Are Artificial Sweeteners Really Bad For You?

back at you. You're one of those weirdos. It's like I need to work right exactly, like my skin falls off. I've always said I would be a great lottery winner, Oh yeah, or retiree. Yeah, lottery winner is better. I guess it's it's the same thing. It's a tree. It doesn't have to sweat it right exactly, which is nice. Man. I just should tell people that we were discussing with Jerry um the word dulcet soar as your voice, Yes, dulcet tones. You didn't know the definition. I looked it up.

Oh oh yes, I said sweet and soothing. But then in parentheses says often used ironically. I don't know what that is. It's a back in the compliment. I guess, Jerry, were you using it ironically? She actually, she didn't even nod. She's just sort of moving her face around. Her skin falls off to when she doesn't work. That's weird, weird. So sweet and new Guinea is what you said. That's uh, almond Joy's that's right, Mars bars Almond Joy's coconut sweet

and soothing. Okay, I'll take that. Yeah, I still prefer muppety tenor. It's the greatest of all time. It's very eye opening for me. What oh that was it a article about us muppet eat dinner good stuff? So chuck. Yes, I know that you. Um, you're a health conscious dude.

At the very least you're conscious of healthiness, right, I have to and for a very long time I made the switch, and um, one of the things that I learned was that one of the easiest ways you can lose weight very quickly is to just cut like sodas out of your diet. Yeah. See, my problem is I don't even drink SODA's right, So there's like a there's a whole step right there. Yeah, that's removed from you.

That's fine, that's good, but in a way, right, but I mean there's just no low hanging fruit as it were, right as far as using corporate buzz speak ghosts unless you count gallons of booze, that's not low hanging, my friend, that's the top of the tree. That's last. She so um, when you stopped drinking soda, you you really do, like the pounds just fall off. It's insane, but you still want soda, right, I mean it's like the craving still there.

And the um soda industry knew this, and they said, hey, we don't want to lose a bunch of revenue, let's start making diet sodas. And apparently originally they made them almost exclusively for people with diabetes. UM. Around the post World War two era, you could find diet sodas with basically an inscription or something like that, like it was inscribed on every hand who would say something like for people who must uh watch their sugar allotment or something

like that. Right, and then as the soda industry is like, oh wait, wait, we can really like make weight loss an issue here and like help promote weight loss by saying for people who wish to watch their sugar intake right, and just that little tiny switch changed everything, and like the diet soda industry was born, so people have aggressive nudge in the right direction, pretty much like, hey, don't you think you should be washing your sugar intake chibs?

You know, that's what's that's what's between the lines. So we've got these awesome diet sodas that are sweetened with artificial sweeteners. But of course there's nothing can possibly just be just good or just great because there's apparently we're starting to learn huge, massive problems with artificial sweeteners as well, problems so much that, um, they may be worse than

than sugar, it turns out in a lot of cases. Yeah, I mean, when have we found and replaced something natural with something synthetic and have it been nothing but like a win win. I mean, I'm sure there's something, but it seems like there's always some kind of downside. I guess maybe like a robotic arm just better than the real arm, and what depends on the arm that it replaces.

It could be he's saving up for your robotic arm transplant. Sure, all right, I'm tired of being weak on my right side, so you can crush those Coke zero cans exactly with more bigger. Oh well, I'm not drinking anything any longer. After researching this, I'm like, yep, I'm done with diet soda all together. Oh yeah, like like through not a

this is in a phase or anything like that. I'm sure over the course of my life I will have like a giant like Coke zero at a movie or something like that, but I'm I'm generally just totally done with that. What are you going to constantly be drinking? Then? Well,

to be honest, I'd already kind of started. I was drinking um, like mineral water a lot more, and I found, like once you just kind of switch over, the water, which used to just be disgusting, is actually kind of refreshing like this regular like like filtered water with ice. So funny, because you know, my history has always been heavy on the water. Sure, I know, like you're totally ahead of the game. It turns out well by accident,

but I just I've always loved the water. That's just how your taste is always run well, and that's I was just raised on it. You know, I've said it before. Like milk and water. We just didn't have a lot of sodas in the house, and it just never really grabbed hold of me in that way, you know, right, But mixing milk and water, that's good. Then then you have fat free milk. Yeah, pretty much, at least thin milk. Now, drink whole milk. I'm all about it. So I'm off

of the diat soodas forever. Wow. Well that's good for you. It is good. But if I want to brush my teeth or use mouthwash US takes, or take certain vitamins or something like that, I'm still running the risk of encountering artificial sweeteners because they're everywhere. Now. Yeah, well, let's back up a bit. Then that was a nice old school intro. By the way, thank you. That's what you get after you take a nice Christmas You've been rehearsing

that one for weeks. Yeah, you woke up Christmas morning and you means just like, shut up. I'm like, no, I gotta practice. Um. All right, Well, we're talking about artificial sweeteners, but what we're really talking about, at its essence is sweet the sensation of sweetness. Um. And if you go back and listen to our I think pretty good episode on Taste from many years ago. Uh, we break it down pretty well as far as the receptors on our tongues, so we don't really need to rehatch that.

