Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation | Hacker News Reader

Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

cell.com

82 pointstu700187 comments

Convo from 4d ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43313574

Every now and then there is an alarmist article about aspartame, and every time it's hard to tell whether moderate drinking of soft drinks is better when it had regular sugar vs when it has aspartame - can any person more familiar comment on this with regarding to current article?

The funny thing about this question is that it doesn’t really matter, unless it does: Sugar harms your health in a whole host of well documented ways, but a little of it, infrequently, is fine. Aspartame has always been under a cloud of doubt, but is probably also just fine in small amounts.

So really, you only need to be thinking about this if you’re having either of them as a regular part of your diet. And if that’s the case, well, this is the part where you really should listen to all those people who recommend that you acquire a taste for water.

> Aspartame has always been under a cloud of doubt

But this is almost entirely due to alarmists who were never using good science to justify their perspectives (just like with MSG). The reality is that aspartame is one of the most studied substances in history and it's effect on humans is very clear.

My main question is, if I drink ~3 glasses of soft drinks per day, should I get the one with sugar or the one with aspartame. Currently, I get the one with aspartame with thinking that (1) given the amount of sugar in this amount, I'd be running 100% full of my daily sugar norm, and (2) there are no conclusive evidence of aspartame being actually bad. Would the sugary drink be a better choice?

Another thing that irks me (though less so), is that occasionally somebody says for an aspartame drink that "you're drinking that poison?", when clearly, we would know if it really were poison.

3 glasses of soft drinks is an insane amount of sugar on a daily basis, so if you have to do it you're probably better off with the aspartame.

One school of thought (including my own) is that if you’re consuming enough sweetened products per day that you need to consider switching to ones that contain artificial sweeteners (to avoid too much sugar), then it’s time to re-evaluate your lifestyle by questioning why you’re consuming so much sweet stuff to begin with. There are so many other foods that have so many other enjoyable flavors and well-known health benefits that you can make room for in your life.

I believe your options are glucose–fructose syrup or aspartame - I'd lean towards aspartame as well. If sugar was an option I'd gladly cut the daily intake and go with that.

Sugar has extremely well documented negative effects even in the amounts you find in a regular soda (let alone three). Most of the Aspartame studies test massive doses and are generally inconclusive. If it's a choice between the two, go with the Aspartame.

It's almost like humans are naturally tuned to drink plain unsweetened water.

And yet we've been dissatisfied with and flavoring our water for longer than we have recorded history.

For most of recorded history that was because we didn't have access to food, clean water. The process of preparing alcohol, tea, coffee, and other beverages was part of making water safe to deinkt. Alot of the world still doesn't have access to reliable, clean water.

Now it's because of advertising telling us to drink anything but water (or if we drink water to buy it in a bottle).

Gil Carvalho (Nutrition Made Simple) is a good source for these types of questions. His existing videos may not address a brand new study, but he will give you a basis for assessing the new study in the context of what is already known.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdKAPzsxr_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h5IABzlj8w

a good rule of thumb is to not make significant changes based on single studies - especially on mice, ESPECIALLY in regards to controversial subjects. Robust science is not built on single studies.

This is why I drink water. And water with coffee in it.

Just drink water or low sugar beverages.

I do!

Problem is, those low sugar beverages are often low sugar thanks to aspartame

That’s not what health-oriented people mean when they say “low sugar” - that’s part of the marketing trick of these drink manufacturers. Low sugar means water, unsweetened tea, coffee without sugar, etc. Simply replacing sugar with toxic chemicals and calling it low sugar is insanity.

It's always the same three downvotes a few hours after any post that dares to question the industrial-scientific complex.

What are you suggesting is happening?

Just an observation.

Clearly, the industrial-scientific complex can only afford 3 interns to downvote disparaging Hacker News comments. I don't know how that's not obvious.

Times are tough I guess.

Fizzy water

I would really like a low sugar soft drink, not artificial but one with like 1/4 the amount of real sugar. It would probably taste fine, I don't get why everything needs 32g in it!

