This should be big - and about time. Studies have known about this for 40 years, and it’s known in some circles that aspartame is quite bad for your health.

Wonder what coke - and many other companies that use it - are going to do.

  • HjFUN@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Gonna try to cut a line down the middle and say I’m not seeing very convincing evidence one way versus another. Lotta finger pointing and honestly getting way more intense about diet soda than I thought anyone would.

    Gotta say that my family (and me until high school) drink wayyy to much diet soda. Like sugar, or aspartame it’s a bit worrying and when you drink caffeinated sweetness all day you’re probably going to feel defensive about someone saying it’s gonna kill you.

    I am a bit of the mind that it may only be significantly carcinogenic at super high doses, but who knows if anyone is getting those doses either from commercial beverages or mixing it in the same proportions as sugar in their iced tea

    • ColonelSanders@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Was going to say, I’m all for changing my habits/thought processes based on scientific data/evidence, but I could’ve sworn this debate has been raging on for some time now. First it was declared that it causes Cancer, then it was declared well no there’s not really enough evidence to support that, and now we’re back to it does. But I have yet to see a definitive link in any study and even this article says “possibly.”

      Now, that being said I still avoid aspartame when possible, opting for Stevia whenever I have the choice. I just fear that this kind of back and forth tends to erode credibility through unsubstantiated whiplash with the general public.

      • Zaktor@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As someone who would also very much like to believe that aspartame is perfectly safe, I will point out that in a controversy over “is this commercially sold product dangerous”, the side that says “no” is going to get a lot more funding than the one that says “yes”. Maybe there’s some potential financial incentive for alternative sweeteners to boost aspartame-bad studies, but the aspartame-good group is very directly backed by behemoths.

        These things aren’t easy to prove and more research (from publicly funded sources) would be good, but when you’re seeing a lot of confusing competing claims, keep in mind that industry funded research exists and it will be overwhelmingly on the side of “let us keep selling these very profitable products”.

    • YellowtoOrange@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Sure, let’s wait and see what they say.

      If you drink soda, do look more into the weight gain, GI issues and anxiety side effects from aspartame.