The dangers of Diet Soda

[Anck Su Namun]

and other stuff with artificial sweetners. Maybe I won't use trident advantage after all (it's sugar free).

http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/service/wsf/magazine/win_issue/win_nutrasweet.html

http://dem0nmac.mgh.harvard.edu/forum/AutonomicF/12.3.9710.04PMNeurocardiogenic

http://www.swankin-turner.com/aspartame/

[welfareloser]

no, no, no, no, no. not dangerous unless injected in massive quantities for most of your lifetime. ppl have been getting all upset over this since the eighties, and there just isn't anything to it, unless you have the EXTREMELY rare metabolic disorder called phenylketonuria... and that's not the kind of thing you walk around with without knowing (you die by age 9 mo. if it goes undiagnosed.)

one of the artificial sweeteners is simply a dipeptide. another is saccharine, i've looked at the studies, and you really have to bloat a rat with it before it does any damage.

the breakdown products are, in and of themselves, dangerous. but do you realize how little of the stuff there is in your body after drinking a case of diet coke?!?!?! you're probly getting more methanol out of your orange juice. and it's been a while since biochem, but phenylalanine and aspartic acid are JUST AMINO ACIDS, the basic components of proteins. they're all over your body already. too much will hurt you, and you can't get too much from "diet" foods.

and i think trident simply uses sorbitol, or some other sugar-alcohol... it's technically "sugar" free, but it's still a very mundane, very SAFE compound.

[Anck Su Namun]

I still don't like eating or using artificial stuff. It can't possibly be good for you. Whenever I have had diet soda (probably about 5 times in my life), I got really sick. Although I might be allergic to it on top of everything. I am allergic to everything else, why not that. :heh:

[welfareloser]

Originally posted by nefertiti
I still don't like eating or using artificial stuff. It can't possibly be good for you.

that's fine. but just don't go changing your habits based on a tripod page based on "a speech i did in 8th grade (i'm in 11th grade now)" in which all the "research" links are other tripod and homestead pages (and all of them broken links, to boot.)

[oblongmelon]

diet pepsi flows through my blood :0

[welfareloser]

Originally posted by oblongmelon
diet pepsi flows through my blood :0

really? whatta coincidence. blood flows through my diet pepsi twist.

[johnnymk]

I remember reading a few articles a couple of years ago how NutraSweet was approved by the FDA in a very rapid manner. Supposedly, , it didn't go through the rigorous testing that other foods do.
I also remember reading that if you leave Diet Coke in a hot garage, that it soon turns to MEK, a very harsh cleansing agent. This is the stuff that they used to use in paint strippers.
I don't remember the sources. It's been years since I read them.And I never verified whether the articles were,in fact, true.
I do stay away from foods that contain NutraSweet because of potential problems. Why take a chance?

[welfareloser]

if by mek you mean methyl ethyl ketone, i couldn't find anythign on that ...

i did find this:

Less methanol would result from 1½c of diet soft drink than 1c of fruit juice...
Methanol, a by-product of aspartame breakdown, is the concern. However, as a comparison, 1 liter of beverage sweetened with aspartame can produce up to 58 mg of methanol. The average amount of methanol in fruit juice is 140 mg per liter, or 3 times the amount found in the aspartame-sweetened beverage.


and the other concern is formaldehyde, also found in lower concentrations in diet drinks than in fruit juice and other random drinks...

this was interesting:

According to an article in Consumer Reports, food and beverages containing phenylalanine, the major ingredient in aspartame, must be labeled due to the genetic disorder, phenylketonuria (PKU). The U.S. carries a warning on all aspartame products to alert people with PKU (58). People with this genetic disorder lack the enzyme needed to metabolize phenylalanine and therefore it "accumulates" in the body and can "cause severe mental retardation" (Roberts 33). According to Steven Farber, Ph.D. candidate in brain and cognitive sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there are an "estimated 10 million people who are carriers and may not know it." He states that these PKU carriers are also at risk because "they cannot degrade phenylalanine as effectively as normal individuals and may be sensitive to increased levels in their diets" (48).

i can't find much about any other potentially harmful breakdown products...

