365 Sucralose & Cancer [ 11 April 2016]

In my discussion last week on the health risk from sweetened beverages I may have been too easy on artificial sweeteners as found in diet sodas.

In February of this year the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) downgraded the artificial sweetener sucralose from “Caution” to “Avoid”. It had previously downgraded it from “Safe” in 2013. This change was in response to the January 2016 publication (in Int. J. Occ. Env. Health) of a study from the Ramazzini Institute, a highly respected independent laboratory in Italy.

The study exposed mice to five levels of sucralose to evaluate possible carcinogenic (cancer causing) effects. Previous industry-funded long-term studies on mice and rats had failed to find significant carcinogenicity. This time the researchers found a significant dose-related occurrence of both malignant tumors and hematopoietic neoplasias (malignant and premalignant blood cell growth, including lymphomas and leukemia) in male mice.

This doesn’t prove that sucralose is unsafe for humans or that it is safe for females. What it does mean is that the previous assurances of industry and government that sucralose is safe are called into question. Here is the researchers’ conclusions from the abstract:

These findings do not support previous data that sucralose is biologically inert. More studies are necessary to show the safety of sucralose, including new and more adequate carcinogenic bioassay on rats. Considering that millions of people are likely exposed, follow-up studies are urgent.

CSPI explained that this study found carcinogenic effects when the previous funded studies had not because it tested more animals, started exposure at the fetal rather than adolescent stage, and was longer in duration.

Other known adverse health effects of sucralose include reduction in beneficial colon bacteria, increased colon pH (making it too alkaline), and increased levels of several intestinal membrane transporters which can interfere with oral medications.

CSPI does caution that the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease from excess sugar, as in regular soda, outweighs the risk of cancer from artificial sweeteners, so that diet soda is safer than regular soda. I still maintain that it’s best to avoid both.

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

364 Soda Pop [4 April 2016]

“Sugar-sweetened soda consumption is consistently associated with an increased risk of several chronic inflammatory diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases” begins the abstract to a 2014 study on soda consumption and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

This study followed nearly 200,000 women from two Nurses’ Health Studies spanning nearly four decades totaling 3,381,268 person years. Information on soda consumption was obtained from a food-frequency questionnaire at baseline and approximately every four years there-after. During the study period 857 cases of RA were documented. After adjusting for known variables, the researchers found that women who consumed one or more servings of sugar sweetened soda per day had a 63% greater risk of developing seropositive RA than those who drank none. For later onset (after age 55) RA the risk was even greater. No association was found for seronegative RA or for diet soda consumption.

Similarly a 2014 systematic review and meta-analysis of five studies examined the associations of sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soda with chronic kidney disease (CKD). They found statistically significant increased risks of CKD with sugar-sweetened soda consumption but not with artificially sweetened soda.

But fruit juice and artificially sweetened beverages aren’t much better when it comes to risk of Type II Diabetes (T2D) and weight gain. A 2015 systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that while sugar sweetened beverages increased the risk of T2D (as would be expected), so also did fruit juice and artificially sweetened beverages, although to a lesser extent. Another study found that fruit juice with added sugar, but not 100% fruit juice, was associated with increased risk of T2D. A 2015 U. of Texas study found that seniors who consumed diet soda over 10 years increased their waist size (belly fat) by 70 to 500% more than those who didn’t. Other studies have found an association between diet soda consumption and risk of metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

Consumption of sweetened beverages is a deceptive way to add calories to your diet. A 1 liter bottle of Cola has 108 grams (27 teaspoons) of sugar with 400 calories. It would take 5 large apples to equal that in sugar. Next to quitting smoking, eliminating soda and other sweetened beverages could be the best thing you could do for your health.

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

233 Why Aspartame is Toxic [9 Sept 2013]

Last week I discussed a soda company’s ad campaign promoting aspartame as a “safe, high-quality alternative to sugar”. I then showed that artificial sweeteners, even more than sugar, have been found to increase appetite, fat storage, carbohydrate cravings, and weight gain. Aspartame also impairs memory and learning, and can cause headaches, tinnitus, dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal problems, and blurred vision. It has even been shown to increase risk of liver, lung, brain and blood cancers in rats. So what makes aspartame so toxic?

Aspartame is composed of two naturally occurring amino acids – phenylalanine and aspartic acid – and a methyl ester bond. The amino acids are in a much higher ratio (90%) than normally found in protein (9%) which can cause an over-stimulation of neurotransmitters leading to serious neurological, hormonal and emotional symptoms. This over-stimulation is called excitotoxicity and aspartame is known as an excitotoxin (as is MSG). Powdered aspartame (Equal) reportedly makes an effective ant poison.