But did you did you go back and listen to it doesn't really hold up. Yeah, it's not bad, um. I mean we get to the point there's not as much shenanigans. A lot of people prefer those. Yeah, we've added a lot of filler over the years. It's okay, um, But the the level of sweetness that we taste, it's

gonna depend. You know, those they're those receptors on our tongue and they interact with those mala fuels and they have to fit, you know, the shape has to fits that weird thing that nobody really knows is going on on their tongue, that strange interaction is happening. Yeah, I remember from the Taste episode, like one of the theories is that it's the whole thing is happening on the

quantum level. I remember correctly. Uh So, how much sweetness you're gonna taste, the level of sweet is gonna depend on your own receptors and how they're binding to that sweet sensation. So these artificial sweeteners, what they do is they found a way to elicit that same response as as we get from sugar, and basically that that's it. Some of them are, I mean, obviously they're generally a lower calorie version of sugar, although we'll get to some

that aren't later. Uh. And the reasons for that is some of them, they're all different. But some of them are so sweet, like hundreds and even thousands of times sweeter than sugar, that they just need to use tiny, tiny bits of it, so it's basically no calorie. Other times we don't even synthesize and absorbit and metabolize it, so that makes it no calorie. Yeah, you get the taste, but then it just comes out of your pee or

your poop. Yeah, but so no calories exactly. I thought that was pretty interesting because I've never really stopped and thought about why those things are no or low calories. It makes perfect sense. Yeah, like the idea that something is so sweet you need to use so little of it too, that you subvert the calorie uh system, the calory system. It's like, well, you can't even count that low.

That many decimal places beneath one calorie. And the weird thing is to me is when you look at the histories of some of these artificial sweeteners, UM, and it's a little scary is that a lot of them were discovered by accident from these dumb scientists who are like trying to trying to discover something else or work on something else, and they're like, oh, let me look my finger and get a piece of paper, or let me smoke a cigarette and not wash my hands, and they're like, oh,

my hand tastes sweet. Yeah, I mean, and it really it drives home two things that chemists aren't really fixed on their UM their survival they have low survival skills. And then too that um, all these artificial sweeteners are in most cases extraordinarily they're synthetic compounds, you know, like um, saccharin was or is a derivative of coal tar that was accidentally discovered when they were trying to find a new die. And then I believe asper tame was a

nonstarter ulcer drug. Yeah, and the dude was literally picking up paper and like licked his finger and said, well, that's in the how LSD that was an accident too. It was it was are no scientists washing their hands anymore. No, apparently now, at least not the chemists. Oh yeah, I guess so chemistry. I don't want to throw all of science under the snow. It's just the chemists who don't care where they live or die. Uh So anyway, saccharin would is one of the first or I guess d

first artificial sweetener way back in nineteen eighteen seventy nine. Yeah, way back in nineteen seventy nine. Uh in eighteen seventy nine. That that was a scientist who did not wash his hands before dinner and notice it tasted sweet, and said, I think I have a new discovery on my hands. Yeah, literally on my hands, Yeah, and on my tongue. I'm boy,

oh boys sweet. Yeah, And it's fine to think of that. Yeah, there's a lot of chemicals and compounds out there that we may have no clue actually taste sweet because we just haven't accidentally run across him yet because everyone's washing their hands now. Yeah. And plus also, sugar has just such great pr that you tend to think that it has the market cornered on the sweet sensation. But no, it's it's just one of many things that elicit that. Yeah, Uh.

And the reason, well, there's a lot of artificial sweeteners. We're only gonna go over a handful in detail, but the res and there are, I mean, there are a couple of reasons. One is just good old fashioned competition, of course, uh. And another is you can't use them all in the same way. Like some hold up under baking, some don't. Uh. Some you can just dust in a throat lozenge, and another might be good in a cake batter, you know. So it kind of depends on its use

as to some are good and ice cream and others aren't. Yeah, but you you hit it on the head though too. I mean, like there's a lot of competition, like aspar Tame is owned by Monsanto now, and like anytime those guys get in on something, there's that means it's automatically big business. So there's a lot a lot of money to be made. And one of the reasons why also that it is such big business because it's very frequently much cheaper to produce this stuff, these artificial sweeteners, than

it is to to um process sugar. Right, So say it takes like eight cents worth of sugar to sweeten uh. Two. Leader of coke in might take three um since worth of aspartame to sweeten coke zero. And if you're making you know, millions upon millions of two leaders of this stuff a year, that adds up pretty quick. Yea. And

in fact, there was actually a British company. I didn't see which one it was, but they it was found that their orange drink, which was not being marketed as diet or sugar free or anything, was basically made up of artificial sweeteners. I didn't look it up, I just ran across it. Somewhere was the orange orange like soda in Great Britain and Great Britain. Okay, call it shame made. Well. The reason I asked is because you know, my one weakness is like once a month I'll get the old

fan of orange. Yeah, the Nazi drink. So I'm okay with that shaming me. Uh well, So these things are pretty controversial, um since literally least since the first ones came around. UM. People started like with anything that's new and synthetic, they're gonna be a certain segment of people are like this is great. In another segment they're like, well, I don't know about this. Let's look and see what's going on in your body and what if it's not so good for you? And how do we know? Right?