[johnnymk]

That is REALLY interesting about the methanol in juices. My body has a hard time digesting juices. I almost always get a severe acidic stomach and many times my mouth breaks out with fever blisters.
I wonder if the amount of methanol is relative to the time it remains in solution before you ingest it? Maybe Nature intended for juices to be drunk IMMEDIATELY after processing. Just a thought.

[welfareloser]

Originally posted by johnnymk

I wonder if the amount of methanol is relative to the time it remains in solution before you ingest it? Maybe Nature intended for juices to be drunk IMMEDIATELY after processing. Just a thought.

almost definitely right.

and the bad stomach is probly just from the acids in general, or from any number of other harsh little compounds in fruits... like the stuff in green apples that give you the squirts... the coloring agents are often pretty active lil buggers... it takes 100 ml of methanol to kill you, so probly at least 1 ml to have any noticeable effect at all... and they're talking about 140 mg per liter of juice... so that's... lessee... 32g/mol... aw hell, who cares. lets say it's the same as water, it's close enough. so we're talkin about .1 ml ethanol per liter of juice... probly not enough to bother. just a guess, tho.

[Anck Su Namun]

Originally posted by welfareloser


that's fine. but just don't go changing your habits based on a tripod page based on "a speech i did in 8th grade (i'm in 11th grade now)" in which all the "research" links are other tripod and homestead pages (and all of them broken links, to boot.)

I have read this many other places too. That was just the first one that came up in my search. I edited the first post and found some better links.

Also, it is probably true that aspartame has to be ingested in large quantities for it to be harmful. But if you use it constantly over a period of time, that amounts to large quantities.
:thumbdown to all the artificial unhealthy crap we eat in this country. It's no mystery why so many of us have cancer. You are what you eat and all we eat is processed, artificial and unhealthy crap.

[Anck Su Namun]

Originally posted by johnnymk
I remember reading a few articles a couple of years ago how NutraSweet was approved by the FDA in a very rapid manner. Supposedly, , it didn't go through the rigorous testing that other foods do.
I also remember reading that if you leave Diet Coke in a hot garage, that it soon turns to MEK, a very harsh cleansing agent. This is the stuff that they used to use in paint strippers.
I don't remember the sources. It's been years since I read them.And I never verified whether the articles were,in fact, true.
I do stay away from foods that contain NutraSweet because of potential problems. Why take a chance?

Agreed. You know the makers of regular coke use it to clean the batteries of their cars? Cola doesn't appeal to me anymore.
Oh and my dad did an experiment with it to and it ate a hole right through a hankerchief. (the coke)

[topane]

I just don't think it's a good idea to put too many "man-made" items into the body. We've had thousands of years of evolution to handle natural foods. The human body is not sure how to handle all the additives and chemicals which have been added to food in the past several decades.

[Anck Su Namun]

Originally posted by topane
I just don't think it's a good idea to put too many "man-made" items into the body. We've had thousands of years of evolution to handle natural foods. The human body is not sure how to handle all the additives and chemicals which have been added to food in the past several decades. Indeed. I read this forward that said, "we have so much food, but so little nutrition." Isn't that the truth.
Furthermore, some of the meat people eat is so gross. Yesterday my boss was eeewing at me cause I told her one of the times I will drink milk is with speghetti or other tomatoey dishes. This from a woman who eats hog intesdines and raw oysters :rolleyes:
Also, this guy my mom knows was telling her whenever they make stuffed ham (a fav around this area) they have to do it outside cause it stinks so bad. Maybe it's just me, but why the hell would you eat something that smells bad??? If any of you eat stuffed ham please enlighten me. Thanks. Oh, also a bunch of people died here a couple years from eating that. It was at a church dinner or something.

[johnnymk]

Maybe one of the reasons for the increased incidence of obesity is that it takes more food to get the same amount of nutrition that it did decades ago.