But it’s the methyl ester that’s the biggest problem with aspartame. It occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables where it is strongly bonded to pectin and safely passes through the GI tract. The methyl ester in aspartame, however, readily breaks off to form methanol (wood alcohol) which is absorbed into the blood and carried to every cell in our body. Inside our cells methanol converts to formaldehyde, which is a serious toxin, and then to the less harmful formic acid, and finally to carbon dioxide and water. Humans lack an enzyme to convert formaldehyde to formic acid, so this process is less efficient than in other animals.

Aspartame was first approved for use in sodas in the USA in 1983. In 1988 80% of the consumer complaints to the US FDA were for aspartame (4 times as many as for all other products combined). By 1995 aspartame had received well over 7,000 complaints. Despite these numbers, the FDA, Health Canada’s Health Protection Branch, and most other official health organizations maintain that aspartame is perfectly safe. Makes you wonder whose health they are protecting.

Sources:
Sweet Deception, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Nelson Books, 2006.
Mercola.com (one of many articles on artificial sweeteners)
Health Canada's position on aspartame
Evidence Analysis Library - plausible sounding article on the relative safety of aspartame re formaldehyde

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

232 Diet Soda Makes us Fat, Sick & Stupid* [3 Sept 2013]

* What's not to like??

There is growing awareness of the negative health effects of diet soda (and aspartame, the artificial sweetener of choice for beverages). To combat this trend a leading soda company has rolled out an ad campaign to “fight obesity” and to reassure customers that aspartame is a “safe, high-quality alternative to sugar”. How sound are their arguments?

First, sugary beverages have been shown in many studies to be a major factor in the growing rates of obesity in both adults and children. For this company to campaign against obesity is ironic at best and fraudulent at worst. It implies that at least their “diet” soda does not contribute to weight gain. Unfortunately studies have shown that aspartame, even more than sucrose: increases appetite, stimulates fat storage, increases carbohydrate cravings, and ultimately contributes to weight gain.

Even for diabetics there is no advantage in diet sodas. Recent research surprisingly found that aspartame lowered insulin sensitivity (a measure of how effectively insulin works) even more than sugar.

In a previous article [191] I discussed the connection between diet soda and increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, and certain blood cancers. Other symptoms associated with aspartame include: impaired memory and learning, headaches, tinnitus, dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal problems, and blurred vision. The best way to determine if your symptoms are caused by artificial sweeteners is to eliminate them from your diet for two weeks, then reintroduce them for one or two days, one sweetener at a time.

We are better off avoiding all sodas (even the brand I sell sweetened with stevia) because not all the problems are from the sweetener. The phosphoric or citric acid, common to all sodas, will leach calcium from our teeth and bones, contributing to caries and osteoporosis. The flavors are artificial chemicals of no nutritive value and questionable safety. The beverage of choice for good health is still pure water.

Sources
Mercola: Why Coke is a Joke - New Ad Campaign Defends Aspartame (28 August 2013)
Artificial Sweeteners May be Worse than Sugar for Diabetics (9 August 2012)
See also my post #142 Soda Pop (28 Nov 2011)

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner. See this article on my website for links to sources and further reading.

191 Diet Soda & Cancer [12 November 2012]

An interesting flip-flop on a news item happened last month. A study was published in the Am J Clinical Nutrition on October 24, showing a higher risk of blood cancers with consumption of diet soda (and by implication aspartame). As is customary, copies were released to news media a few days before so their stories would come out on publication date. Then just half an hour before publication, a news release was sent out by the Harvard Brigham and Women’s University asking the media not to run the story because “the data is weak”.

The study was significant for several reasons. It followed 115,000 adults for 22 years looking at the relation between diet soda consumption and blood cancers. The long term is necessary to determine the effects of chronic exposure, and to enable detection of cancers (the longest previous human study on aspartame toxicity was only 19 weeks). It found that men (but not women) who consumed more than 1 diet soda per day had an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma, and that both men and women had an increased risk of leukemia. The gender difference can be explained by men producing more of the enzyme ADH that converts methanol from aspartame to formaldehyde. The risk increases are small but statistically significant, and in the authors’ view warrant further study.

