A Popular Sweetener Was Linked to Increased Anxiety in Generations of Mice
Could the sweetened drinks we're consuming be making us feel a little more anxious? A 2022 study looking at the effects of the artificial sweetener aspartame on mice suggests that it's a possibility that's worth investigating further.
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Wow, lots of astroturfed opinions defending aspartame.
It's not astroturfing it's people sick of these studies where they pump ungodly amounts of aspartame into mice until they get a reaction. Aspartame doesn't do anything at the levels humans consume it, it's one of the most studied compounds in food.
It still tastes shit though.
Worse are the drinks that took half the sugar out, but pumped sweeteners in as well, so you still get fat and now it tastes crap too.
It said it was like 15% of human recommended intake.
Sorry legit haven't read the article but sounds like you have, so I'll ask for clarity
Would that be the equivalent of a 15% daily recommended dose, as adjusted by weight for a rat, or is it literally 15% of the daily allowance of a human, pumped into the rat? Because the latter is definitely more of what vibe I get from the previous poster.
When a sample of mice were given free access to water dosed with aspartame equivalent to 15 percent of the FDA's recommended maximum daily amount for humans, they generally displayed more anxious behavior in specially designed mood tests.
Cool, so it's 15% of the RDA for humans, divided by whatever the avg weight difference between a rat and a human is, right? Or similar? That's the best interpretation of that quote, though it is still a bit ambiguous lol
I read it as the rat equivalent of 15% for humans.
Yeah, that's what I get now. I would like if they had a more specific rundown of how that number was calculated, and how much water it was in / the rats consumed. May be in the article or study, still haven't actually read it and don't have the time ATM.
That quote makes it sound like it's not adjusted by weight. But it also doesn't mention the aspartame to water ratio, or how much of the water that the rats drank.
Here's the relevant sentence in the study:
The FDA recommended maximum DIV for aspartame for humans is 50 mg/kg (33). Based on allometric conversion utilizing pharmacokinetic and body surface area parameters (43), the mouse equivalent of the human DIV is 615 mg/kg/d. Therefore, the male mice received a daily aspartame dose equivalent to 14.0%, 7.0%, and 3.5% of the FDA recommended human DIV, and the females received a dose equivalent to 15.5%, 7.7%, and 3.9% of the human DIV.
It's a lot to unpack, but my interpretation is that it's been adjusted for a rat
To translate that into something sensible, the RDA in the US is 50 mg/kg = 110.25 mg/lb. 15% of that is 16.5 mg/lb. So 1653 mg per 100 lbs of bodyweight.
A can of diet coke is about 200 mg of aspartame. So that's a bit over 8 cans of coke per 100 lbs of body weight. Or 1.5 2-liter bottles per 100 lbs.
That's... kinda a lot.
And cigarettes don't cause cancer, and burning fossil fuels doesn't cause global warming, and...
Ultimately life causes cancer. All of these things accelerate the speed that cancer tends to develop but, well... I doubt a cigarette a day will significantly impact your life expectancy. The dose makes the poison, after all.
cigarettes don’t cause cancer
they don't
smoking a pack a day raises the possibility of cancer
drinking 20l of diet coke a day would probably also cause anxiety
and burning fossil fuels doesn’t cause global warming
climate change is natural. Ice age didn't end because of fossil fuels
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
By all means, the Earth goes through cyclical changes. The current change is completely out of line with natural cycles, however. With the amount of data we've collected on the subject, you'd have to be an absolute braindead moron to disagree with that at this point.
K
Glad to see the "everything positive is astroturfing" clowns made their way over from reddit, too.
The important thing is you found a way to feel superior to both without needing to voice your opinion.
Any evidence to back up the assertion that they are shills, or is it just an empty ad hominem because you can't address an actual point?
To be clear, fuck that aspartame garbage.
Any reason you think I should care about your opinion on anything, at all?
But to address your question, maybe it has something to do with walls of replies that read like a PR script. Use your head for more than memes.
So, no, you have no evidence to back up the assertion, it's just how you feel.
Use your head for more than memes.
If blaming me for your inability to back up your claims is your definition "using your head" I'm happy to continue going through life without doing so.
You do you, bro/chick.
Yes, I definitely plan to do that. Thanks for the permission. Lol
I mean, if the choice is between sugar and aspartame... seems like an easy choice to make - the science should speak for itself
I've been dabbling with stevia but last time I put to packets in my tea and it was apparently too much and I did not feel well after
Choice should be sugar, just a lot less of it
That's my take, but It took overloading on sugar to get me there. My grandma made southern sweet tea as she called it. It was like sugar water lol. We went out to eat 10 years ago and I was thirsty, had 3 large glasses of sweet tea before the food came, spent most of the time in the bathroom and could no longer stand sugary drinks. Unsweet tea, or half as much simple syrup if I can choose.
I tried stevia, also, and it's too sweet.