The Fascinating Truth About Aspartame, Cancer, & Neurotoxicity
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Is Aspartame’s Reputation Well-Deserved?
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your health-related opinions on aspartame, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- About 47% said “It is an evil carcinogenic neurotoxin”
- 20% said “It is safe-ish, but has health risks that are worse than sugar”
- About 19% said “It is not healthy, but better than sugar”
- About 15% said “It’s a perfectly healthy replacement for sugar”
But what does the science say?
Aspartame is carcinogenic: True or False?
False, assuming consuming it in moderation. In excess, almost anything can cause cancer (oxygen is a fine example). But for all meaningful purposes, aspartame does not appear to be carcinogenic. For example,
❝The results of these studies showed no evidence that these sweeteners cause cancer or other harms in people.❞
~ NIH | National Cancer Institute
Source: Artificial Sweeteners and Cancer
Plenty of studies and reviews have also confirmed this; here are some examples:
- Evaluation of aspartame cancer epidemiology studies based on quality appraisal criteria
- Aspartame, low-calorie sweeteners and disease: Regulatory safety and epidemiological issues
- Aspartame: A review of genotoxicity data
Why then do so many people believe it causes cancer, despite all the evidence against it?
Well, there was a small study involving giving megadoses to rats, which did increase their cancer risk. So of course, the popular press took that and ran with it.
But those results have not been achieved outside of rats, and human studies great and small have all been overwhelmingly conclusive that moderate consumption of aspartame has no effect on cancer risk.
Aspartame is a neurotoxin: True or False?
False, again assuming moderate consumption. If you’re a rat being injected with a megadose, your experience may vary. But a human enjoying a diet soda, the aspartame isn’t the part that’s doing you harm, so far as we know.
For example, the European Food Safety Agency’s scientific review panel concluded:
❝there is still no substantive evidence that aspartame can induce such effects❞
~ Dr. Atkin et al (it was a pan-European team of 21 experts in the field)
Source: Report on the Meeting on Aspartame with National Experts
See also,
❝The data from the extensive investigations into the possibility of neurotoxic effects of aspartame, in general, do not support the hypothesis that aspartame in the human diet will affect nervous system function, learning or behavior.
The weight of existing evidence is that aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption as a nonnutritive sweetener.❞
and
❝The safety testing of aspartame has gone well beyond that required to evaluate the safety of a food additive.
When all the research on aspartame, including evaluations in both the premarketing and postmarketing periods, is examined as a whole, it is clear that aspartame is safe, and there are no unresolved questions regarding its safety under conditions of intended use.❞
Source: Regulatory Toxicology & Pharmacology | Aspartame: Review of Safety
Why then do many people believe it is a neurotoxin? This one can be traced back to a chain letter hoax from about 26 years ago; you can read it here, but please be aware it is an entirely debunked hoax:
Urban Legends | Aspartame Hoax
Take care!
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Aging For Beginners – by Ezra Bayda & Elizabeth Hamilton
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This one’s not about how to avoid aging, but rather, how to be at peace with whatever aging may be happening, perhaps despite our best efforts.
The book is dedicated:
❝To all the starving and suffering children throughout the world, with the wish that they may someday have the opportunity to experience the life of a contented geriatric❞
It’s a stark reminder that old age is a privilege that many do not get to enjoy, thanks to poverty, disease, wars, and accidents and incidents along the way.
So, how to go about making the very most of what we have, for those of us who are perhaps going gray in a comfortable, safe environment?
The answer may surprise you: the authors tackle things head-on without dressing old age up in euphemisms or platitudes—they cover not just the physical decline that typically occurs eventually, but also the impact of the physical pain that this may bring, the way this may play into loneliness and helplessness, and perhaps anxiety and/or depression. And, of course, the topic of grief and loss, that for most of us becomes all the more part of our lives as we get older. For that matter, our own mortality is also something the authors come back to from start to finish.
Thus, this is not necessarily a cheerful book—but it gives the tools such that we can be cheerful about life in general, in the face of all the aforementioned things, without pretending that things that are not good are good, just, making our peace with what is, and making the most out of what we have.
The authors are Zen teachers with decades of experience, and this book is heavily influenced by Zen principles. And yes, it does teach meditation too, but that’s just one tool in the toolbox.