People concerned with health? Yeah, that's an easier way to say it in public health. Yeah, yeah, there's um it does kind of seem to be like Chuck, where at this point in history where there is a lot of this stuff out there. I think I saw a two thousand and sixteen articles. So there's like products in the US using one at least one of the five approved

artificial sweeteners by the FDA. So there's tons of products out there and not enough medical literature to to really strongly show one way or the other that yeah, these things actually are pretty safe, and like all these fears are just a general public this trust of science and change and unnatural nous and we don't also have anything to show the other way to that. Um No, actually these things are pretty unsafe because it seems like every study that you find has a contradictory study with just

completely opposite finding. It's pretty frustrating. Yeah, they're like even they're they're canceling each other out. It is frustrating. It does seem though that the at least based on the reporting that I'm seeing or have seen in research. It seems like a body of um medical literature is mounting that's showing that this stuff is pretty problematic. Actually yeah, I mean if you just uh throw science out the window and start perusing the internet, which everyone should do,

right at least once a day. If you go on websites though and and internet forums and look around, um people will blame I mean, just about any disease you can think of on aspartame a big one that's getting a lot of the heat, but all kinds of artificial sweeteners, um ms, brain tumors, dizziness, Alzheimer's, like all kinds of problems. People are saying, well, you know this didn't start happening until I started eating or drinking this which contained this. Right, Yeah,

it's anecdotal, extremely anecdotal. And like you said, when you look at the real studies, and we're gonna get to some of these and of course some are are mounted by the very company selling them. And I had a thing on Facebook last week about these company back studies and whether or not we should even listen to them, and most people chimed in that we're in in the biz and said, you know what, it doesn't mean it's

junk science. Um, A lot of these studies wouldn't even be done if it wasn't for these companies funding them. But I still like raise an eyebrow anytime I see like, Nope, Coca Cola debunks study that says it's bad for you with our own study. You know, like, how can you I'm not even a big cynic and you just have

to sort of wonder if that's complete BS or not. Yeah. Well, the FDA, for its part, if you go to their website on their Q and A. As far as them defending their the things that they've approved, they kind of well, I'll just read it says all all consumer complaints related to the sweetener have been investigated as thoroughly as possible by federal authorities for more than five years, in part under f d a's uh ARMS system or ARM system

Adverse Reaction Monitoring system. In addition, scientific and that's where people can submit their own beefs basically right and say like, hey, I'm dizzy and just drink of tab yeah exactly. Uh. In addition, scientific studies conducted during aspertames preapproval phase I failed to show that it causes any adverse reactions and adults are children. Individuals who have concerns about possible adverse reactions to aspertame or other substances should contact their position. Basically, Hey,

if you're not feeling good, maybe it's on you. Yeah, why don't you stop being so metabolically weird? Yeah? And and since you brought up the f d A, there's a lot of concerns about how just how much oversight they're bringing to the table um And from there's this Washington Post article I found, it sounds like like not much at all. There's this um separate track. It's basically like an expedited track that company who's looking for FDA

approval for their food item can submit. And rather than so ideally, there's this f d A review process where the FDA says, let us see your studies. We're gonna do some research. Who might do some testing ourselves. It's gonna take forever. You're gonna lose a bunch of money while you're sitting there waiting to go to market. But we will know pretty pretty conclusively that it's safe for humans to use. Although even even that's not necessarily true.

But that's like the ideal situation that we'll get maybe close to yes, this is safe for humans. Well they've basically done away with that and created this fast track program where you can submit for generally regarded as safe status. Yeah. That was is when everything kind of there was a big sea change there. Yeah, and they did it because business was like, guys, you're taking so long. This is so slow. This process is killing us. It's costing us so much cash. We want to go to market faster.

It was like, we don't have enough people, right, what do we do? So instead of hiring more people, they just made it easier for the companies to get this stuff passed. And the way that they did that was the FDA said, how about this, you guys, go study the medical literature, write a review of what you find, and we'll read your review and then we'll give you approval. So don't you don't need to submit your data anymore. Just give us your your findings, your fine things in

a summary and that should speed things up. And it did in a big, big way, and it proved the FDA was so toothless that apparently now a lot of companies are releasing food additives into the food supply without even talking to the FDA about it. It It said in this article that the UM the one of the Deputy Commissioners for Food at the FDA, he said, we simply do not have the information to vouch for the safety of many of these chemicals. The FDA is just like, oh, well,

there's a new food additive out there. I hope it goes I hope it goes well for everybody. Yeah, and in the I don't know if in the FDA's defense or but what they said initially was the reason we did this is we thought that people were doing this anyway and just introducing new chemicals without like submitting for approval at all. He said, so maybe if we streamline this process, they'll at least do that. And that just hasn't worked out how they hoped. Nope, it's like UM