[Anck Su Namun]

Originally posted by johnnymk
Maybe one of the reasons for the increased incidence of obesity is that it takes more food to get the same amount of nutrition that it did decades ago. yea all the fast food and junk. I think it has to do with the increased incidents of diabetes as well.

[Windsor]

Well, just becuase coke will eat through a hankie overnight, doesn't mean it will eat up your teeth or your stomach or anything. I mean, the hankie was in the coke for a long long time...and unless you keep coke swilling around in your mouth for 12 hours, or don't brush your teeth for some days while drinking coke, it shouldn't cause much damage. Its a given that coke is full of sugar and quite acidic, but then stomach acid is pretty strong, as well.

I recently read an article about aspartame, about how it will cause all sorts of diseases like MS and the such, and then there was a rebuttal that basically said everything was false, and asparatame was harmless. I remember something about it was full of dangerous chemicals and such, but they probably neutralize each other like a really really strong base and a really really strong acid would. Alone they would kill you ,but mixed together you get salt and water.

[welfareloser]

well, actually it is full of "dangerous" chemicals... but no more so than a hunk of broccoli or a slice of organic bread... as far as we know.

so yeah, what makes it eat through the hanky or clean the toilet is just acid, and it is less acidic than any piece of fresh citrus fruit, or most fruit juices, etc...

but there could be some ugly stuff in there that we don't know about yet, so sticking to as a natural as you can conveniently get isn't really a bad idea.

[Anck Su Namun]

Originally posted by Windsor
Well, just becuase coke will eat through a hankie overnight, doesn't mean it will eat up your teeth or your stomach or anything. I mean, the hankie was in the coke for a long long time...and unless you keep coke swilling around in your mouth for 12 hours, or don't brush your teeth for some days while drinking coke, it shouldn't cause much damage. Its a given that coke is full of sugar and quite acidic, but then stomach acid is pretty strong, as well.

I never said it was overnight. It was within a couple hours.
Also when my mom was a kid she put one of her baby teeth inside a glass of coke and it dissolved within a couple hours as well.

[Anck Su Namun]

Originally posted by welfareloser
well, actually it is full of "dangerous" chemicals... but no more so than a hunk of broccoli or a slice of organic bread... as far as we know.

so yeah, what makes it eat through the hanky or clean the toilet is just acid, and it is less acidic than any piece of fresh citrus fruit, or most fruit juices, etc...

but there could be some ugly stuff in there that we don't know about yet, so sticking to as a natural as you can conveniently get isn't really a bad idea.

I wouldn't compare broccoli to a can of coke. One is far heathlier than the other. Of course there are some pesticides on fruits and veggies, which is why I get mine from the ammish cause they don't do that crap. Also acids and sugars in fruit occur naturally, unlike processed foods/drinks.

Also when something is organic it is less likely to have all that crap in it. Nothing is for sure of course, like when my mom buys "100% grain fed beef" it could very well be a lie and that meat could have come from cows who ate other cows, resulting in mad cow disease. But it is better to play it safe, and eat as naturally as possible, like you said.

[styleee]

Originally posted by nefertiti

Also when my mom was a kid she put one of her baby teeth inside a glass of coke and it dissolved within a couple hours as well.

why would she do that?

i'm having trouble believing that is true (that your mom actually did that when she was a kid.) and i'm sure we've all heard about coke dissolving teeth, but i'm also pretty sure i've heard the same thing about putting a tooth in milk.

[welfareloser]

Originally posted by styleee


why would she do that?

i'm having trouble believing that is true (that your mom actually did that when she was a kid.) and i'm sure we've all heard about coke dissolving teeth, but i'm also pretty sure i've heard the same thing about putting a tooth in milk.

i'm pretty sure that the coke wouldn't dissolve even a baby tooth in just a few hours, unless its structure was already seriously undermined by cariogenic or other disease processes.

and you're supposed to put a tooth in milk to carry it to the dentist if it got kicked out and you want to reattach it.

and broccoli can be compared to coke. coke has nasty refined sugar and evil caffeine, but brocolli might have e coli - yeah it's only "might," but it "might" kill you... happens to several hundred ppl a year. very different problems, but still problems. my point was that "natural" ain't always good and "unnatural" ain't always bad (not saying that you dint know that...)