My favorite (besides water, coffee, tea) is sparkling water with some fruit juice and no added sweeteners, e.g. the brand “Spindrift”. It’s 35 calories. I prefer it to colas, juice, and sparkling juice. It is particularly refreshing when you are hot (from yard work, exercise, etc.) when other drinks can taste too sweet.

I went through a phase of making homemade cola syrup and then carbonating it with a home carbonator to get a low-sugar cola without sweeteners (which I used to tolerate, but which gained an awful taste following a bout of COVID-induced anosmia). For me, that ended up being about 4g demerara per 100ml.

making your own lemonade is awesome! You can tune the amount of sugar and lemon you want, from "water with a drop of lemon" to whatever you like. Put some fresh mint in there if you like

If life didn't give you lemons, you're out of luck though

To take to an even higher level, grate some of the lemon peel and then squeeze its "lemon zest" into it.

I promise you it is excellent, but I only suggest organic lemons for this process!

We also only use raw whole sugar or turbinado.

DRAM makes a line of reasonably-sweetened sodas (3-5g sugar per can) but they’re definitely a “luxury” product, in the range of $10-15 for a 4-pack. I don’t know of a single mass-market option.

Sports drinks. Maybe not 1/4, but 1/3-1/2 is certainly doable. The one in front of me is 150 calories per 28 oz, versus similar levels per 12-oz. serving for typical soft drinks.

At least in the UK many of the leading "sports" drinks, will add some form of artificial sweetener regardless of if it is a high sugar or low sugar variant e.g.

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/lucozade-sport-o... - Sugar + Aspartame + Acesulfame K

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/powerade-berry-t... Sugar + Aspartame + Acesulfame K

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/lucozade-sport-z... Acesulfame K + Sucralose

Kombucha can be low sugar and the acidity is quite nice.

Seconding this. Whenever I'm at the store I can't help but grab a bottle of Health-Ade. A third of the sugar and it's effervescent and tart in a way that makes it so refreshing.

Buy diluting juice. Water it down to your preferred concentration.

While certainly an option, just watering out a drink more isn't really what they're asking for. There's lots of other flavor compounds that you don't necessarily want watered out just because you want less sugar.

Diluted juice is still a useful suggestion as an alternative idea. I don’t get why people would down vote; that’s not what down vote is for. I like diluted juice quite a bit, 25-50% tastes fine, it’s akin to tea to me. It would be interesting if more beverage companies made a “add your own sweetener” version which is how unsweetened Kool-Aid drink mixes come. They have maltodextrin in them but say they are 0 calorie so I’m not sure if that means it’s a tiny amount or if it somehow gets away claiming zero calories. Just be aware Kool-Aid has sweetened versions as well. I still mostly drink water but some variety is nice.

Oh this is where I'm at now, I've been buying juice and adding a little to soda water so it comes out like a light Fresca sort of drink. It would be nice to have that option when going out though.

Oh I definitely agree it's a good practical suggestion, I do it with apple juice sometimes because I just want some mild apple flavor rather than the very strong and sweet apple juice taste. I don't get why someone would downvote it either.

or Bolero-like powders

So it sounds like: 1. consuming aspartame triggers insulin release (unclear if this is novel information) 2. insulin release triggers inflammation that leads to atherosclerosis (they go into further detail on the mechanism here, which appears to be novel info)

It really doesn't seem to me like the artificial sweeteners should be the critical aspect of this finding, as this affects anything that triggers insulin release. Is there any data linking sulfonylureas with atherosclerosis? Based on this finding, one might expect that to be a consequence of their insulin releasing effect.

I didn’t read the entire article and i am not a physician.

That said, your point #2 sounds incorrect - aspartame doesn’t cause atherosclerosis, it aggravates atherosclerosis. The key difference there as it relates to type 2 diabetes patients is that presumably if they had atherosclerosis as an existing condition, they would qualify for a glp-1 with cvd benefits, and not be on sulfonylureas in the first place.

