Interesting research article on Splenda

[SociallyChallenged]

Article.

I haven't yet been able to find the actual article, but it provides some interesting results of the Splenda sweetener specifically. I know most people don't view them as that bad, but I've always been wary of artificial sweeteners. Chemically engineered substances have always frightened me a bit. I've dealt with plenty of stuff in the o-chem lab and I've never ever wanted to eat any of it. Can someone find the actual article? It'd be interesting food for thought.

EDIT: The "Article" link is now the actual article. Crono was kind enough to find it for us.

 

[StageLeft]

I believe that in light of recent history (including various drugs/chemicals recalled by FDA and other groups as more is understood) and the nature of these things, it's simply inevitable that at some point in the future it will be commonly accepted that they are bad for us, some worse than others. People who never took any chemistry class think that splenda is ok because it's based on sugar, but a single portion of a molecule, if changed, deems it no longer that molecule.

That said, I still do drink a good bit of diet drinks. I've stopped doing anything but sugar in my coffee/tea because it all tastes like anal leakage (yes, even the revered splenda). I keep meaning to ween from diet drinks but then I'd be stuck with sugared ones and I cannot do the calories

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I keep meaning to ween from diet drinks but then I'd be stuck with sugared ones and I cannot do the calories

Same here. I love the taste of Pepsi Max, I'm going to have a hard time giving it up if it turns out that it's really bad for my health.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I keep meaning to ween from diet drinks but then I'd be stuck with sugared ones and I cannot do the calories

Same here. I love the taste of Pepsi Max, I'm going to have a hard time giving it up if it turns out that it's really bad for my health.

It's not bad but Coke Zero is the ticket

 

[KoolDrew]

I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on a study done on rats. Hopefully it results in a lot more studies being done though, since there is a serious lack of research which makes it almost impossible to draw any sort of conclusion.

 

[skace]

Actually people think Splenda is good because it doesn't build up in the body.

I can't read this report now, but if it's one where Splenda is known to cause thyroid cancer in lab rats then it's very old, dates back to before it was even called Splenda - when it was called only Sucralose and wasn't being used in products outside of possibly Fruit2o. It's based on the result of feeding rats an all-splenda diet, basically mounds of the stuff without any other substance and the results were basically useless. I can't remember all the details at this point, I looked it up a long time ago when Sucralose was new at the time and I'd never heard of it.

"The sucralose dose which caused the effects was 3000 mg/kg/day for 28 days. For a 150 lb (68.2 kg) human, this would mean an intake of nearly 205 grams of sucralose a day, which is equivalent to more than 17,200 individual Splenda packets/day for approximately one month. The dose required to provoke any immunological response was 750 mg/kg/day,[23] or 51 grams of sucralose per day, which is nearly 4,300 Splenda packets/day."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...th_and_safety_concerns

 

[bossman34]

I think something is wrong with the link...I don't even see an abstract.

I have done quite a bit of research on this topic because clients are always asking me about it and I haven't found anything to stop me from using artificial sweeteners. I'm not a huge fan of putting chemically engineered in my body either, but the amounts found in a can of diet Coke are very small.

Here is a link to the Mayo Clinic which summarizes a lot of the research very well.

Link

 

[Crono]

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=...gl=us&client=firefox-a

PDF version

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Seems the link died. The article Crono posted is the full thing so I'll just post that instead.

And KoolDrew... really? Rats are fairly similar to humans in their physiological responses and such. A lot of fantastic research has come from comparing results from testing on rats and applying it to humans. Clearly they're not humans, but their responses are similar on many levels.

 

[KoolDrew]

And KoolDrew... really? Rats are fairly similar to humans in their physiological responses and such. A lot of fantastic research has come from comparing results from testing on rats and applying it to humans. Clearly they're not humans, but their responses are similar on many levels.

I'm not disagreeing. However, there are mechanisms that work quite differently and one cannot assume that just because it happens in mice means it'll hold true for humans as well. Further research would need to be done to prove so.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

And KoolDrew... really? Rats are fairly similar to humans in their physiological responses and such. A lot of fantastic research has come from comparing results from testing on rats and applying it to humans. Clearly they're not humans, but their responses are similar on many levels.

I'm not disagreeing. However, there are mechanisms that work quite differently and one cannot assume that just because it happens in mice means it'll hold true for humans as well. Further research would need to be done to prove so.

Gotcha. Agreed.

 

[skace]

Well I read 75% of that, unfortunately it just flies right over my head. I mean, they talk about it lowering the good bacteria in your gut, killing some, inhibiting others, modifying the ph of bowel movements (I think) and some other random stuff. However I'd have to actually look up what this means in terms of all food. Do other products do this?

Now, here is my problem with studies like this. If I were to ask you to do a study, would you think it intelligent to feed a group of rats 12 weeks worth of water? Don't they need food? Wouldn't it make sense to form 3 control groups, group 1 gets a basic food meal, group 2 gets a basic food meal combined with some amount of sugar, group 3 gets a basic food meal combined with some amount of splenda? Maybe when I add a regular diet into the equation the lost bacteria is regained so quickly that it becomes irrelevant. Who knows. Maybe the rats on sugar act the same way as the rats on splenda.

 

[interchange]

The precise roles and balance of normal gut flora is not a well understood thing. There is a fair amount of research going on relating to this. Think about it, though. If you consume large quantities of splenda, this study shows a slight alteration in microflora (in rats, by the way). What happens if you take a course of antibiotics? The effects on the P450 system are interesting because it is involved in the metabolism of so many drugs.

 

[StageLeft]

The precise roles and balance of normal gut flora is not a well understood thing.

A sentence I had not expected to read today Sounds like a little flower garden in my stomach. If that's the case, why does everything that comes out the other end smell so awful

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: interchange
The precise roles and balance of normal gut flora is not a well understood thing. There is a fair amount of research going on relating to this. Think about it, though. If you consume large quantities of splenda, this study shows a slight alteration in microflora (in rats, by the way). What happens if you take a course of antibiotics? The effects on the P450 system are interesting because it is involved in the metabolism of so many drugs.

If you refer to antibiotics, then you know some of the side effects aren't very fun. Also, antibiotics are usually a very short term treatment. Some people consume splenda every single day, multiple times a day. It's just food for thought. I haven't gotten around to reading the whole article yet, but hopefully will by the weekend.

 

[uclaLabrat]

The main argument against sucralose is the chlorine, since the alkyl chlorides can undergo radical chemistry. Thus, it is a possible carcinogen. But, it's hard to tell at this point.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I keep meaning to ween from diet drinks but then I'd be stuck with sugared ones and I cannot do the calories

Same here. I love the taste of Pepsi Max, I'm going to have a hard time giving it up if it turns out that it's really bad for my health.

It's not bad but Coke Zero is the ticket

I used to love Coke Zero the most, until I got ahold of Pepsi Max. I don't know why, but I just love the taste of the Max for some reason. And the wee bit of ginseng in it makes it even mo better.

 

[rezinn]

These effects in rats could easily be the same in humans and will alter the effects of any cyp3a4 metabolized drug significantly and ones transported by p-glycoprotein. This is a huge group of drugs that have many effects. The effect is the opposite of grapefruit juice apparently.