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February 25, 2007
A Few Thoughts On How To Think About Nutrition
[WARNING: I am not picking on anyone in particular, though chances are most everyone will be offended by *something* in this post.]
There are a lot of little sayings about how to eat that circulate in the popular culture. "Eat around the outside of the grocery store." "Eat only whole foods." "Don't eat anything processed." "Don't eat anything white."
Those sayings often have some wisdom, and for normal people who are just seeking to avoid the horror of the Standard American Diet, they're probably pretty good advice.
But I strongly believe that people pursuing CR owe it to ourselves to take a more nuanced view of nutrition. CR is hard enough in itself: lowering your calories below what your body *thinks* it needs is a process that takes focus, concentration, and information. We minimize foods that are high in calories and low in nutrition, though many of us eat them from time to time and balance them with our other meals. But when you start to rule out entire categories of foods, not based on solid evidence-based scientific information but based on nutrition superstition, you may be putting unnecessary obstacles in your already difficult course.
That is not to say that there are not other valid considerations when making our decisions about food. People who are ethically committed to vegetarianism or veganism may put those concerns ahead of nutritional issues or convenience. It's possible to do CRON as a vegan, but I think it's a lot harder, and means sacrificing the convenience of getting a low-calorie, high protein meal of grilled chicken on a salad at a restaurant out with co-workers. If I never ate out, I would probably be a complete vegetarian. But alas, I'm not willing to make that compromise, as of yet. I may, soon. I frequently send little emails to Erin whining about my existential crisis as a former vegan turned CR'd attempting to live with my super-low calorie requirements and my social life and my ethical concerns. He is encouraging and helpful, but there are no easy answers.
Other folks value supporting local farmers, or organic farmers, or fairly traded products, so they might factor these issues into their food choices. I have complete respect for all of these choices.
My concern is when people are making choices based on either misinformation or just plain superstition. Classic example: this whole diet soda kerfuffle.
[Yes, Cat and Allswellinhell, it's coming.]
Objections that are, in my mind, valid, to diet soda:
-- If you don't like the taste, don't drink it.
-- It's expensive (as opposed to water)
-- It takes packaging (environmental concern)
-- There are some sodas that mix benzoic acid (or sodium benzoate) with vitamin C. When you mix those folks, you end up with benzene, which is carcinogenic. So to avoid this problem, don't drink sodas that list benzoic acid and ascorbic acid at the same time.
-- Some people who have serious sugar addictions find that anything with artificial sweeteners triggers their sugar cravings (but lots don't.)
-- I'm sure I could think of more and people will add them in the comments.
Here are some objections to diet sodas that I do not consider valid:
-- EEEEEK! It's not *natural*!
-- EEEEEK! It has artificial sweetener!
-- It's processed.
-- It's not found in nature (though I am still looking for the Diet Dr. Pepper tree, and will let you know when I locate it and plant our backyard full of them.)
-- Our ancestors didn't drink it.
-- It's not virtuous.
-- It keeps alive the idea of soda, which is a "junk" food, therefore we should not drink it, even if it can be proven that it does not harm our actual health. (The "it's the thought that counts" school of nutritional counseling.)
-- It's going to rot my bones (this one is not irrational, it's just most likely incorrect for CR'd folks, which I will explain in a moment.)
-- Some people have bad reactions to them.
'Let's take these one by one.
-- It's got artificial sweetener.
First: just because something is artificial does not make it unhealthy. Lots of things that are artificial are good for you. Lots of things that grow in the ground are not. Ask anyone who has swallowed a poisonous mushroom if you doubt this. Opposing foods on the grounds that they are artificial is an ideology, not to be confused with sound scientific information based on evidence.
That being said, it certainly does not follow that all things artificial are safe. We must take them one by one and evaluate the evidence. For instance, aspartame was introduced in the early eighties with what probably was too little testing. At the time, it was reasonable to avoid drinking it for a while, while we waited for more evidence to come in. Since then, however, it has been tested A LOT. Have a look at the survival curves of rats fed aspartame, in that study which was recently hyped as supposedly showing that long term aspartame exposure really does cause cancer, which as you can see from the survival curves, showed no such thing. The curves are about the same, and in females, there seems to be a tiny bit of lifespan lengthening in rats fed aspartame! Drink up, little rodents!) We also have over twenty years of actual people using the stuff, with very few documented problems (never mind that sugar, which is "natural," is ruining the teeth and health of Americans, especially children, in a very well-documented fashion. Call it "pure milled cane juice" on the label and sell it at Whole Foods, whatever!) Yes, some people have bad reactions to aspartame. Those people should not consume it. Most people do not have bad reactions to it, and even those who claim to, in double-blind studies, often have no worse reaction to it than to a placebo.