> Here, we show that consumption of 0.15% aspartame (APM) markedly increased insulin

Most food will "markedly increase insulin", and sugary food / drinks even more so.

Obviously people should try to eat healthy and ideally avoid artificial sweeteners, but in reality people are not machines and they're not going to drink water and eat lean meat and veg every day just because that's what's best for them.

It seems to me that for most people who like to occasionally consume soft drinks that switching to a comparable artificially sweetened alternative is going to be better for you even if there are still risks.

A study titled "eating cake aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation" isn't reason to never eat cake. It's just reason to be sensible and consume in moderation.

People have been consuming artificially flavoured foods and drinks daily for decades at this point. While these things are interesting to know and consider, no one should be concerned about this unless you're consuming an excessive amount of Aspartame. And even then it's almost certainly better for you to do that than consume excessive amounts of sugar.

I know that they've gone back and forth on artificial sweeteners over the years, but honestly, one of the best things I've done recently is switch over to seltzer water. Triggers all of the chemical receptors in the brain by repeating the "ritual" of drinking canned pop, but it's just water, so it's actually good for you. Also half the cost.

I've found seltzer makes me sleepy or fatigued for some reason. Everyone I tell this to looks at me like I'm nuts but I swear it's real. I think it has something to do with the brain's expectation of calories and the subsequent lack.

I get sleepy if I have too many vitamins/minerals (eg: a whole PowerBar or entire Orgain drink), so maybe it's the minerals, perhaps Magnesium?

[Magnesium helps my wife sleep better, but she can only take it at night or it makes her sleepy. I take half in the morning, and I think it helps because we're likely not getting enough in our mineral-depleted foods.]

I can imagine that. If I drink a lot of diet soda, I get a bit wired but also tired in a weird way. It's like my body expects some sugar to fuel the caffeine's stimulation.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10096725/

>People with little saliva and a habit of frequently consuming acidic beverages are at increased risk for enamel erosion. The basic recommendations are to drink water as the first choice and eat fresh fruits as an integral part of a healthy and balanced diet.

>Health professionals should motivate the population to change their behavior regarding the consumption of acidic drinks, and recommendations should be made at the policy level to discourage the consumption of sugary drinks. Interventions that would improve oral health and overall health are widely available.

Harm reduction is important.

Normal sodas are pretty acidic - coke has a pH of around 2.5

Soda water has a pH of 5-6.

Your saliva has a pH of around 6-7.

Water, of course, is at 7.

Remember we're dealing a log scale here, and that going from 2.5 to 5.5 isn't a 2x improvement - it's closer to a 1000x reduction in the amount of acid. If replacing soda with soda water is what gets them to stick to it, that's what they should do.

I switched from sparkling to plain water a few weeks ago (for other reasons).

I’m drinking significantly less than I was when drinking sparkling.

So again, the question now becomes is it better to be fully hydrated drinking “acidic” sparkling water, or is it better to only drink plain water and be dehydrated? (Rhetorical question)

From that same study:

>The increased amounts of calcium, phosphate, and fluoride in the drinks limited the severity of erosion by changing the solubility of the enamel [82]. The decline in enamel’s surface microhardness and mineral loss were both dramatically halted by the addition of CaGP to the carbonated drinks.

Most seltzer water has fluoride in it, and your tap water has fluoride in it (if you're making your own at home).

Also the methodology in this study was purely in vitro, not real world conditions. Notably, the lack of saliva.

>Under normal circumstances, human saliva forms a physical barrier, a film, and prevents direct contact between the tooth enamel surface and acidic beverages, thus protecting teeth from erosive attack by acids [45,84,85,86]. However, the erosion tests were carried out without saliva

Also, seems like the study was more on soft drinks in particular and not "other acidic drinks" which may include seltzer water.