Citizens United Ruling. Oh yeah, you know, all right, well let's take a break. I need to go. I'm I'm angry now, sorry, I need to go smash. We'll be back right after that. Okay, we're back. Chuck, you feeling better? Yeah? That ming vos Man. That was like an original. Yeah, well that was real. It's Connor. Now that's gonna come out of Jerry's pay, let's you get some super glue? Oh yeah, I like that. That Brady Bunch episode. I'm always said, don't play ball in the house. Did they

break something? Yeah, they broke a vase playing basketball in the house, and um they tried to glue it back together and then Mrs Brady used it for some flat was from a bunch of leaks. That's so them. I love those. What are you doing playing basketball inside? Anyway? And it's dumb, just you know, horseplay, rough housing. The use I mean they're outside was a studio set with astro turf, like it's always it's always perfect weather. Yeah,

and that one little quarter drive away. Yeah, I bet it would be so disappointing if you could go see a recreation of that set today, you know. Uh yeah, it's like I said at the Cheers bar once, the real the not the one in Boston, but the where they shot the TV show, Okay, And it's just everything is just always smaller, you know. And in She's tiny, she was like in my beer mug. Yeah, I was gonna say the one in Boston. It's like nothing like the set, So I thought that's where you were going.

I didn't realize you've been on the actual set. Yeah, that's when I did my famous extra stint on Dear John and Cheers was next door. I okay, I don't another story. Yeah, yeah, when my brother he worked on Dear John, and I went out to visit him and he got me on as an extra. I played a bus boy in a restaurant scene. Yeah. I'd love to get a copy of that. Actually, impost it. Yeah, I

want to see that. It was pretty good. That was my first encounter, like real encounter with a film business, and I was like, this is a weird thing to do. This is the life for me. I'm gonna play bus boys all my life and one day I'm gonna have a short lived t failure of a TV show myself. All right, So where were we? We were talking about a TV show? Oh no, no, no, we were talking about coming back from the break. And I wanted to mention you said earlier that when we first intro that

sometimes this stuff like does more harm. And this this one per Due University study I thought was really interesting because it found that drinking sugar or eating and drinking sugar free stuff with diet drinks mainly UH can actually mess with your body's ability to naturally count calories, because it it just messes up what the body recognizes as real sweet and real calories, which can make that which

can make you fatter. Right, Yeah, Apparently there's been a number of studies, including like really really good longitudinal longitudinal studies like the San Antonio Heart Study, that have found that, um, like, high levels of diet soda intake are correlated with obesity, meaning everything else equal, the person who drinks more diet soda is likelier to be obese, which makes zero sense.

It's it's pretty confounding, right. The whole reason, or one of the big reasons people drink diet soda is so they can lose weight, But it turns out that they're actually more likely to be obese. And I should say compared to people who don't drink diet diet soda, not compared to people who drink non diet soda. That's not to say, like, yeah, diet coke drinker is more likely to be obese than a coke drinker. It's a diet coke drinker is more likely to be obese than somebody

who just drinks water. And this produced study really like gives some insight to that. Basically, we our body tells us how many calories we need to take in, and part of that is based on how sweet something is. So once we start drinking and ingesting these artificial sweeteners, it just it goose everything up. It basically says that our body doesn't associate sweetness with higher calories anymore. Yeah, right,

because with with something like artificial sweetened soda. Right when you when you eat food, your body has a couple of pathways that it rewards you for saying, hey, good job, eat you ate food. I'm gonna make it so that

you want to eat food again. And one is the gustatory pathway or gustatory component, which is like the taste, the smell, the the sensation that you get from eating like good food or like something sweet and delicious, and that just activates your limbic system like crazy, Your reward

pathway goes nuts. Right, But when you eat stuff, you also have the second component, which is um where you're satiated, the feeling that you get that great pleasant feeling of being like nice and pleasantly full from eating, right, and that counters that gustatory excitement. So normally when you eat food, you you get the excitement from the taste of it, and then ultimately you'll also get the nice, pleasant feeling from being full from it. Not so with an artificial

sweetened soda. Instead, you get the excitement your sugar rushes going off, but you're never gonna get full. And since we're nothing but junkies as far as like our brains are wired, we're just gonna keep drinking more and more and more because that sugar center is going off and we're never getting full, so it's never counteracted. We just

always crave more and more and more. Yeah, And of course, like you said, these ease, there's always an opposite one that it was debunked as flawed um by the National Soft Drink Association. Yeah, so then you try they just said wrong. But that's not that produced studies not the

only study. There have been plenty of other studies that have looked into this and have found the same thing that that there's there's that our bodies are being tricked, that we're no longer associating sweet foods with high calorie foods, and that it's leading to eating more high calorie foods. So that if you eat something that actually is sweet

and has calories. You're gonna eat more of it than you would have before because your brain is not used to saying I've got enough calories from this, I can stop eating it now, playing tricks on your body. Yeah. And plus also apparently with these these things that are three hundred five hundred seven thousand times sweeter than sugar, which is what our body is used to, is some