[YanksFanRy]

WelfareLoser, you seem to be the local expert, so I have a question for you:

My AP European History teacher was a Diet Coke addict. He drinks at least one during each of three classes each day. He buys the 24 packs at Costco which is empty in around two weeks. Is this enough artificial sweetener to affect him?

Thanks

[Anck Su Namun]

Come on now welfare, you have to admit having fruits and veggies are far better for you then say, candy or soda.

A little of that crap is fine. I have a piece of chocolate or a root beer once in a great while. But not all the time.

P.S. and you eat tripe! ick. how can that possibly be good for you, or even taste good. eeew.

[welfareloser]

Originally posted by nefertiti
Come on now welfare, you have to admit having fruits and veggies are far better for you then say, candy or soda.

A little of that crap is fine. I have a piece of chocolate or a root beer once in a great while. But not all the time.

P.S. and you eat tripe! ick. how can that possibly be good for you, or even taste good. eeew.

i do agree. sorry, i just shoulda kep my mouf shet since the argument was already over; i said broccoli and coke are a fair comparison because of blah, you said they're not because of blah, and neither one of us were wrong, but mah mouf kep runnin... :P

yes. i firmly believe in eating lots of veggies and whole grains. it has completely reversed several chronic disease processes in me. doctors don't stress its importance enough.

i also firmly believe that caffeine, a molecule whose only reason for existence is to act as a natural pesticide (it's an isect neurotoxin, you should see how horribly they die after chewing their way through a coffee bean) is probly a bad thing to put in your body. i also consume a hell of a lot of it. :D

i guess that last paragraph made no discernible point whatsoever, so let me wrap this up quick...

as to the how much diet coke is too much question: you would give yourself a cardiac "event" and die from all the caffein in diet coke before you ever managed to consume enough of it to do any damage with the aspartame.

[Anck Su Namun]

Originally posted by welfareloser

as to the how much diet coke is too much question: you would give yourself a cardiac "event" and die from all the caffein in diet coke before you ever managed to consume enough of it to do any damage with the aspartame.

True, but the less artificial junk the better. It caused cancer in lab rats, so it prob does to us over time.

and yes caffeine is evil too, but i couldn't totally give up chocolate :P

[Anck Su Namun]

Originally posted by styleee


why would she do that?

i'm having trouble believing that is true (that your mom actually did that when she was a kid.) and i'm sure we've all heard about coke dissolving teeth, but i'm also pretty sure i've heard the same thing about putting a tooth in milk.

uuuh yea it is true, she had lost one of her baby teeth and she put it in some coke. It's not like she yanked it out of her mouth or anything. and she wouldn't lie to me either.

[welfareloser]

Originally posted by nefertiti


True, but the less artificial junk the better.

but it's not exactly "artificial" junk that caused the cancer in lab rats, it's the degradation products, which are found naturally in much higher quantities in other natural foods.

it's a matter of degree.

for example, ppl get all anal about radiation from xrays. when i was doing small animal surgeries and other misc lab work, i was pregnant, and wasn't allowed to do halothane surgeries anymore (halothane is administered as a gas, and can cause spontaneous abortion). reasonable precaution. i also wasn't allowed to use the xray machine. silly precaution. i got 10x more harmful radiation on my 1/2-hour walk to work from the sun than i did from an entire year of hangin out with the xray machine.

another example: mercury bad. mad hatter's disease. mental retardation. etc. so ppl worry about dental amalgam (silver fillings, 50% mercury.) you get 100x more mercury drinking water and breathing air than you do from a mouthful of fillings. (not that any of it's good, just sayin that if you're gonna worry about mercury, move to iceland before you go have all your fillings drilled outn your head.)

so, jsut as fillings or xray machines should not even show up on you "bad stuff" radar, neither should diet coke... lotsa other stuff to worry about.