>Soft drink consumption during meals was linked to mild to severe tooth damage [65]. No matter when they were consumed, other acidic meals and beverages were not linked to tooth damage [40].

Anyway, net is this: I'm not saying sparkling water carries absolutely no risk, but linking a study like this and cherry picking quotes to make it sound like sparkling water is going to destroy your teeth is misleading.

If drinking sparkling water helps you kick your soda habit, please definitely make the switch. It's so much better for you. The increased risk from drinking sparkling water compared to still water is not worth worrying about if sparkling water provides a quality of life increase for you.

Everything in healthcare is about moderated risk and counterbalancing it against lifestyle.

Exposing your bladder to a lot of CO2 might not be a good idea.

To arrive in the bladder, the CO₂ would have to be absorbed into the blood stream first. Which it isn't, it is just burped out from your stomach. Also, CO₂ which is dissolved into the blood stream is removed through your lungs, and the blood CO₂ level is very tightly controlled by various regulators and reflexes. You would know instantly through your suffocation response that your blood CO₂ is elevated.

Why would that be? I'm no biologist but I'm quite sure the CO2 won't make it all the way to the bladder, when drinking plain carbonated water.

A lot of carbonated water gives me gas, especially when not eating enough. But I am not sure it is an issue. People have various gas levels, it just goes in and out.

And this gas escapes through your urethra?

Fortunately I dont have cloaca ;)

I won't read anything funnier on HN today.

Thanks for the visual.

Kazoo orchestra, anyone?

I always considered drinking a lot of sparkling water an antipattern. I think this is connected with microbiome or people who I knew and who abused the sparkling water. I'm refraining myself from such activities because of the same reason (gas) but I also am sick (SIBO or another inflammation, have to hit diet hard)

If gases show up in your urine, something has gone seriously wrong.

What's with the double standard, around sugar and artificial sweeteners?

Artificial sweeteners do not need to be as safe as bottled water.

They just need to be less harmful than sugar. Which they are, because sugar is unequivocally, very very bad for you.

> because sugar is unequivocally, very very bad for you.

So all fruit is bad for you? Lactose is unequivocally bad? Even for nursing infants? How deep does "unequivocally" go exactly?

I hope you really just mean "added sugar in soda-tier quantities" when you say sugar is "unequivocally, very very bad". But I think this kind of hyperbole is part of why food science has got an awful reputation. Even the most 'enlightened' sources (and there are plenty of competing enlightened sources right now) seem unable to stop the totalizing language.

One refrain seems to be that "added sugars" are bad but then that's not quite true afaik either, because sugar is sugar whether it's "added" or not.

To a first approximation, "sugar is bad for you" seems to be a succinct lie-to-children[1] default, from where exceptions can be established. Whole fruits with lots of sugars (as opposed to e.g fruit juices with a comparable amount) are purportedly less-bad because they're accompanied by enough fiber to slow digestion and make the sugar less bioavailable.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children

Doesn't aspartame partly break down into methyl alcohol if it gets too hot?

I regularly drank Diet Cokes 25 years ago, and remember some batches would be "worse" than others.

And, whether from cans or plasic bottles, you're either also getting the can's lining or the plastic from the container mixed into the soda, right? I mean, it's an acidic liquid, so there is bound to be some dissolution of the lining into the fluid, by my understanding, with the more the warmer the temp.

And I do wonder what temp the bottling takes place at.

It does. There's always a little methanol. Of course, when you drink it, your body will metabolize about 10% to methanol.

Of course, there's methanol is fruit and vegetable juices and your body will metabolize pectin containing fruit to methanol too.

How well established is it that aspartame produces an insulin response? For me that’s the shocker. I don’t consume any but I’ve always suspected this. It suggests that many diet sodas, sugar free gums, and sugar free foods can contribute to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

Over the years I got out of all carbonated drinks and excessive coffee by phasing in homebrewed black, green and herbal teas. I feel a lot healthier and my previously chronic heartburn and gastritis magically went away.