If you, personally, have a bad reaction to any substance, manmade or out of the ground, vegetable, fish or fowl, stop consuming it! I stopped watching sports on television when I realized that I have a bad reaction to it. A die hard Red Sox fan should not follow suit.
Sucralose is also quite safe... and certainly safer than sugar. Mary had a great treatment of this issue in a recent entry.
Okay, having dispensed with the artificial sweetener issue, on to the "processed" issue.
There are processed foods that are very good for you. Nonfat organic yogurt (unless you are allergic to it) is a good example. It doesn't come straight out of the ground or out of the cow, but it's one of the lowest calorie, healthiest sources of calcium you can find. There are other processed foods that may not be ideal sources of this or that, but are perfectly fine, and can help you keep your calories low and nutrition high while maintaining your job, housecleaning, and life. For instance, once a week or so I eat a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner, usually under 200 calories. I add my own unsaturated fat, usually flax oil and/or almonds, sometimes I put brewers yeast on the veggies. That's perfectly fine! It's low cal, doesn't have anything toxic in it, high protein, fills me up, and is a fine thing to grab when I'm running in the door two minutes before dinner. Most days I eat a combination of veggies, brewers yeast, sometimes more nonfat organic dairy. But a frozen dinner, as part of a calorie-controlled, nutrient balanced diet, is just fine! Just because something is processed doesn't mean it's bad for you, especially in the context of an overall extremely nutritious, low calorie diet. That's what I mean about we CR people being able to exercise a little more judgement than the average Joe who thinks that eating healthy is just avoiding processed foods. I am capable of reading the ingredients on a package, deciding if it's something I want to eat, and evaluating it in the context of my overall nutrition for the meal, day, week, etc.
Now there are some things that are processed that I'd drop like a hot potato. Anything with transfats, for instance. Gotta go. But not because they're processed. I'd drop a poisonous mushroom too, right back onto the ground where it came from.
On to the old "Our ancestors didn't..."
This argument is so absurd that I find it difficult to engage it. Our ancestors didn't live very long, had very different priorities in life (avoiding starvation, running from hungry wild animals, starting fires to prevent a freezing death) and didn't benefit from the tremendous wealth of information and technology that our more recent ancestors have provided us with. Things that we eat should be evaluated on the basis of what they actually do to us, not theories about what ancient people ate.
This is fun, let's do another.
"It's not virtuous." Or some variation thereof.
I've written extensively about how I find it most counterproductive to think of food in moral terms. Foods either make us healthier or they don't. They either fit into our lifestyle or they don't. They either taste good to us or they don't. There's only one way to find out: do the research and/or give it a try. I am not doing CR to prove that I am a good or moral person, and if I were, I think that would be downright silly because my ability to eat this or that proves nothing about my character. I wish that all this talk of food as morality would just go away. It sets people up for ridiculous guilt, which in turn sets them up for more binging, followed by more fasting or purging, followed by my eventual entry on that topic.
Ditto on the "idea of junk food." CR is not about how we feel about food. Most of us find that we feel better about food post-CR than pre, but whether we like "junk" or not, we can still do CR and improve our health, hopefully even lengthen our lives. Lower calories, more nutrition, that's all.
"It's going to rot my bones."
This one is not irrational. This one is just a misunderstanding, but not too far off. It's also a good example of how mechanistic thinking, when contradicted by evidence, can lead you in the wrong direction.
It goes like this: consuming phosphorus, and also "acid ash" foods, increases calcium excretion. So you'd think that consuming something with phosphorus -- especially as "phosphoric acid" (like diet soda), which is also an "acid ash" metabolizer -- might make your bones weaker. You wouldn't be unreasonable to make that assumption. But if you're Cat, and Cat is really who she says she is (as opposed to an elderly woman getting less than the RDA of calcium), then you'd be wrong.
The bottom line is that the increase in calcium excretion from these kinds of effects is very small -- so small that it's negligible, if you're getting enough calcium in your diet to compensate for it. In large studies where the diets of people are tracked long-term and compared to their health risks, it's been found that there is an increased risk of bone problems in cola drinkers -- but only in the ones who don't get enough calcium in their diets! (The same is true for people who eat a lot of protein, which is also "acid ash"). So Cat, who is getting sufficient calcium in her diet, and is even tracking it to make sure, can drink diet soda without weakening her bones. Cat is also doing tons of bone building exercise, setting a fine example for the rest of us. So Cat is doing a lot to protect her bones, and should drink diet soda if she feels like it.