So was the publication of the study premature? Or could there possibly be some industry pressure put on the university to recant? A 2006 New York Times article reported that all of the industry-funded studies on aspartame (to date) found it safe, while 92% of the independent studies found significant problems. The US FDA has had more adverse reports on aspartame than all other food additives combined. Another article on aspartame [The Defense of Diet Soda] listed some of the health problems linked by studies to diet sodas: heart attacks, strokes, cancers, osteoporosis, tooth decay, and nervous system disorders. And while some studies show improved weight loss for diet soda drinkers, there are many others that don’t or show the opposite – that diet sodas cause weight gain. So there are many reasons to avoid diet sodas and really no reason to drink them. The pulling of the news story reminds me of a line by Hamlet’s mother: “the lady doth protest too much, methinks”.

Two other online articles on this subject that I referred to were: "Study: Aspartame linked to blood cancers" by E. Hector Corsi, Digital Journal, 7 Nov 2012, and "Aspartame Associated with Increased Risk of Blood Cancers in Long-Term Human Study" by Dr. Joseph Mercola, 7 Nov 2012.

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

142 Soda Pop [November 28, 2011]

Do you drink soda pop? If yes, then quitting may be the best single thing you can do to improve your health – maybe even better than quitting smoking. Here’s why.

The sugar content of most sodas is about 30 teaspoons in a 1L bottle. Most of the sugar in soda is in the form of high fructose corn syrup – the cheapest but also the most deadly (see my column #55 March 22, 2010). High sugar consumption is linked to obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, liver & kidney disease, high triglycerides, vascular heart disease, and aggressive anti-social behavior. One quarter of Americans now consume 180 lbs or more of added sugar a year (that’s a pound every two days).

Diet sodas aren’t the answer either. There are other health problems with the synthetic sweeteners used in soda (see my column #14 June 1, 2009). The flavors are all synthetic chemicals with absolutely no nutritive value and questionable safety. Carbonated beverages removes oxygen from your blood and the phosphoric or citric acids leach calcium from your bones and teeth.
When you think about it, there is really no good reason for drinking pop and plenty for avoiding it. Your body needs plenty of pure water, it does not need sugar and artificial flavors. If you were offered poison and told that it tastes good and that drinking it would make you “cool” or popular, would you? Probably not. How many million dollars of advertising would it take to change your mind?

The principle of moderation may apply here. My wife Donna remembers as a child getting a small bottle of Orange Crush at the spring sports day once a year. I might drink a can or two of ginger ale a month. More than one a week however could be jeopardizing our health. Make the switch from drinking pop to water and discover how your health will improve. It may not be easy to quit though – I’m told that certain pops can be quite addicting. It will be worth it though because when it comes to beverages, water is still the real thing!

For more information see mercola.com and many other websites on the topic.

This article is intended for educational purposes only; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

055 sugar is even worse than we thought [22 March 2010]

We’ve always known that sugar, as a source of empty calories, is not good for us. Some suspected that, in large amounts, it contributed to diabetes and heart disease. New research is showing that sugar, especially fructose, is worse than we thought.

Dr. Richard Johnson MD, a kidney disease researcher at the University of Colorado, published a book in 2008 called “The Sugar Fix – the High Fructose Fallout that is making you Fat and Sick”. The book is based on years of his research on the effects of fructose on the metabolic system in animals and humans.

Johnson originally focused his research on uric acid which he found was a significant factor in obesity, high blood pressure as well as kidney disease. At low levels uric acid is actually an important antioxidant, but at high concentrations it causes problems. The most well-known is gout – that painful arthritis that attacks the big toes. We knew that meats with a high purine amino acid content raises uric acid. What Johnson discovered to his surprise is that the simple sugar fructose is a strong promoter of uric acid.

Fructose is metabolized differently in the body. Laboratory animals fed a high fructose diet developed obesity, insulin resistance (which can lead to diabetes), fatty liver, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, kidney disease and vascular disease, while animals given the same calories as either dextrose or glucose did not.

Johnson noted a rise in these conditions in Americans over the past 20 years which coincides with the increase of added sugars in the typical American diet. One quarter of Americans now consume 180 lbs a year in added sugars. Is it a coincidence that one in four Americans are diabetic or pre-diabetic?

The most common sources of fructose are High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and sucrose. Even though HFCS is 55% fructose and sucrose is 50%, they are metabolized differently; an animal study found that HFCS increased fatty liver more than sucrose. HFCS is a very cheap food additive and is increasingly common in many processed foods. One of the highest sources of HFCS is soft drinks (keep in mind the sugar free “diet” pops with artificial sweeteners are no healthier). Fruit is not a significant source of fructose in the diet, but fruit juice can be.