The style is deep and yet very readable, heavy of tone and at the same time inspiring of lightness of heart.
Bottom line: if you’d like to worry less about aging (while still doing all you want to stay young), this book can certainly help with that.
Click here to check out Aging For Beginners, and be at peace with yourself.
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Under Pressure: A Guide To Controlling High Blood Pressure – by Dr. Frita Fisher
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Hypertension kills a lot of people, and does so with little warning—it can be asymptomatic before it gets severe enough to cause harm, and once it causes harm, well, one heart attack or stroke is already one too many.
Aimed more squarely at people in the 35–45 danger zone (young enough to not be getting regular blood pressure checks, old enough that it may have been building up for decades), this is a very good primer on blood pressure, factors affecting it, what goes wrong, what to do about it, and how to make a good strategy for managing it for life.
The style is easy-reading, making this short (91 pages) book a very quick read, but an informative one.
Bottom line: if you are already quite knowledgeable about blood pressure and blood pressure management, this one’s probably not for you. But if you’re in the category of “what do those numbers mean again?”, then this is a very handy book to have, to get you up to speed so that you can handle things as appropriate.
Click here to check out Under Pressure, and get/keep yours under control!
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Dealing with Thirst!
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Busting The Myth of “Eight Glasses Of Water A Day”
Everyone knows we must drink 8 glasses of water a day, or else we’re going to get a failing grade at being a healthy human—like not flossing, or not using adequate sunscreen.
But… Do we? And does tea count? How about (we dare but whisper it) coffee? And soda drinks are mostly water, right? But aren’t some drinks dehydrating? Are special electrolyte drinks really better? There are so many things to consider, so many differing advices, and it’s easy to give up, or just choose what to believe in as a leap of faith.
A quick brain-teaser for you first, though:
If coffee and soda don’t count because they’re dehydrating, then what if you were to take:
– A concentrated tiny cup of espresso, and then a glass of water, would the glass of water count?
– Or (we don’t relish the thought) what if you took a spoonful of soda syrup, and then a glass of water, would the glass of water count?
If your answer was “yes, it’s a glass of water”, then why would it not count if it were taken all at once (e.g. as an Americano coffee, or a regular soda)?
If your answer was “yes, but that water might only offset the dehydration caused by the coffee/syrup, so I might only be breaking even”, then you were thinking about this the right way:
How much water you need depends on many factors that can be affected by what else you are consuming and what else you are doing. Science loves averages, so eight glasses a day may be great if you are of average health, and average body size, in a temperate climate, doing moderate exercise, and so on and so on.
If you’re not the most average person of all time? You may need to take into account a lot of factors, ranging from what you ate for dinner to how much you perspired during your morning exercises. As you (probably) don’t live in laboratory conditions, this can become an impossible task—and if you missed (or guessed incorrectly) even one factor, the whole calculation will be thrown off. But is there any other way to know?
What of the infamous pee test? Drink enough to make your urine as clear as possible, and if it’s dark, you’re dehydrated, common wisdom says.
In reality, however, that tells you not what’s in your body, but rather, what got ejected from your body. If your urine is dark, it might mean you had too little water, but it also could just mean you had the right amount of water but too much sodium, for instance. A study of this was done on athletes, and found no correlation between urine color and actual bodily hydration when measured directly via a blood test.
So, if we can’t just have an app tell us “drink this many glasses of water”, and we can’t trust urine color, what can we do?
What we can do is trust that our body comes with (for free!) a wonderful homeostatic system and it will try to correct any imbalances. If you are thirsty, you’re dehydrated. Drink something with plenty of water in, if not plain water.
But what about special electrolyte drinks? If you need salts, you will crave them. Craving a salty snack? Go for it! Or if you prefer not to snack, do a salt lick test (just put a little salt on your finger, and taste it; if it tastes good, wait a minute or two, and then have a little more, and repeat until it doesn’t).
Bonus Tip:
- Make sure you always have a source of hydration (that you enjoy!) to hand. Maybe it’s chilled water, maybe it’s a pot of tea, maybe it’s a sports drink, it doesn’t matter too much. Even coffee is actually fine, by the way (but don’t overdo it).