The thing that gets me so worked up about people cutting out diet soda based on either myths or logical misunderstandings is that when you're in the midst of such radical change as going on CR, drinking that diet soda might be just what you need to make it to your next meal without snacking on something that has calories you don't need. Sure, if you want to get extra health benefits while you drink something calorie free, you can pull a Robin and drink a gallon of green tea. But if that little pop of Diet Coke just satisfies you on an existential level, for heaven's sake, drink it! Keep your calcium high, do your bone building exercise, and squeeze a bit of lemon or lime into that Diet Coke. Buy me one while you're at it.
We who practice CR have the overriding aim of eating as few calories as possible while maintaining nutrition. When a food ideology that is not based on evidence causes us to eat more calories, then I'd say, throw the food ideology out. That's not to be confused with genuine concerns that are other than nutritional, like the ones I mentioned early in the post: vegetarianism, environmental concerns, etc. What I'm talking about is an unsupported belief that food that is "whole" is better for you than food that is "processed." Eating sugar instead of artificial sweeteners because you're convinced that something is bad just because it's artificial (not because there's actual evidence to support your conviction about the particular artificial substance) is counterproductive for the person whose aims for CRON. If you want to play everything super safe and give up everything that might possibly be harmful, you can try to do that. But most people find it doesn't work. In the quest to give up the artificial, they all too frequently consume more calories, and usually of substances that we know are bad for you, like sugar and saturated fat.
Are you still with me? Can we still be friends? I know that a lot of people will find my position on this downright offensive. I hate to be the cause of controversy (not that you can tell!) but I've spent so much time angsting about Cat and Emily trying to give up diet soda that I just felt like it had to be said. If you find that green tea really does please you more than diet Coke, then go for it. I tend to have one diet soda a day, a ton of green, black and herbal tea, two cups of coffee, and a bunch of water including seltzer water. That works for me. You've got to decide what works for you.
That brings me to another point I've been meaning to underline. To do CR means to take on responsibility for your own health. I spent seven months in intense research (it helped that I was single at the time!) to design my own diet and decide what I wanted to eat and what I wanted to minimize. I did the work myself, searching the CR Society archives, reading cited papers, checking books out of the library, ordering books online, reading more articles, and experimenting on myself. My old blog over at blogspot chronicles the long tale of how I evolved my current practices. I made a lot of mistakes that you may find entertaining. My practice continues to evolve over time, and will probably never stop growing and changing. But I got to my own beliefs by doing my own research. You need to do the same.
As much as I believe in argument from authority when it comes to how to wash the kitchen floor, I don't believe in the kind of guruism that says that just because someone you like and respect does something, you should do it too. There are things I can warn you about, issues I can suggest you look into, ways of thinking that I can challenge, and mistakes I've made that you can learn from/laugh at. But in the end, it's up to you to make your own decisions. Your priorities can and will be different from mine -- we're different people!
Here are two great sources of information for you as you do your research.
CR Society Archives -- a place where you can find thoughtful people, some of whom know a lot, discussing issues that are of importance to you. And a lot of crap, but ignore that and read the good stuff. Especially follow up on the references. Use the userid seemysig@googlemail.com and the password simplepassword.
Pub Med -- that's where you can find the referenced articles, or just fall asleep trying.
Now here's something that you may be confused about: I've been ranting against the whole "natural" thing, yet I consistently tell you to get your nutrition from food, not from supplements. What's up with that? Why can't you just take a pill, or eat a fortified cereal? I wrote about that in depth here, but I'll paste it in for those of you who don't want to click:
Just what is the right amount of each nutrient for us, how do we best supplement, and what nutritients do we really need to get from food, vs. what nutrients can we supplement adequately?
Dr. Walford has an excellent treatment of this topic in Beyond 120, so I suggest y'all read it if you haven't yet. But a few quick points:
-- In lab animals, the ones fed their nutrients from real food live longer than the ones fed rat junk food plus supplements.
-- We don't know, for sure, what exactly it is in each food that is good for us, so by getting our RDAs from food we maximize our chances that we're getting whatever we need that might not be specifically isolated in a vitamin. There is no perfect vitamin pill.
-- Most multis have toxic levels of this or that, and varieties of the nutrients that are actually different from what's found in food. Synthetic beta-carotene, for example. Even if you have a great multi, it will still only fill in the holes in your particular diet by chance. You really must analyze your diet before you choose your supplements. MR doesn't take a multi cause his diet is too good. He'd be overdoing it on some nutrients if he took a multi. He supplements with specific nutrients, but doesn't take one single multi.