form of sugar. Um, the the sensation of sweetness is amplified, and so it kind of mutes sweetness and other things like fruit or any any other complex tastes, like in vegetables. So we end up just craving more and more sweet stuff because everything else tastes terrible compared to this ultra sweet stuff that we're eating and drinking. And if you stop drinking like like soda or diet soda or whatever, stop eating junk food for even just like a week or so, when you go back to it, it's amazing

how sweet that stuff actually is. It's it's like a smack in the face, but you realize, like, wow, I've really been used to this for a while, because I don't remember it tasting this sweet. Yea, and my headaches are are now gone because I'm drinking this again exactly well, and the other thing too. And I know we covered a little bit of this and the high fruit dost corn sir it. But part of the problem is is

the ubiquity of this stuff. It's um, I think which one was it was it aspartame that's in Yeah, aspertain is in six thousand, more than six thousand products like soft you know, soft drinks of course, gum uh, puddings, dessert mixes, gelatin, frozen desserts, fillings, yogurts uh, and then and you know, of course people just dump it right

into their coffee too, and it's purest form. But um, unless you're really a stickler about looking at food labels, you're getting way way more then the maximum recommended levels that you should be ingesting of this stuff, because it might be like I said in the I got a sore throat, so I took the cough drop and now chewing gum. Now I'm using toothpaste, and it's all over

the place right exactly. And that's another part of the problem where even if the FDA is doing its job and does all this research and looks at the medical literature, Um, they may say, Okay, this stuff is safe at this level. This is the maximum recommended amount that a person should have and still be within the safe zone per day. So don't put more than this in your soda. Okay, great,

go forth and prosper. And then that soda becomes a success and other people start using that sweetener, and then it's like you said, like with aspartain, it's everywhere, so that the people are getting that amount just from that that that soda with aspertain that they're drinking, but they're also getting it from all these other places, and the levels rise very quickly. Yeah, and some folks get I mean,

there's a definite um soft drink addiction problem. Um, even with the diet SODA's I've known people who literally drank like a couple of two liters a day of this stuff. Sure. Yeah, like just constantly drinking soda all day long, from the moment they get up till the moment they go to bed as diet. So it's no big deal exactly. And Um, there's actually a study that I came across. Um. I didn't see where the study was from, but this is it was mentioned on this um Harvard Health blog um.

It was a rat study where rats were given the choice between oral saccharine and intravenous cocaine um after they've been acclimated to both, and they tended to choose the saccharin. Wow, that's crazy, Yeah slightly. Did they go round and round? Sorry, then they're probably like, I've heard about that cocaine. I'm

not doing that, but I will do this Sacharin. By the way, there's a h an audio interview on YouTube with the drummer from the band Rat that's like an hour and twenty minutes long that you should, I mean, try and get through fifteen or twenty minutes of it. But the way I saw it is someone said this is the Donald Trump of of eighties hair metal? Was

it a contemporary like today? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. He basically has a new group that does Rat songs, and I think it's he's just the drummer that's the original member and and just goes off for like an hour and a half about how great they are and about how that to the real stuff, and how they sound better than the original Rat ever sounded, and and and it's really something like I've never heard someone who was more full of themselves than this, dude. It was hysterical, was

really wonderful. Well, how many songs could they possibly play? They just play round and round like like twelve or thirteen times at a show. They had a few hits. All I remembers round and Round? No they uh, well, I'll think on it. I'll bet your thinking of Cinderella or docin No, I think Doc can have more hits than Rat. Now they had lay it down? Remember that one? No, can you sing it? Sure? You do? Lay it down

right now? And then they had wanted Man No Man Now, and then You're in Love No, and way cool Jr. They had I would say for genuine sort of hits, I really honestly, I remember round and Round and that's it. Well, they were a little bit pore your time too. Round and Round was a pretty good song. Though. It's a great song. Rat what's that? Should we should just end the show? Actually, let's take a break and then we're gonna come back and talk specifically about some of these sweeteners.

Is that sound good? It sounds sweet. I can't believe you don't remember You're in love? Well, you're not thinking it, so how could I possibly remember it? And lay it down? Those were two big, big hits. I mean, I'm telling you, like, I was paying a lot of attention to eighties hair metal when it was when it was out. Bet you'd probably be like, oh, I know that song. M um. Alright, remember remember Striper, the Christian hair metal band. I saw a Striper and concert, my friend, did you the fabulous

Fox Theater in I did awesome? Uh? Well it was they had. They had more than one hit, didn't they. Yeah, I was. I was way into that in my early youth group days. Strip they rocked about as tough as you could get. I don't know about that, but they definitely rocked, for sure. I don't know about that. Well, they definitely wore a lot of spandex. Their drummer played sideways. That was his big trick. They set up. They set

it up completely sideways on the stage. He's not actually playing sideways then, No, no, no, he's playing straight ahead. He just has the drum kit sideways. That was the gimmick. Huh Yeah, that in religion pretty good? All right, So let's talk about Sacharin. Let's that was it's actually the Latin word for sugar um. And that was the one we said earlier, which is the O g uh discovered by two chemists named John's and Hopkins. Well, that's it.

