.

Can't believe people do anything enjoyable, or let their kids do anything enjoyable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPz9Fcvb1II

The ratio of Harm to Enjoyment varies, some activities seem not worth it. Like taking cocaime or drinking soda have surprisingly similar ratio - soda has so little fun but considerable harm, so the ratio is very poor

Cocaine taken as a tea from coca leaf is actually pretty great. It's like coffee tier 2. Harm to Enjoyment ratio might even dip below unity since, based on some research papers I've read, I think cocaine might not be as bad as caffeine (in sane quantities).

Snorting coke is pretty worthless, but so is snorting caffeine.

Snorting caffeine in similar quantities to cocaine would be lethal wouldn't it?

I haven't been able to confirm nor refute this. However, being sloppy, it looks like pure cocaine has an LD50 of about 95 mg/kg [1] while caffeine appears to have an LD50 of about 367mg/kg [2]. These are numbers from rat and mouse studies, with different routes of administration. The cocaine LD50, for instance, was obtained by IP (intraperitoneal) injection, while the caffeine administration was oral. I have not been able to find any studies that give an LD50 for both substances in a single animal model with the same route of administration. Let's play with these numbers as they are.

The IC50 (inhibitory constant, a measure of sufficiency of plasma concentration to inhibit 50% of affected biological processes [how I'll estimate potency]) of caffeine in the human model is estimated at a concentration of about 67microMolar. Cocaine's IC50 appears to be about 4.4mM.[4]

The major difference in routes of administration will be how much of the substance ends up in plasma vs metabolites. Making the genuinely wild assumption that they have similar plasma effects from the same RoA, it would appear the IC50 of cocaine is about an order magnitude lower than that of caffeine (meaning you need less), while its LD50 is about a third that of caffeine (meaning less will kill you [but also keeping in mind that the LD50 was found via injections]) but still within the same order of magnitude approximation.

This to me indicates that cocaine is the preferable compound, even though I still think neither of them is great intransally. I will say, however, I absolutely prefer my cocaine as a drink and caffeine as a snifter. I have an intranasal cocktail of oxytocin, kanna, and caffeine that I'll bump once or twice a week. I quite like it, but people who rail lines of caffeine simply befuddle me.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7178201/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27461039/

[3] https://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/jnumed/early/2012/09/07/...

[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11561083/

I avoided soft drinks for a long time but slipped into it during the pandemic. 2-3 cans of Coke Zero per day.

1. I had perfect dental health all my life and needed multiple fillings after 18 months of soda.

2. That shit is addictive! I swear quitting cigarettes was waaay easier than quitting soda.

> I had perfect dental health all my life and needed multiple fillings after 18 months of soda.

Not an expert, but I'm not sure if that makes sense? As I understand it, soda causes dental problems because bacteria in your mouth eat sugar, creating an acidic environment that erodes the enamel on your teeth, making it possible for cavities to form. Since Coke Zero doesn't contain sugar, I don't see why it would be a problem.

I wonder if you normally had regular 6 month or 12 month dental checkups, where they would clean built-up tartar off your teeth, and these were put on hold during the pandemic?

Sodas also have acid in them directly, the first 3 ingredients in Coke Zero are: > CARBONATED WATER, CARAMEL COLOR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, …

https://us.coca-cola.com/products/coca-cola-zero-sugar/coca-...

phosphoric acid is particularly bad because it yanks all the free calcium in any solution it comes in contact with (e.g. saliva). Calcium phosphate is then insoluble in water, so it then larglely flows right through you.

Is that true for HFCS as well? Whenever I’m overseas and get real sugar sodas my teeth always feel much “fuzzier” by the end of the day. I never get that feeling with US corn-sweetened sodas.

It can upset the balance in your mouth. Carbonic acid from the carbonation attacks the enamel and may have other impacts.

Counter-anecdote: I have drunk 1-2 Coke Zeros every day for years, enjoy it a lot, and have had excellent dental health.

Do you also frequently rinse your mouth? Oral hygiene will also determine dental health, not just soda consumed.

Coke Zero contains phosphoric acid. It destroys tooth enamel. Might be connected or some other change of lifestyle during the pandemic.

I recommend sparkling water as an alternative to soda.

Most people are deficient in iodine. We don't eat a lot of iodine rich foods, and commercial farming techniques have depleted soils of many minerals and elements. Tissues in the body that should be absorbing and storing iodine, which is an essential element for thyroid hormone, will preferentially store bromine. Bromine has also been used to make flame retardant fabrics, carpet, furniture, etc. Avoid it.

> Bromine has also been used to make flame retardant fabrics, carpet, furniture, etc.

While this argument feels right, chemically it makes no sense. You can do this with any element. It’s the same as saying you shouldn’t drink water because it has hydrogen and oxygen which are used as rocket fuel.

No, it's not the same. Molecules act very differently than the individual elements that make the molecule. Water does not behave similarly to hydrogen or oxygen, and humans aren't plants, which can break water into component elements. What happens to the bromine when humans ingest brominated vegetable oil? Something very different than what happens when we ingest water, which always stays stable as a water molecule.

Water famously does not always stay stable as a water molecule and in fact has extremely complex behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ionization_of_water

I have read that for the same reasons we preferentially uptake flourine from toothpaste and water. It does prevent cavities though.

True. Fluoridated water does more harm than good.

Banned in most European countries since the seventies.

BVO has other consequences not mentioned in this article. I consumed Mountain Dew daily from ages 15 - 35, and quit cold-turkey after I learned about BVO's link to memory loss, since I had started to struggle with remembering words I didn't use frequently.

The effects lasted for about a decade, and I still occasionally have to do an association memory exercise to pluck out a word. It's rare now, and normally only happens when I'm sleepy or I've been drinking.

Pepsico poisoned me, happily filling their drinks with chemicals that have been banned in Europe for my entire life. But boy they had some fun commercials.

What telling is how silently this additive was removed from the big-name beverages. What else does the FDA need to know?

In a 2014 review of BVO, the FDA recognized the "unresolved safety questions" and designed rodent studies [...]The studies did show toxicity.

Where are all the "in mice!" comments?

I believe the major brands like Coke and Pepsi have already removed it. Mostly some smaller brands remaining. There is already an alternate emulsifier called glycerol ester of wood rosin.

Looking forward to the articles on that in 20 years. Wood rosin comes from turpentine. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosin#Production]

I’m frankly a bit shocked it’s considered food safe.

Been banned in India since 1990.

what possesses someone to read "brominated" and think "safe" is anywhere in the realm of possibility?

Replace with “fluoridated” or “chlorinated” and we pipe it into houses and give it to everyone in the household by the glassful. Our table salt is “iodized”.

It doesn’t seem so strange that people (including the experts involved in food and food safety) might find it possibly safe.

> Replace with “fluoridated” or “chlorinated” and we pipe it into houses and give it to everyone in the household by the glassful.

Y'all are ... weird in that regard by European standards. Our tap water is pure as it comes from the groundwater, spring or whatever other water source; adding chlorine is unheard of outside of short-term contamination issues, and flouride and iodide are generally added into table salt and that's enough. We also don't chlorine wash our chickens or our eggs.

In the end I think the difference boils down to the US using chlorine to "mask" the negative effects of penny-pinching (e.g. properly maintaining water mains, not letting farm animals practically live inside their feces, and following GMP standards in slaughterhouses), while European culture and legislation is proactive instead of reactive.

nice!

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