Not all artificial sweeteners are the same, so it’s borderline meaningless to say we “know so little” about them.
Hell, aspartame is literally the most studied food additive in the history of the FDA, and has never been shown to have any adverse effects in any reputable study.
I usually don’t bother answering a Gish Gallop, but…
1 - They didn’t complete the study, it was only 13 people with an existing history of mental disorders
2 - They basically said it’s so within the tolerances that it’s probably just chance, and that regular soda did as bad or worse
3 - Could only get the abstract, and it says nothing about their findings
4 - Combines aspartame and acesulfame-K, so it’s hard to tell from the abstract. The methodology doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope for it though.
5 - Seems to be the same study as 4 (same group of French people, same author), but for cardiovascular disease instead of cancer? Which, yeah, fat people drink diet soda, have heart disease, and get cancer more than thin people. I’m not sold on their methodology
6 - It’s a rat study. Again, I can’t see anything but the abstract, so it’s hard to say. But any study that doesn’t do a comparative analysis against regular sugar is suspect in my book
7 - Like 2, this one says that it’s probably just chance in the conclusion.
And look, if this was some new chemical on the block, maybe I’d agree that it should have some more testing. But it’s aspartame. It’s been being actively studied since 1965. It’s had a lot of negative PR backed by Domino (et al), which has created a huge amount of public concern. And will all of that, the studies still come out a hundred to one that there’s not really any link to anything.
Yes, you can find studies that say “aspartame scary.” But they’re basically like all the ones you linked above. Dubious. Most even admit they’re dubious (as seen above). And almost none of the ones that push the “scary” rhetoric compare the effects against regular table sugar, which is also heavily linked to increased cancer/heart disease risk. So it’s not even intellectually honest, even when their numbers happen to random out to slightly agreeing with them.
1000mg per kg would mean, in a human with, let’s say 80kg, we’d need 80000mg to replicate the study case.
Since we - usually - don’t eat pure aspartame, that would mean you’d need to chug 333.33 liters of diet coke per day to replicate the aspartame intake of the rats in the study.
These studies are so far off of reality that I barely know where to begin.
If you drink 3000+ cans of diet a day you will approach the lower limit of what’s considered safe.
Weird comment knowing how little we know about artificial sweeteners and it’s long term impact on the body. Actually, quite dangerous comment.
But you can start here; https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/sugar-substitutes-new-cardiovascular-concerns
Or here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40902134/
Or here; https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10465821/
Also fun fact about sorbitol; https://source.washu.edu/2025/11/alternative-sweetener-sorbitol-linked-to-liver-disease/
Not all artificial sweeteners are the same, so it’s borderline meaningless to say we “know so little” about them.
Hell, aspartame is literally the most studied food additive in the history of the FDA, and has never been shown to have any adverse effects in any reputable study.
Again, dangerous comment. Please actually spend a minute looking around before making such bizzare claims.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8373935/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23097267/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24700203/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35324894/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36638072/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39547074/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41765137/
There are like 30 other studies showing negative effects in mice and rats.
EDIT: Accidentally gave one bad study (see comment below), removed it. Rest seem valid.
I usually don’t bother answering a Gish Gallop, but…
1 - They didn’t complete the study, it was only 13 people with an existing history of mental disorders
2 - They basically said it’s so within the tolerances that it’s probably just chance, and that regular soda did as bad or worse
3 - Could only get the abstract, and it says nothing about their findings
4 - Combines aspartame and acesulfame-K, so it’s hard to tell from the abstract. The methodology doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope for it though.
5 - Seems to be the same study as 4 (same group of French people, same author), but for cardiovascular disease instead of cancer? Which, yeah, fat people drink diet soda, have heart disease, and get cancer more than thin people. I’m not sold on their methodology
6 - It’s a rat study. Again, I can’t see anything but the abstract, so it’s hard to say. But any study that doesn’t do a comparative analysis against regular sugar is suspect in my book
7 - Like 2, this one says that it’s probably just chance in the conclusion.
And look, if this was some new chemical on the block, maybe I’d agree that it should have some more testing. But it’s aspartame. It’s been being actively studied since 1965. It’s had a lot of negative PR backed by Domino (et al), which has created a huge amount of public concern. And will all of that, the studies still come out a hundred to one that there’s not really any link to anything.
Yes, you can find studies that say “aspartame scary.” But they’re basically like all the ones you linked above. Dubious. Most even admit they’re dubious (as seen above). And almost none of the ones that push the “scary” rhetoric compare the effects against regular table sugar, which is also heavily linked to increased cancer/heart disease risk. So it’s not even intellectually honest, even when their numbers happen to random out to slightly agreeing with them.
I just opened up the last link and it took me 5 seconds to find this:
One liter of coke zero has 240mg of aspartame.
https://juiceradvices.com/how-much-aspartame-is-in-coke-zero/
1000mg per kg would mean, in a human with, let’s say 80kg, we’d need 80000mg to replicate the study case.
Since we - usually - don’t eat pure aspartame, that would mean you’d need to chug 333.33 liters of diet coke per day to replicate the aspartame intake of the rats in the study.
These studies are so far off of reality that I barely know where to begin.
I asked chatGPT and it said not to believe you because your links won’t even open
The links open, champ.
Nope I just tried again, chatGPT said they won’t open
Why would ChatGPT even enter into the picture?
I’m not using it to make pictures I was using it to fact check
Oh come now, none of these articles even address the risk of sand mites or magnetic resonance.
Am I on reddit?