That's so two guys claimed it. One was definitely in the lab because he was the one who uh licked his well, he ate a bread roll. I guess that was sweet and he was like, I don't think this is supposed to be sweet, and came to realize it was soaking the coal tar that was on his fingers. Yeah, oh, I thought you meant it was sitting in a little pool of cold tar. And he like, notice it. He was warming it up on the bunts and burner. Uh so, yeah,

that an accidental discovery. And it is three hundred times sweeter than sugar. Yeah, and this is one of the ones that is no calorie because his is not metabolized by the body at all. And it is very famous, well I don't know, but famous, but the drink tab, the soft drink tab um. It was very famous for

being sweetened in a big way by saccharin. Right, which means that from the I think nine seven till nineteen nine seven, maybe there was a warning label on tab that said, quote use of this product maybe hazardous to your health. This product contains sacharin, which has been determined to cause cancer and laboratory animals. Do you remember that warning label on it? Yeah? And um, you can also still find I mean, it's not like it went away.

It's that is what sweeten low is. And if you drink fountain diet coke or pepsi fountain pepsi, you're gonna have saccharin in there. Yea. And Emily was big on the fountain diet cokes. She's like, it's just not the same form can and I called it you. I was like, it's because of sacharin. Sure what she's off fers now too though, Yeah, that'll do it. But but what's weird?

So I've read this really great post on today I found out, which is an excellent website by the way, um and they they wrote about the discovering sacharin and then the controversy, the health controversies of sacaran, and the case they make is that it's it's it's basically the victim of bad science reporting, public public fear basically, and that if you're a rodent, yes you should not be drinking tab because there there there was discovery of bladder

cancer and other types of cancer, but specifically bladder cancer in lab rats that were being fed sacharin and um. I guess before they figured out exactly why, the media went and extrapolated it onto people, and so in the public's mind it became, uh, sacharin will give you bladder cancer. And then by the time they went and researched what

was going on. There's like the specific I think, the specific parts of rat urine um we're combining with the saccharine to form these things called micro crystals in the bladder, which is tearing up the bladder lining so frequently that as the cells were regenerating, the potential for them to to grow out of control and become tumors was increased, and so the lab rats were getting um bladder cancer. The thing is is the lab rats urine is not the same as humans urine um, and so we just

don't get bladder cancer too from tab apparently or from saccharin. Well. Yeah, and one of the things, I mean, I never really knew this how they exactly tested. I figured because it was a rat, they would just give them, like, you know, a few drops or something because they're tiny. But they apparently dose these lab mice and rats with lots of these additives, large large doses, and apparently that's to compensate for the fact that they don't use a lot of

mice and rats. Yeah, which I'm not I don't follow the logic there, there isn't any. And then they follow it up with, Wow, that that seems to have really gotten on top of you. How about some intravenous cocaine to pure per cua. Well, they also said that large doses compensate for possibilities that rodents maybe less sensitive to it. Yeah, but I've also read elsewhere that the stuff that there, they're the tests they're conducting at least on humans too,

are are not real world tests. It's like, Oh, you just drank a twelve ounce diet coke and now we're going to base all of our medical recommendations on the impact that has on your body. They're not taking into account, like you said, the guy who drinks to two leaders or two twelve packs of diet coke a day thirty years right exactly, and the like, this stuff is generally just too new for us to have any like studies on long term effects of them, so we really just

don't know. I mean it's I don't like, I don't want to foster um paranoia fear, yeah, or paranoia or even just yeah, fear paranoia. But like, the jury is still out as far as I'm concerned. Agreed. UH. For its part, though, sacharine was removed from the n I h S list of carcinogens, and they did remove that warning label in the late nineties. Like you said, yeah, and I should say, I'm not specifically talking about sacarin. I'm talking about artificial sweeteners in in general. Yeah, totally,

the jury is still out. But onto aspartame, that's one of the big targets these days. UM Equal Nutra sweet and neutral Taste are the brand names that it's sold under. And this is UH. It's a derivative of a couple of amino acids, um aspartic acid and Finni lalaleena. Yeah, it's been around since nine Uh. And this was a chemist named Jim Schladder Um a part of a company

that which is now Fighter. And he was the one that was licking his finger to pick up paper and studying an anti ulcer drugs and went, hey, I taste undred times sweeter than sugared at me, right, and so that's what it's used for. Oh yeah, well I don't think they treat ulcers with it anymore. No. But the weird thing about UM aspartame is more in how it's broken down in the body. I think, um, yeah, because it is metabolized. Yeah, And this just blew my mind.