-- There are some nutrients that have to be kept in balance with each other, else neither will be properly absorbed or utilized. Zinc and copper are an example. If you have too much copper (which is found in fruits and vegetables) relative to your zinc, your zinc won't be properly absorbed and utilized, even if you're getting more than the RDA of both nutrients from your food and/or your supplements. And vice versa. So taking a random pill without analyzing your diet is likely to throw off the balance of your nutrients, or at the very least leave an imbalance uncorrected. You might think you're getting the RDA (the pill says so!) but you're not absorbing and utilizing it. The more you rely on pills without knowing what's in your food, the more likely you are to fail to correct imbalances, or make them worse. You're reasonably safe if you have the RDAs, or even proportional multiples of all the RDAs at once, since good balance is shown in the RDAs. But if you start taking a bunch of pills on top of your food, without knowing exactly what's in them and understanding how they interact with the nutrients in your diet, you're likely to perpetuate any imbalances.
There are still plenty of reasons why you might want to supplement. Insurance against occasional or chronic deficiencies (such as taking Vegetarian Booster if you eat a mostly vegetarian diet,) specific medical conditions for which certain supplements might be indicated (like my I-3-C for cervical dysplasia, which, btw, is GONE as of my last check up!!!) and more experimental supplements that may have a beneficial effect but definitely aren't necessary for a healthy diet. I've written a lot about what supplements I take, and I need to update some of the info because we've recently revamped my supplement program. Informed supplementation can improve your CR program, and uninformed supplementation can cause problems, so analyze your diet before you start taking pills.
There. Thus concludes old entry, now we're back to today's extremely long entry. But I know you're all sitting at your desks on Monday morning looking for ways to avoid work just a minute longer, so this entry may serve you in more ways than one.
Which brings me to another point (many a household chore has been sacrificed in the production of this entry): long ago, so long ago that the commenter probably thinks I've forgotten her, a reader asked why I'm opposed to oatmeal. That's a good way to illustrate another nuance in how we think about nutrition.
I do not oppose oatmeal. Some of my best friends eat oatmeal. In fact, one of my friends eats oatmeal almost every morning for breakfast. He is not on CR. He also looks like Richard Gere. That doesn't mean that eating oatmeal will make you look like Richard Gere... another classic error in thinking that people apply to nutrition (ie Elephants are long lived... elephants are vegetarians... therefore, we should be vegetarians!)
I find, however, that oatmeal isn't a good deal in terms of the nutrition you get for your calories. Therefore, I choose not to eat it. You may find it worth it. I'd rather have a glass of wine with those calories (though not for breakfast) and get my fiber from 1 tablespoon of wheat bran. I don't think that oatmeal is toxic, I just don't think it's a good buy. You might like it so much and find it satisfying and therefore decide to include it in your diet. I've also found that I need a high protein, low carb breakfast to stay satisfied till lunch. Ergo, eating eggwhites for breakfast works for me. That's the result of vast and entertaining self-experimentation, and you may find you're the same. But you may not. That's okay. That's what I mean by make your own decisions.
Either way, I hope we can still be friends.
Posted by april at February 25, 2007 12:07 PM
Comments
April, You are right! We're going to have to agree to disagree on a couple of points. No you didn't convince me completely on our one issue of contention..but I will say this...the jury is still out.
Yes! We can still be friends.
D
Posted by: Deborah at February 25, 2007 5:57 PM
Wow - I agreed with everything! Good points in there.
Posted by: Little MR at February 25, 2007 7:16 PM
ah, i just breathed a sigh of relief after packing a cherry coke zero to drink at lunch tomorrow :)
Posted by: cat at February 25, 2007 9:57 PM
I'm very glad you posted this. I certainly respect your opinions, and I can see that you've made choices based on data rather than superstition, which is always a good thing. However, I don't agree with everything you wrote. I like to think that my choices are also based in reason - I just have slightly different priorities and values (not better or worse, just different). And I will continue to seek to eat what I consider natural foods, and to avoid processed ones.
I'd also like to clarify that I don't consider nonfat yogurt to be a processed food. I could easily make it. Sure, I've never skimmed the cream off of milk to make nonfat milk - but given unpasteurized milk, I'm sure I could. I have made milk into yogurt - it's very simple.