Yup, I was never much of a soda drinker but switching from coffee to loose leaf teas has been a huge move for me in my daily habits. I used to drink coffee until 3, 4, even 5pm and it was having negative effects on my health and sleep.

Now I just start the day with a mug of loose leaf tea and keep re-steeping it as the day goes on. By the time noon comes around there is little to no caffeine left but I still get some tea flavor as well as the hit of hot liquid my body is used to.

When at home I brew gong fu style which keeps more caffeine as I reload the gaiwan or tea pot but that’s just a preference of mine. Highly recommend Chinese/Taiwanese teas, especially Oolong if you’re looking for an alternative to coffee or soda.

TIL aspartame is considered "healthier" because it takes far less of it in calories to achieve the same level of sweetness (~200x sweeter than sugar).

Been avoiding it since day 1. At least with sugar the risks are somewhat understood.

Then again...don't drink soda so neither here not there really

> At least with sugar the risks are somewhat understood.

Aspartame has been studied for 50 years. The risks are very well understood. This single study on mice does not shift that.

This feels kind of like "at least I know what I'm getting with the measles".

Sometimes I'm glad that artificial sweeteners taste incredibly bitter to me

    >Data and code availability
    >No original code was generated in this study.

Oh come on. I thought Cell was more strict than this.

It's a major problem in science, unfortunately

You see it in the computational fields too - often the best you can get is an uncommented mess of Python and Shell scripting. If you get anything at all.

The worst are those that train ML models to predict a property, spend several pages talking about how good it is... And just never bother including the model artifacts. IMO that's the stuff that should get papers rejected.

In mice with their genes edited and taking in 0.15% of aspartame in their diet. How am I supposed to take this seriously?

The lesson again and again is to simply eat whole foods.

...cue the onslaught of wise-guy comments claiming sliced carrots aren't whole foods.

Hundreds of housands of years of the human body's evolution should be respected, neh?

I like my day's first glass of water to have a half a lemon's worth of juice freshly squeezed into it.

My cold-brew (or occasionally espresso) coffee gets real maple syrup (no Log Cabin bullshit sugar-fest) and half-and-half or maybe whole milk.

Sometimes I mix yogurt into a mug of milk towards the end of the day.

That's the fullness of my liquids, except that which comes naturally with food.

I find this line of reasoning disingenuous. After all, we couldn't consume milk hundreds of thousands of years ago. Does your evolutionary heritage put you in places where hundreds of thousand of years ago you would have consumed lemons, coffee, and maple syrup? Is half-and-half natural? Is coffee? Is maple syrup? On a scale of hundreds of thousands of years all those are relatively recent.

It's a bit of straw-man, but I'm try to point out that we can't appeal to being in alignment with our evolution when even those barebone items have been refined and we wouldn't have eaten them in our prehistory.

> After all, we couldn't consume milk hundreds of thousands of years ago.

But for the past thousands of years, I'm pretty sure my lineage could.

> you would have consumed lemons, coffee, and maple syrup?

Citris? Beans? Tree syrup?

> Is half-and-half natural?

Sure is. And so is yogurt (a Turkish word, I'll have you).

> It's a bit of straw-man

I'd call it something else, completely.

> I find this line of reasoning disingenuous.

Duly noted.

Few thousand years, OK, but not hundreds of thousands. Coffee has only been drank for less than a thousand years. They aren't just beans, they are specific beans that undergo refinement to get them to where we want them to be. Same with maple syrup - tree sap is not the same in its natural form. You're drinking a concentrated sugar.

The lines in the sand here aren't as definite as they are made out to be.

Aspartame was definitely approved in 1974.

lmao lemons are for sure comparable to aspartame /s

One does not simply eat a grocery store chain.

>...cue the onslaught of wise-guy comments claiming sliced carrots aren't whole foods.

Also think of the poor, they can't afford carrots.

that aspartam is (or may be) evil is conclusive proof that ALL sweeteners are bad for you! they are the worst! all crazy people have been right!

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