I had no idea that something like that could break down into methanol in your body. Yeah, wood alcohol. Weird. I mean that's one of three things. Is spartic acid, uh and then finnil l laen la la nine and methanol is what it breaks down into. That's just crazy, right. And So if you UM do not have this disorder called p KU or phenol keto neurea UM, it's the

wood alcohol you have to pay attention to. But if you have PK, you then you've got a big problem with the phenyl alanine because you're you're missing an enzyme that breaks that down, and uh, it can build up in your brain and create brain damage in you. So people who have UM p KU or phenel ketoeurea UM can't have aspartame at all because of that. But for people who do not have p KU, you still have to worry about the methane, although that would alcohol if

I'm if I remember correctly. Isn't that the stuff that the US government used to poison the illicit um alcohol supply with and a bunch of people went blind and died back into prohibition. I think it was wood alcohol, And it's just so toxic. And normally when we when we consume something that has would alcohol in it, um there it's in the presence of ethanol, and that's it's absorbed differently. The out the ethanol kind of like um

uh neutralizes it a little bit. But in aspertame, we're it's breaking down into methanol without the presence of ethanol, and so we're absorbing this toxic component. Um just straight up. Yeah. Ten percent of asport tame is absorbed as methanol, and the e p A says, uh, there's a recommended limit of seven point eight milligrams per day of methanol and drinking one leader of an aspartame sweeten beverage contains fifty

six milligrams of methanol. Well of well as what is that saying fifty six milligrams of absorbed methanol or fifty six milligrams of aspartame. I think I don't know. I think that means methanol. That's how I took it eight times a recommended amount in one leader of an aspertame sweet and beverage. That's not good. Well, and like you were saying, how the ethanol counterbalances it, it's the same

as the UH amino acids. They're naturally part of our diet, but usually when we consume it there it's counterbalanced by other amino acids, and in the case of aspartame, it doesn't have those, so it's just consuming it on its own, right, So you're getting it in very high doses basically. And there's been at least one study that is linked um types of different types of cancers in female rats to

aspartain consumption. Right, but again, no official studies show any official problems, well none that the FDA is pointing to. Like that was Europe. They're overprotective. Yeah, but this is one of the ones too, that that arms program where you can call in and report things. I think it counts for sevent of all complaints. They're like, I'm dizzy, I got headaches, I've got seizures, got fatigue. It's killing me. It's killing me, Doc, you gotta do something. What's next?

Super lows sucralose like splenda, So sucralos is um. Splenda's marketed or it was marketed with the kind of slogan made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar, right, And apparently they got sued by the sugar industry because, um, I guess people thought that splenda was natural. I think there was a um there was some sort of pole that found like fifty seven percent of people thought that

splenda was a natural artificial sweetener and it's not. It's actually you take a sugar molecule and then you take out three of the hydroxyl groups, hydrogen and oxygen groups, and you replace those with chlorine. This is always a good move. That's no longer sugar. Nope, that's not sugar anymore. It's not natural either. So what what you have? A sucralose and sucralose is um six hundred times sweeter than sugar and it's not metabolized by the body, so it's

calorie free. But there have been studies that have found that it might not be my bablized by the body, but it's absorbed by the body has been found in the blood immediately after drinking a can of sucralow sweetened soda, and it's also been found in breast milk too, from mothers who have drank uh sucralose sweeten drinks. Yeah, and sucralose is one of those you're gonna find because it holds up to heat, so you're gonna find it in a lot of baked goods or you know, like process

baked goods or in um. The I was about to call them kits. What are they called the easy bake covin? No, you know when you got to make a cake and you get the stuff mix, Yeah, the mix, not a kit. I like kit though, that's good. I need a cake kit. I don't. I don't know what you mean, pal book And it's been a long day, please leave me alone. But Splenda is one of the biggest, um probably heaviest used sweetener. Just like I was gonna call it over

the counter sweetener. But when you just use it for a sweetener alone, to sweeten sweeten your tea or your coffee or whatever. Yeah, like you see a lot of splendid because as that little green leaf on it. No, it's Splendid. I thought Splendid was the yellow one. Oh, Stevie is the one with the green Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. You're right. Yeah, Stevie actually is natural. It comes from a plant. Okay, alright, I feel much better

about the green leaf. Yes, super loser. Splendis sugar with chlorine. Oh yeah, Splendid that yellow packet, that's right. Yeah, sweeten load was pink Yep, Stevia has got the green leaf. I used to dump that Sweeten loan in my iced tea when I was a kid because I knew no better. Did you really, wow? Well, because you know you put sugar in cold iced tea, it does nothing but just go to the bottom. I know. It's absolutely frustrating. And then I was like, oh wait a minute, I'm from Georgia.

I need to be drinking sweet and tea, which is, while they're brewing it, they dump in a full one pound bag of sugar so much like they say down here, that the straws us to stand straight up in the tea. And that's how you know when you have enough sugar in your sweet tea. Yeah. I don't drink sweet teo much anymore, but boy, I love it. Yeah, I do too. It's really good. UM so super lose uh. For it's worth isn't as controversial in the public sphere as aspartame

is UM. But there was a report the FDA that said it's approved, but it did cause minor genetic damage and mouse cells. But it was minor and weekly muta genetic may cause may cause light cancer. Uh. And like you said, they weren't they sued by the sugar industry, didn't you say that? Yeah, I don't know what the outcome was. I don't know. I haven't heard that slogan in a while. So I bet the sugar industry one. Yeah, now it's just splenda, you know the deal. Yeah, you know.