I do consider Lean Cuisines processed food, and in an ideal world, would never eat them (this is, of course, not an ideal world and I would eat one if it was the best choice available.) However, this post has made me carefully consider why it is that I avoid them. My first response is "they're full of artificial crap!" but that certainly isn't a good reason - what exactly do they contain that I seek to avoid? So I looked up Lean Cuisines online, and found the ingredients. I picked Rosemary Chicken as an example, because it's 210 calories and seems like something you'd pick over, say, one of their pizzas. Link: http://www.leancuisine.com/Products/NutritionInformation.aspx?ProductID=10566 Looking at the ingredients, there are a few items I'd prefer to avoid - isolated soy proteins (I'm happy to eat tofu, but concerned about the health risks of highly processed soy) - but for the most part, the ingredients I don't like just seem unnecessary - cornstarch, butterfat, sugar, chicken fat. I'd rather get my calories from elsewhere. Then, there are the things I don't recognize - sodium phosphates, sodium lactate - and though I have no reason to believe these are harmful, I don't KNOW that they aren't. And frankly, I don't trust food manufacturers to have my best interests at heart.
And most importantly, I don't think frozen meals taste nearly as good as the food I cook, leading me to be less satisfied and to eat more, and the trade off in convenience simply isn't worth it to me (this is perhaps where our priorities differ - I'm unemployed at the moment, you work many, many hours per week. But I hope that once I find a job I'll make time to cook for myself, or just eat easy foods like bagged spinach with almonds and raw tofu if I'm in a rush.)
And regarding artificial sweetener and diet soda - the reason I would like to consume less of each is (for the most part) not actually nutritionally based. It's taste. When I avoid artificial sweeteners, I enjoy the natural sweetness of fruits, yogurt, and other naturally sweet foods. When I'm not hooked on sweetener, I enjoy my unsweetened tea and coffee even more than the sweetened stuff. Basically, I prefer to make the extra effort to avoid sweeteners in order to get extra enjoyment out of blueberries. (I'm not trying to avoid them at the moment though - that's just too much to add to this transition at the moment.)
this is a long comment. . . maybe I should post it to my blog as well.
Posted by: emily at February 26, 2007 12:44 AM
Of course we can still be friends !
Did I agree with what you said ?
Nope, not much of it, to be honest.
But enjoyable reading nonetheless. There's nothing like a bit of controversy on a Monday morning :-)
Posted by: Lindsay at February 26, 2007 2:47 AM
April, everyone has their own feelings and opinions about food. As long as you aren't saying "everyone should do and think and feel exactly THIS, or they are wrong because "I" say so", who cares? And surely, you aren't saying that. I haven't come across anyone yet who has said that. I think it's great how we're all tolerant of, and interested in, each other's different practices.
Posted by: Christina at February 26, 2007 7:13 AM
I think this was a great post! And the comments, even better! You are right, it's helping me to extend that "I just got to work, but am not really working" time.
Most everything I tend to agree with you, mostly because I think our work and home lives are pretty similar. (ie: running in the door 2 minutes before dinner, but still having like 3 hours of work or house work to do).
I think it is very easy for someone to critize someone or a product that is mass produced (lean cuisine) that has time to cook delicious homemade meals. I would love to be able to do that all the time and for the most part, I do. It's rare that I eat out or have a frozen entree, but when I do, I try to use my head and unfortunately, not so much my taste buds.
It's a hard balance and I am certainly not an expert.
I appreciate all your help. You know this blog is really you providing a service to the rest of us. Thanks!
Posted by: carolyn at February 26, 2007 7:34 AM
I, like Emily, prefer my own homecooked food to anything I can buy out, and I cook for myself and my partner six out of seven nights a week (even on days when I make up something before work and leave it for MR to throw in the oven, or make up something the night before). My lunch is my nice homemade organic salad with yogurt and almonds almost every day, and for dinners we have various combinations of fresh (and sometimes frozen) usually organic veggies, lean proteins, etc. So in practice, we usually eat the "whole" foods way.
But that doesn't mean I'll dimiss eating something else just because it's processed.
Those of you who are just now beginning your CR journey can take advantage of a tremendous amount of information to figure out what works best for you. You may find that some easy rules of thumb work for you, or you may find that you want to make a decision on a case by case basis about what to eat and what to minimize. I started out with some simple rules and found out that most of them were totally wrong! So I began the long process of evloving my diet and CR practice. See old entries like "Priestess of the High Carb Darkness" for how that all went. Over time, I've found I don't like to give up large categories of foods, so I figure out how often and in what amount I think it's a good idea for me to eat them, and that way I don't feel deprived or socially isolated or particularly inconvenienced, but I still practice a fairly intense variety of CR. We eat soy about once a month, I eat a handfull of M&M"s once a month (except last month when I avoided them by dreaming of Keith Olbermann!) and I eat meat about once a week. MR makes some different decisions -- for instance, he only eats meat once a month. Reasonable people can make different decisions based on either different readings of evidence or different lifestyle priorities. As Emily correctly points out, I work a lot of hours! So far that hasn't entirely prevented me from cooking for myself and my partner, but there are long stretches where I keep to a fairly simple diet myself to save time. Even then, I'm still getting my RDAs, my wonderful organic salads, my brewers yeast soups, my calcium rich yogurt, etc.