- Make a personal rule: “I will always make time for hydration”. That means, if you’re thirsty, have something with water in it now. Not when you’ve finished what you’re doing (unless you really can’t stop, because you are a racecar driver mid-race, or a surgeon mid-operation, or something), but now. Do not postpone it until after you’ve done some other thing first; you will forget and it will keep getting postponed. Always make time for water.
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What Flexible Dieting Really Means
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When Flexibility Is The Dish Of The Day
This is Alan Aragon. Notwithstanding not being a “Dr. Alan Aragon”, he’s a research scientist with dozens of peer-reviewed nutrition science papers to his name, as well as being a personal trainer and fitness educator. Most importantly, he’s an ardent champion of making people’s pursuit of health and fitness more evidence-based.
We’ll be sharing some insights from a book of his that we haven’t reviewed yet, but we will link it at the bottom of today’s article in any case.
What does he want us to know?
First, get out of the 80s and into the 90s
In the world of popular dieting, the 80s were all about calorie-counting and low-fat diets. They did not particularly help.
In the 90s, it was discovered that not only was low-fat not the way to go, but also, regardless of the diet in question, rigid dieting leads to “disinhibition”, that is to say, there comes a point (usually not far into a diet) whereby one breaks the diet, at which point, the floodgates open and the dieter binges unhealthily.
Aragon would like to bring our attention to a number of studies that found this in various ways over the course of the 90s measuring various different metrics including rigid vs flexible dieting’s impacts on BMI, weight gain, weight loss, lean muscle mass changes, binge-eating, anxiety, depression, and so forth), but we only have so much room here, so here’s a 1999 study that’s pretty much the culmination of those:
Flexible vs. Rigid Dieting Strategies: Relationship with Adverse Behavioral Outcomes
So in short: trying to be very puritan about any aspect of dieting will not only not work, it will backfire.
Next, get out of the 90s into the 00s
…which is not only fun if you read “00s” out loud as “naughties”, but also actually appropriate in this case, because it is indeed important to be comfortable being a little bit naughty:
In 2000, Dr. Marika Tiggemann found that dichotomous perceptions of food (e.g. good/bad, clean/dirty, etc) were implicated as a dysfunctional cognitive style, and predicted not only eating disorders and mood disorders, but also adverse physical health outcomes:
Dieting and Cognitive Style: The Role of Current and Past Dieting Behaviour and Cognitions
This was rendered clearer, in terms of physical health outcomes, by Dr. Susan Byrne & Dr. Emma Dove, in 2009:
❝Weight loss was negatively associated with pre-treatment depression and frequency of treatment attendance, but not with dichotomous thinking. Females who regard their weight as unacceptably high and who think dichotomously may experience high levels of depression irrespective of their actual weight, while depression may be proportionate to the degree of obesity among those who do not think dichotomously❞
Aragon’s advice based on all this: while yes, some foods are better than others, it’s more useful to see foods as being part of a spectrum, rather than being absolutist or “black and white” about it.
Next: hit those perfect 10s… Imperfectly
The next decade expanded on this research, as science is wont to do, and for this one, Aragon shines a spotlight on Dr. Alice Berg’s 2018 study with obese women averaging 69 years of age, in which…
In other words (and in fact, to borrow Dr. Berg’s words from that paper),
❝encouraging a flexible approach to eating behavior and discouraging rigid adherence to a diet may lead to better intentional weight loss for overweight and obese older women❞
You may be wondering: what did this add to the studies from the 90s?
And the key here is: rather than being observational, this was interventional. In other words, rather than simply observing what happened to people who thought one way or another, this study took people who had a rigid, dichotomous approach to food, and gave them a 6-month behavioral intervention (in other words, support encouraging them to be more flexible and open in their approach to food), and found that this indeed improved matters for them.
Which means, it’s not a matter of fate or predisposition, as it could have been back in the 90s, per “some people are just like that; who’s to say which factor causes which”. Instead, now we know that this is an approach that can be adopted, and it can be expected to work.