A human trial with a high fructose diet caused an increase in hypertension. In a recent controlled clinical trial Johnson found that a low fructose diet significantly improved weight loss and blood pressure in overweight people.

Johnson found that the best way to benefit from a low fructose diet is to first eliminate it completely for two weeks. This allows your body to “reboot” after which you can tolerate small amounts. He suggests limiting fructose to 25g a day. To accomplish this you will need to eat mostly unprocessed foods and read labels carefully. It won’t be easy – a lab study found that, at least for rats, sugar was more addictive than cocaine – but your improved weight and health will make it worthwhile.

This article is intended for educational purposes only; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

020 Stevia – the Safe Herbal Sweetener [13 July 2009]

Stevia is an extract from a South American shrub found to be 400X sweeter than sugar but with negligible calories. It has a 1500 year history of human use in South America. There has been growing interest in stevia as a sugar substitute over the past decade.

In Canada and the United States stevia is approved for sale as a health supplement but not as a food additive (which has stricter guidelines). At present, both regulatory bodies deem stevia inadequately tested to be allowed as a food additive. Health Canada’s Natural Health Product Directorate (NHPD) reviewed the available information in 2006 and concluded that stevia “…may be beneficial in the maintenance of healthy blood sugar and blood pressure levels…” but also “…may present a risk to pregnant women, children and those who have low blood pressure...”

Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of the book “Sweet Deception” which exposes the risks of synthetic sugar substitutes, believes stevia to be the safest and healthiest alternative to sugar. He argues that the approval of artificial sweeteners with known toxicities, and the banning of the herb stevia, has more to do with industry lobbying than science. Many other countries have approved stevia as a food additive, including Japan where stevia extract makes up 41% of the sweetener market.

The FDA ban is based partially on two small scientifically questionable animal studies. The author of one of these studies, when informed that his study was used by the FDA as evidence that stevia is unsafe, responded “…the only possible way to report that the results showed detrimental effects is by taking information out of context…”  Many other studies found the stevia-fed animals to be as healthy or healthier than the controls. See www.stevia.net/safety.htm

Interestingly Cargill and Coca-Cola have been working on a sweetener derived from stevia and are applying for FDA approval to market it in soft drinks and food. In 2007 they applied for 24 patents for their products' use in everything from vitamins to cereals. If approval is granted, will they hold a monopoly on stevia?

Dr. Mercola recommends that people with insulin issues (diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol) should avoid all sweeteners, including stevia, as they can decrease sensitivity to insulin. However if you insist on sweetening your foods and beverages, then he strongly recommends stevia as the sweetener of choice.

This article is intended for educational purposes only; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

014 Sucralose Safety Re-examined [1 June 2009]

How far can we trust the food industry and government regulators to determine the safety of food additives? After all, such products must undergo thorough testing before being allowed on the market, right? Dr. Joseph Mercola in his 2006 book “Sweet Deception” addresses this question and re-examines the safety of artificial sweeteners.

Let’s take a closer look at one artificial sweetener, sucralose (marketed as Splenda). Its promoters proclaim its safety based on many studies and its approval by Canadian and American health agencies. See www.ific.org/publications/brochures/sucralosebroch.cfm.

Sucralose was approved for sale in the USA by the FDA in 1998, based on 110 studies. Sounds impressive, but only 2 of these were human studies and the longest of those was 4 days and was looking at its effect on tooth decay. The study testing human absorption was based on only 10 men. Among the animal studies some worrying findings showed up: decreased red blood cells, male infertility, spontaneous abortions, and a 23% death rate in rabbits (vs 6% in the controls). Canada was the first country to approve sucralose in 1991 (when presumably even fewer studies were available).

The name itself is very misleading. The “ose” ending suggests a sugar and promoters make much of the fact that it is made from sucrose. However the 5 chemical steps in transforming sucrose to sucralose results in significant chemical changes making it structurally more similar to DDT than sugar. Sucralose falls in the organochlorine chemical family, which are highly toxic and include carbon tetrachloride, PCBs and dioxin (Agent Orange).

Mercola’s book exposes ”…behind-the-scenes political deals, … shoddy science and deceptive advertising”. Mercola’s conclusion: “artificial sweeteners are to be avoided at all costs” and “all that [the FDA] protects now are the profits of its multinational corporation ‘clients’”. My conclusion: don’t believe everything you read – in food industry promotions or health professional newspaper articles (including this one). Read widely and think for yourself. You are ultimately responsible for your own health.

This article is intended for educational purposes only; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.