As CR folks, we face a lot of challenges. How you choose to deal with those challenges is, as I said, up to you. I can only urge people to do so with the maximum amount of information, and to give more consideration to actual scientific information than to rumours, non-evidence based food ideology, or alarmist websites. Sometimes we choose our foods based on considerations other than nutritional ones (vegetarianism, etc.) but we definitely don't want to make our food choices based on misinformation. It makes tons of sense to avoid a particular food because you don't like it, or have a bad reaction to it. That's not a food ideology, that's just saving yourself unpleasantness. I'm all for avoiding unpleasantness.
And like Emily, I am all for blueberries.
a
Posted by: April at February 26, 2007 7:54 AM
April, I went the the web site you link to and found the following in the abstract on the first page of the study; "... The results of this mega-experiment indicate that APM (aspartame) is a multipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg body weight, much less than the current acceptable daily intake. On the basis of these results, a reevaluation of the present guidelines on the use and consumption of APM is urgent and cannot be delayed
The study that you sight does not support your conclusion as far I can tell.
This is of interest to me because my wife drinks this stuff by the case and I recently stopped drinking it completely because it just seems like bad stuff. So I was very interested in your blog on this subject and quickly followed your link to but then was completely surpised to find, seemingly, the exact opposite of what you were saying.
I'm confused. Any insight into this matter?
Thank you, Mark
Posted by: Mark at February 26, 2007 10:42 AM
Awesome post April. As a newbie to CR the wealth of information can be overwhelming, but it's great to know that there's not just "one" way of doing things. It's funny you mentioned the lean cousine. When i was at the mini-market down the street buying diapers (lots of snow falling here so have to stay close)I was cheking out the lean cuisine as a lunch option. My first thought was "Is it ok to eat this on CR?". Now I know it depends on the CRer and that flexibility is very cool :)
Posted by: Jacqueline at February 26, 2007 11:50 AM
Very good post... good points ! :)
Posted by: Matt - uk at February 26, 2007 12:07 PM
First, I see that for some reason one can't get directly into the
survival curve graphic from the link. To see it, first go to the
full-text version of the study (
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/8711/8711.html ), and scroll down
to the thumbnail graphic for "Figure 1" (off to the right, under the
"Results").
What you'll see is that, again, the survival curves are *identical* ,
whether the animals got a low, medium, or high dose of aspartame (over a
*1250-fold* range of doses!), or whether they got no aspartame at all.
If anything, again, there was a very slight *increase* in late-life
survivorship in females fed the highest dose, although statistically it
came out as a wash. So even if, as the authors contend, there *was* a
small, late-life increase in risk of some cancers (which actually isn't
at all clear -- see below about the historical control data), the point
is that it had no overall effect on survival, indicating that it must
simultaneously have *decreased* the risk of other causes of death --
which, in these animals, is largely from a variety of cancers, even in
the aspartame-free animals. If something is increasing your risk of
dying from one thing and decreasing your risk of dying from something
else, you're no better and no worse off whether you do it or not -- it's
a risk-neutral activity.
A number of official toxicology and food safety science bodies have had
closer looks at the data, including some data than is not included in
the published report, and have higher expertise in analyzing both the
results and the methods used to obtain them, and their conclusions have
uniformly been that this study provides no evidence of an increased risk
of cancer in the rodents, or in some cases that the increased risk that
was characteristic of the animals and would not pan out in humans:
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reviewed the results of the
rodent study, including their unpublished data, and concluded that it
did not demonstrate that aspartame caused cancer in these animals and
that some of the results were irrelevant to humans in any case:
----------------
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press_room/press_release/1472.html
... a number of major issues with the study were identified by the Panel
which made interpretation of the findings difficult. Notably, a high
background incidence of chronic inflammatory disease in the lung and
other organs was observed in all the animal groups including controls
which did not receive aspartame, as reported by the European Ramazzini
Foundation. This was considered to be a major confounding factor.
In detail the Panel concluded the following:
* The slight increase in incidence of cancers known as lymphomas
and leukemias in treated rats was considered to be *unrelated to
aspartame treatment* and most likely attributed to the high background
incidence of inflammatory changes in the lung. In addition, there was no
dose-response relationship with respect to increasing doses of aspartame.
* The findings in the kidney, ureter and bladder, observed mainly
in female rats, are *not specific to aspartame* and have been observed
with a number of chemicals administered to rats at high dose levels.