Beyond weight loss
Now, so far we’ve talked mostly about weight loss, and only touched on other health outcomes. This is because:
- weight loss a very common goal for many
- it’s easy to measure so there’s a lot of science for it
Incidentally, if it’s a goal of yours, here’s what 10almonds had to say about that, along with two follow-up articles for other related goals:
Spoiler: we agree with Aragon, and recommend a relaxed and flexible approach to all three of these things
Aragon’s evidence-based approach to nutrition has found that this holds true for other aspects of healthy eating, too. For example…
To count or not to count?
It’s hard to do evidence-based anything without counting, and so Aragon talks a lot about this. Indeed, he does a lot of counting in scientific papers of his own, such as:
and
The effect of protein timing on muscle strength and hypertrophy: a meta-analysis
…as well as non-protein-related but diet-related topics such as:
But! For the at-home health enthusiast, Aragon recommends that the answer to the question “to count or not to count?” is “both”:
- Start off by indeed counting and tracking everything that is important to you (per whatever your current personal health intervention is, so it might be about calories, or grams of protein, or grams of carbs, or a certain fat balance, or something else entirely)
- Switch to a more relaxed counting approach once you get used to the above. By now you probably know the macros for a lot of your common meals, snacks, etc, and can tally them in your head without worrying about weighing portions and knowing the exact figures.
- Alternatively, count moderately standardized portions of relevant foods, such as “three servings of beans or legumes per day” or “no more than one portion of refined carbohydrates per day”
- Eventually, let habit take the wheel. Assuming you have established good dietary habits, this will now do you just fine.
This latter is the point whereby the advice (that Aragon also champions) of “allow yourself an unhealthy indulgence of 10–20% of your daily food”, as a budget of “discretionary calories”, eventually becomes redundant—because chances are, you’re no longer craving that donut, and at a certain point, eating foods far outside the range of healthiness you usually eat is not even something that you would feel inclined to do if offered.
But until that kicks in, allow yourself that budget of whatever unhealthy thing you enjoy, and (this next part is important…) do enjoy it.
Because it is no good whatsoever eating that cream-filled chocolate croissant and then feeling guilty about it; that’s the dichotomous thinking we had back in the 80s. Decide in advance you’re going to eat and enjoy it, then eat and enjoy it, then look back on it with a sense of “that was enjoyable” and move on.
The flipside of this is that the importance of allowing oneself a “little treat” is that doing so actively helps ensure that the “little treat” remains “little”. Without giving oneself permission, then suddenly, “well, since I broke my diet, I might as well throw the whole thing out the window and try again on Monday”.
On enjoying food fully, by the way:
Mindful Eating: How To Get More Nutrition Out Of The Same Food
Want to know more from Alan Aragon?
Today we’ve been working heavily from this book of his; we haven’t reviewed it yet, but we do recommend checking it out:
Enjoy!
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Heart Health vs Systemic Stress
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At The Heart Of Good Health
This is Dr. Michelle Albert. She’s a cardiologist with a decades-long impressive career, recently including a term as the president of the American Heart Association. She’s the current Admissions Dean at UCSF Medical School. She’s accumulated enough awards and honors that if we list them, this email will not fit in your inbox without getting clipped.
What does she want us to know?
First, lifestyle
Although Dr. Albert is also known for her work with statins (which found that pravastatin may have anti-inflammatory effects in addition to lipid-lowering effects, which is especially good news for women, for whom the lipid-lowering effects may be less useful than for men), she is keen to emphasize that they should not be anyone’s first port-of-call unless “first” here means “didn’t see the risk until it was too late and now LDL levels are already ≥190 mg/dL”.
Instead, she recommends taking seriously the guidelines on:
- getting plenty of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein
- avoiding red meat, processed meats, refined carbohydrates, and sweetened beverages
- getting your 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise
- avoiding alcohol, and definitely abstaining from smoking
See also: These Top Five Things Make The Biggest Difference To Health
Next, get your house in order
No, not your home gym—though sure, that too!
But rather: after the “Top Five Things” we linked just above, the sixth on the list would be “reduce stress”. Indeed, as Dr. Albert says:
❝Heart health is not just about the physical heart but also about emotional well-being. Stress management is crucial for a healthy heart❞
~ Dr. Michelle Albert
This is where a lot of people would advise mindfulness meditation, CBT, somatic therapies, and the like. And these things are useful! See for example:
No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
…and:
However, Dr. Albert also advocates for awareness of what some professionals have called “Shit Life Syndrome”.