We used to say just think, just think, think hard, google it. Uh. And then finally we have sugar alcohols, which I wasn't super familiar with. Actually I am, because I up until this week showed a lot of sugar free gum and UM. A lot of it is is sweetened with sugar alcohols, which is it's um. It's where you take a sugar and you add a hydrogen atom to it. So there's stuff like um sorb at all zylas all um a thir tall. I even practiced that one therapy. Yes, thank you, had a little trouble with it.

But um, they don't have calories because they're not typically absorbed by the body, although some some actually do have just about as money calories as sugar, so you do have to kind of watch it. Um. But sugar alcohols typically are used less for weight loss and more for um like uh sugar or blood sugar control, like among people with diabetes. Because so it might have the calories, but it doesn't it doesn't have the glycemic load that that sugar does. UM, and even some artificial sweeteners too.

But they taste really really good. They're they're about as close to sugar as you can possibly get, UM and still have fewer calories or whatever. The problem with them is that they can um. They're like butterfish. They caused the anal leakage. Yeah, I'm gonna bring that up every chance I get. You know, I think we have our first great band name of too, not antal leakage, but glycemic load only. No one wants to hear that. No, it's like diarrhea planet. Oh yeah, did poop knife? Is

that what it was? You're telling diarrhea Planet to to change the knife and they yeah, they tweeted never never, who are you? Um, yeah, so that lacksative effect. Um, if you have a daily dose of fifty grams or twenty grams, fifty grams of the sorb at all or twenty grams of the man at all has to be

labeled that it has a lacksative effect. Yeah, But the Center for Science and the Public Interest says no, no, no no, Only ten grams of sorb at all can make you poop your pants, So maybe you guys should lower it for that warning. And the FDA said, look, man, we're taking a nap away. They're like, why can we just have people on the verge of pooping their pants? But not quite right? Oh dear, yeah, I saw an alternative to all this, you know, Oh what real sugar. That

is one alternative. And the thing is is, yeah, the the upshot of all this is, well, maybe sugar is not so bad. We're fine, sugar is pretty bad for you, and so is like high fruit toast corncerpt But there are plenty of like natural forms of sugar too, like unref fine raw demorerra sugar or honey. There's a lot of places you can get sweetness that aren't necessarily bad for you, right, Um, but then if you're super hip with the science too, you might be in favor of

what are called sweet tasting proteins. And these are actually pretty cutting edge from what I've seen. There's seven that have been identified so far. All of them come from plants that grow in the rainforest. And um, they are proteins. They're not carbohydrates, their actual proteins. So they they yeah, yeah, the Paraguayan and sweet chicken, Paragua and sweetbird. Yeah they they they So they're not gonna they're not gonna raise your glycemic index like your blood sugar. They're not going

to lead to weight gain. Um, they're they're just proteins. And apparently some of them are quite sweet, and they're looking into using those as an alternative to the artificial sweeteners, which were the alternative to sugar, so they can decimate the rainforest and yet another way, well hopefully this will help them protect the rainforce something. No, no, no, this is where our sweet comes from. Stop cutting it down. Okay, keep keep your fingers crossed. They're crossed. Okay, that's all

I got. That's all I got. So that's artificial sweeteners everybody. If you want to know more about those, you can tact those words in the search bar at how stuff works dot com and um the nooid will appear. And since I said noid, it's time for listener now, I'm gonna call this warmed my heart over the holidays, Scotch Hi, Yeah, that too, Hi, Josh and Chuck Um, Grace and I'm seventeen years old and the oldest of three sisters, Lily

Rose ten great names. We started listening to your podcast in two thousand nine when our parents split up and we moved a state away from our dad. As a tradition, now we always listen to a podcast of yours to this very day when we are traveling between the two states with our dad. It's been such a fun way to pass the time during road trips. Your podcasts have been the source of so many interesting conversations, such a wonderful way to bring our family together over the years.

For instance, all three of us girls vividly remember the Vulture episode for no apparent reason, and found the Haunted House episode oddly cool. Uh. Lily, who was the fifteen year old she enjoys the Halloween story episodes. Rose ten thinks it's funny when you guys get off track. God bless you, Rose uh. And I really like to annoy my friends with all the useless facts that I now know. We are such hardcore fans that we even had marathons of your TV series Whoa. And we have literally been

a fan of you guys since you started. Thanks for being a part of our childhood. Love the Harvey family. That's fantastic and they fantastic. It was great. And they sent a picture of Dad and behind the wheel Uh driving with it looks like Grace upfront and Lilian Rose in the back and they were all just smiling and just just they just had this lovely aura about them. Thanks to us, No thanks to the Vulture episode. Anyway, I love the Harvey family now they're they're tops on

my list. Yeah, thanks a lot, Harvey family for writing in. We appreciate that big time. And the old man Harvey, you're doing the right thing, sir, yep, keep both hands on the wheel, that's right. If you want to get in touch with us like the Harvey's did to let us know how much of a role we've played in your life. We love hearing that kind of stuff. You can tweet to us. I'm at josh um Clark and we're also at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.

You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics because it how stuff Works dot com. Mhm