Such changes are normally the result of irritation or imbalances in
calcium metabolism specific to rats and are of *no relevance for humans* .
* Concerning the malignant tumors of the peripheral nerves, the
numbers of tumours were low with no clear dose- response relationship
over a wide dose range. There is also *uncertainty about the diagnosis*
of these tumours.
Finally the Panel concluded that based on all the available data to date
there is no reason to further review the previous scientific opinion on
the safety of aspartame nor to revise the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI)
for aspartame of 40 mg/kg body weight. Commenting on the AFC Panel’s
risk assessment, Dr. Herman Koëter, EFSA Acting Executive Director,
said: “EFSA considers that the results of this new study on aspartame do
not provide a scientific basis for reconsidering its use in foods. If
any new information would become available in the future, EFSA will
review these as a matter of priority.”
----------
The preliminary assessment of the study by the UK's Committee on
Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the
Environment (COC) noted that the "increase" in cancer incidence reported
by the authors was actually within the historical norm for these
animals, noted that there were no signs of actual aspartame toxicity
observed even at the highest dose, and again noted that, if anything,
rodents fed aspartame tended to live a little *longer*:
-----------
http://www.advisorybodies.doh.gov.uk/pdfs/cc066.pdf
"An increased incidence of lymphomas and leukaemias was reported in
rats. There are slight differences in historical control data for the
incidences of lymphomas and leukaemias in female rats between the
published data (average 13.4%, range 7.0-18.4%) and data presented to
the EFSA on 17 June 2005 (average 12.9%, average 4-25%). The incidences
of lymphomas and leukaemias in female aspartame-fed rats occurred over
the range of the historical control data sets presented in the paper.
Members considered that a small increase a tumour incidence over such a
wide range of doses was implausible. Members agreed that there may be
reasonable explanation for the differing historical control figures but
that the variation in control data casts doubt on the quality of the
study observations."
"Towards the end of the study (71 weeks of treatment onwards) there
appears to be a dose-related trend towards increased survival in the
females which becomes more marked as the study progresses. However, the
longest living animals of both sexes tended to be in the mid dose
treatment groups, rather the controls or high dose treatment groups."
"The top dose of 100,000 ppm (10%) is in excess of the OECD recommended
5% maximum for a diet mixture (OECD, 1998) and which suggests it might
have compromised the nutritional status of the animals or resulted in
otherwise spurious results. However the high dose does not appear to
have affected body weights or resulted in significant toxicity as
determined by clinical signs."
----------
After the study was released, the National Cancer Institute (NCI)
commisioned a re-analysis of available data from a large study of diet
and health in AARP members aged 50-71 years (ie, at the older ages where
the rodent study suggested an increase in cancers of the blood), looking
for any connection between intake of artificial sweeteners and blood and
brain cancers . They found that "Higher levels of aspartame intake were
not associated with the risk of overall hematopoietic cancer (RR for
>/=600 mg/d, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.76-1.27), glioma (RR for >/=400 mg/d,
0.73; 95% CI, 0.46-1.15; P for inverse linear trend = 0.05), or their
subtypes in men and women."
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/9/1654
Accordingly, the NCI issued this fact sheet:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/AspartameQandA
... whose summary states, "Development of these cancers was not
associated with estimated aspartame consumption, refuting a recent
animal study with positive findings for lymphomas and leukemias and also
contradicting claims regarding brain cancer risk."
Another study ( http://tinyurl.com/yuqxvg ), performed by pooling data
from several weaker "case-control" studies, found no statistically
significant changes in risk for cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx,
oesophagus, colon, rectum, larynx, breast, ovaries, prostate, or kidney
associated with artificial sweeteners, mainly aspartame, but OTHER THAN
saccharin; when the saccharin data were thrown in, they found a
significant DECREASE in risk of breast and ovarian cancer as well as an
increase in risk of laryngeal cancer. Their overall CONCLUSION: "The
present work indicates a lack of association between saccharin,
aspartame and other sweeteners and the risk of several common neoplasms."
Posted by: MR at February 26, 2007 1:28 PM
Wow, I feel special having been mentioned in one of your blog posts. :) I don't mind the "whining" (your characterization; it wouldn't be mine) at all. Personal emails from a fellow CRONie are like little xmas presents. Keep 'em coming. I'm glad to be of assistance. That is assuming I have been. ;)
Posted by: Erin at February 26, 2007 2:32 PM
Wow, MR, thanks for being so detailed and clear!
-R
Posted by: Robin at February 26, 2007 5:51 PM
I liked this post a lot. And I drink green tea, other herbal teas, diet soda, a TON of water, Crystal Light, and coffee. Variety is the spice of life.