This is more about socioeconomic factors. There are many of those that can’t be controlled by the individual, for example:
❝Adverse maternal experiences such as depression, economic issues and low social status can lead to poor cognitive outcomes as well as cardiovascular disease.
Many jarring statistics illuminate a marked wealth gap by race and ethnicity… You might be thinking education could help bridge that gap. But it is not that simple.
While education does increase wealth, the returns are not the same for everyone. Black persons need a post-graduate degree just to attain similar wealth as white individuals with a high school degree.❞
~ Dr. Michelle Albert
Read in full: AHA president: The connection between economic adversity and cardiovascular health
What this means in practical terms (besides advocating for structural change to tackle the things such as the racism that has been baked into a lot of systems for generations) is:
Be aware not just of your obvious health risk factors, but also your socioeconomic risk factors, if you want to have good general health outcomes.
So for example, let’s say that you, dear reader, are wealthy and white, in which case you have some very big things in your favor, but are you also a woman? Because if so…
Women and Minorities Bear the Brunt of Medical Misdiagnosis
See also, relevant for some: Obesity Discrimination In Healthcare Settings ← you’ll need to scroll to the penultimate section for this one.
In other words… If you are one of the majority of people who is a woman and/or some kind of minority, things are already stacked against you, and not only will this have its own direct harmful effect, but also, it’s going to make your life harder and that stress increases CVD risk more than salt.
In short…
This means: tackle not just your stress, but also the things that cause that. Look after your finances, gather social support, know your rights and be prepared to self-advocate / have someone advocate for you, and go into medical appointments with calm well-prepared confidence.
Take care!
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How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
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Overcoming Loneliness & Isolation
One of the biggest mental health threats that faces many of us as we get older is growing isolation, and the loneliness that can come with it. Family and friends thin out over the years, and getting out and about isn’t always as easy as it used to be for everyone.
Nor is youth a guaranteed protection against this—in today’s world of urban sprawl and nothing-is-walkable cities, in which access to social spaces such as cafés and the like means paying the rising costs with money that young people often don’t have… And that’s without getting started on how much the pandemic impacted an entire generation’s social environments (or lack thereof).
Why is this a problem?
Humans are, by evolution, social creatures. As individuals we may have something of a spectrum from introvert to extrovert, but as a species, we thrive in community. And we suffer, when we don’t have that.
What can we do about it?
We can start by recognizing our needs, such as they are, and identifying to what extent they are being met (or not).
- Some of us may be very comfortable with a lot of alone time—but need someone to talk to sometimes.
- Some of us may need near-constant company to feel at our best—and that’s fine too! We just need to plan accordingly.
In the former case, it’s important to remember that needing someone to talk to is not being a burden to them. Not only will our company probably enrich them too, but also, we are evolved to care for one another, and that itself can bring fulfilment to them as much as to you. But what if you don’t a friend to talk to?
- You might be surprised at who would be glad of you reaching out. Have a think through whom you know, and give it a go. This can be scary, because what if they reject us, or worse, they don’t reject us but silently resent us instead? Again, they probably won’t. Human connection requires taking risks and being vulnerable sometimes.
- If that’s not an option, there are services that can fill your need. For some, therapy might serve a dual purpose in this regard. For others, you might want to check out the list of (mostly free) resources at the bottom of this article
In the second case (that we need near-constant company to feel at our best) we probably need to look more at our overall lifestyle, and find ways to be part of a community. That can include:
- Living in a close-knit community (places with a lot of retirees in one place often have this; or younger folk might look at communal living/working spaces, for example)
- Getting involved in local groups (you can check out NextDoor.com or MeetUp.com for this)
- Volunteering for a charity (not only are acts of service generally fulfilling in and of themselves, but also, you will probably be working with other people of a charitable nature, and such people tend to make for good company!)
Need a little help?
There are many, many organizations that will love to help you (or anyone else) overcome loneliness and isolation.
Rather than list them all here and make this email very long by describing how each of them works, here’s a great compilation of resources:
Don’t Forget…
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