Posted by: Jake Silver at February 27, 2007 6:06 PM
I agree with some things, but not others. I'm one of those who try to go as natural as possible, and I drink only green tea, water, and soymilk, with a sprinkling of decaf espresso now and again as a treat. Done mainly because my body just feels better because of it.
All in all, you brought up some points I hadn't thought of, and I find myself relaxing a bit more because of it. I love CR because of its extreme customization; you rarely find two people who does things exactly the same way.
It's great to hear your take on things... I wouldn't be reading your blog otherwise, right?
nen
Posted by: Nenette at February 28, 2007 8:55 AM
I agree with Emily and Mark and am not impressed with the Aspertame studies cited. There are others that conclude the opposte results. I'm sure there's been much discussion on the CR lists about this. While the jury is out on so many of these questions I tend to take a 'wait and see' approach.
My feeling on cola drinks is negative because of other ingredients such as phosphoric acid. I will use ginger and lemons for natural acidity as I AM a postmenopausal woman. Natural food products are certainly more expensive than phosphoric acid but IMO more healthy. Since you have quoted positive references re phosphoric acid I am including one from Wikipedia that is not as positive.
Processed food use of phosphoric acid.
It is used to acidify foods and beverages such as various colas, but not without controversy as to its health effects. It provides a tangy taste, and being a mass-produced chemical, is available cheaply and in large quantities. The low cost and bulk availability is unlike more expensive natural seasonings that give comparable flavors, such as ginger for tangyness, or citric acid for sourness, obtainable from lemons and limes. (However most citric acid in the food industry is not extracted from citrus fruit, but fermented by Aspergillus niger mold from scrap molasses, waste starch hydrolysates and phosphoric acid.)
]Biological effects on bone calcium
Traditionally, the bone deficiency disease osteoporosis (literally "porous bones") has been seen mostly in post-menopausal women, particularly those who did not build high bone density in youth, typically due to insufficient calcium intake. Some researchers have observed a positive correlation between soft-drink consumption and increased risk of osteoporosis in young women, which is now also seen in increasing prevalence in men of late middle age.
Phosphoric acid, used in many soft drinks (primarily so in cola drinks), was initially suspected. It has been claimed that an excess of phosphorus may lead to poor bone density. However, one study funded by ** Pepsi ** suggests the opposite is the case, but the study does not examine the effect of phosphoric acid, which binds with magnesium and calcium in the digestive tract to form salts that are not absorbed, but rather, it studies general phosphorus intake.[2]
A different study, one that used dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry rather than a questionaire about breakage, provides reasonable evidence to support the theory that drinking cola results in lower bone density. This is Tucker et al.** Am. J Clin. Nut. Oct. 2006.** Colas, but not other carbonated beverages, are associated with low bone mineral density in older women: The Framingham Osteoporosis Study. [3] This study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. A total of 1672 women and 1148 men were studied between 1996 and 2001. Dietary information was collected using a food frequency questionnaire that had specific questions about the number of servings of cola and other carbonated beverages and that also made a differentiation between regular, caffeine-free, and diet drinks. The paper finds statistically significant evidence to show that women who consume cola daily have lower bone density. The study also suggests that further research is needed to confirm the findings.
Other chemicals such as caffeine (also a significant component of popular common cola drinks) were also suspected as possible contributors to low bone density, due to the known effect of caffeine on calciuria. One other study, comprised of 30 women over the course of a week sugests that phosphoric acid in colas has no such effect, and postulates that caffeine has only a temporary effect which is later reversed. The authors of this study conclude that the skeletal effects of carbonated beverage consumption are likely due primarily to milk displacement.[4]. (Another possible confounding factor may be an association between high soft drink consumption and sedentary lifestyle.)
[edit]Medical use
Phosphoric acid is used in dentistry and orthodontics as an etching solution, to clean and roughen the surfaces of teeth where dental appliances or fillings will be placed. Phosphoric acid is also an ingredient in over the counter anti-nausea medications which also contain high levels of sugar (glucose and fructose). It should not be used by diabetics without consultation with a doctor. Phosphoric acid is also used as a catalyst in the synthesis of aspirin because it provides a larger number of hydrogen ions with less contamination when compared to hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid.[5]
Posted by: peg diamond at March 1, 2007 3:54 PM
Bone Desity ? still there as it relates to "Carbonated" water. I love non-favored, non sugar just plain "seltzer water" and rarely drink cola type beverages. Is it the cola, caffine, or the bubbles that damage bone density?
Posted by: Hilda at May 24, 2008 3:09 PM