Diet coke causes MS?

[RationalVetMed]

My daughter has been told at school that diet coke causes multiple sclerosis. Googling has produced only crank opinion pieces - help!

Also she says it's my fault that she is unable to believe all these things that her friends tell her - it's tough having a sceptic dad - sorry Charlotte!

Yuri

 

[Professor Yaffle]

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

http://www.msfacts.org/article-details.aspx?articleID=40

Over the years, aspartame (an artificial sweetener), allergies, physical trauma, exposure to heavy metals, and environmental toxins have also been studied as potential causes of MS. Little or no evidence has been found to substantiate these claims.

http://www.msfacts.org/causes-multiple-sclerosis.aspx

 

[McHrozni]

My daughter has been told at school that diet coke causes multiple sclerosis. Googling has produced only crank opinion pieces - help!

Well, whoever told her that at school got the opinion from a crank source. Problem solved.

Also she says it's my fault that she is unable to believe all these things that her friends tell her - it's tough having a sceptic dad - sorry Charlotte

I fail to see how this is somehow a bad thing.

Ask her if we should all be afraid we will suddenly mutate into giant insects, Kafka style, because the sky is blue, and we absorb a special radiation from it as a result.
If she says no, you can explain her friends are asking her to believe exactly the same nonsense, but in a different package.

McHrozni

 

[JJM 777]

I thought the claim was that huge doses of aspartame can cause symptoms similar to MS, not MS itself. The difference being that stopping the use of aspartame would make the symptoms go away.

Nevertheless, Coke Zero and Pepsi Max are my favourite daily drinks with food, second only to beer. I take my chances.

 

[rbanks1]

I have overlapping MS/SLE, and I've never had any diet Coke or consumed any
Aspartame. The cause of MS is unknown. Anyone who claims to know the cause
is either misinformed, or dishonest.


rbanks1

 

[bethgsd]

Since I'm a diet coke-a-holic I would be doomed if this were true.

 

[RationalVetMed]

Ask her if we should all be afraid we will suddenly mutate into giant insects, Kafka style, because the sky is blue, and we absorb a special radiation from it as a result.
If she says no...

She says yes, but I think she's just being difficult! Also she's never heard of Kafka.

Thanks McHrozni.

Yuri

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I can't stand the after-taste, so I'm safe.

~~ Paul

 

[dasmiller]

This can be easily tested if we use woo to fight woo. If diet coke causes MS-like symptoms, then a homeopathic solution of diet coke should cure MS.

All we need are a drop of diet Coke, a few gallons of water, and some volunteers . .

 

[RationalVetMed]

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

http://www.msfacts.org/article-details.aspx?articleID=40

http://www.msfacts.org/causes-multiple-sclerosis.aspx

Thanks Prof. I looked at science direct and pub-med but I should have known Snopes would have provided the answer. One of the crank sites I looked at was virtually a cut and paste of the Snopes's hoax email.

Even though I hate the taste of artificial sweetners I thought this was a bit of a ridiculous claim.

Yuri

 

[McHrozni]

She says yes, but I think she's just being difficult!

Yes, probably.

Tell her you'll ask her about it again tomorrow, and the day after, and if she says yes, ask her to present this new danger to her friends.
In time she will agree this is a ridiculous, and probably even see the point.

If she tells her friends about it and they start being afraid of the blue sky consider moving to a different city or, preferably, state.

McHrozni

 

[casebro]

You meant to tell me it's the blue of the sky that causes mutations? Like Cancer? It's the blue visible light that causes beer to go skunky, so maybe so...

OKay, I'ma bleever, The blue sky causes MS.

It must be true, I read here on JREF.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

My daughter has been told at school that diet coke causes multiple sclerosis. Googling has produced only crank opinion pieces - help!

Also she says it's my fault that she is unable to believe all these things that her friends tell her - it's tough having a sceptic dad - sorry Charlotte!

Yuri

Charlotte is lucky to have a skeptic dad. She may not know it yet, but she probably will later. It's not uncommon for kids (especially teens) to voice objections to parent's views over peer's views. But most of the time, most of what you believe seeps into their subconscious little minds and reappears at a later date.

I never bought into my Dad's anti-commie beliefs, but I find I did absorb a lot of his basic values.

And my son objects to a few of my beliefs but has a strong foundation in an evidence based reality. I was never sure I was getting through to him when he was younger because he isn't too interested in science. But he turned out to have a good understanding of the whole false beliefs thing.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I thought the claim was that huge doses of aspartame can cause symptoms similar to MS, not MS itself. The difference being that stopping the use of aspartame would make the symptoms go away...

Goodness no. The whole aspartame urban myth has been circulating in the email netherworld for at least a decade and was completely fabricated from the beginning. One such email that was brought to my attention many years ago was full of bad gramar and spelling errors while claiming the dangers had been presented at some big medical conference. I tracked it down and it turned out the email's author had gotten up to the mike at the conference and spoke of the dangers during a question and answer period. The details are fuzzy now but maybe I can still track down that aspect of the myth. I don't know if the person in question started the myth originally or just brought it up at the conference.

High doses of aspartame have no effects on sensorimotor function or learning and memory in rats.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here's a 1999 Time article tracing the myth back to at least 1995:

A Web of Deceit

Consider the latest electronic health scare: about the artificial sweetener aspartame, which is found in everything from Equal to Diet Coke. A widely disseminated e-mail by a "Nancy Markle" links aspartame to Alzheimer's, birth defects, brain cancer, diabetes, Gulf War syndrome, lupus, multiple sclerosis and seizures. Right away, the long list warrants skepticism. Just as no single chemical cures everything, none causes everything.
In this and similar cases, all the Nancy Markles of the world have to do to fabricate a health rumor is post it in some Usenet news groups and let ordinary folks, who may already distrust artificial products, forward it to all their friends and e-mail pals. I received several copies last week, as have many doctors and health organizations.
When I searched Altavista www.altavista.com for aspartame AND brain AND seizure AND sclerosis, I learned that Markle's message is almost identical to an antiaspartame screed first penned under a different name in 1995....

And here's a version of Nancy Markles paper. I see they've cleaned up the spelling and some of the grammar, but it remains obvious this is not a paper written by a researcher.

I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on "ASPARTAME marketed as 'NutraSweet', 'Equal', and 'Spoonful'"...


...People were telling us at the Conference of the American College of Physicians...

I found no record Markle was ever a speaker at any Environmental Conference and the ACP is a quack organization run by a single flaky physician kind of like the Mercola site only not as slick.

 

[Lisa Simpson]

I read today that women who drink tea are at a greater risk for rheumatoid arthritis. So I'm safe from aspartame induced MS, but I'm doomed for RA. Meh.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Aspartame: a safety evaluation based on current use levels, regulations, and toxicological and epidemiological studies.

Critical review of all carcinogenicity studies conducted on aspartame found no credible evidence that aspartame is carcinogenic. The data from the extensive investigations into the possibility of neurotoxic effects of aspartame, in general, do not support the hypothesis that aspartame in the human diet will affect nervous system function, learning or behavior. Epidemiological studies on aspartame include several case-control studies and one well-conducted prospective epidemiological study with a large cohort, in which the consumption of aspartame was measured. The studies provide no evidence to support an association between aspartame and cancer in any tissue. The weight of existing evidence is that aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption as a nonnutritive sweetener.

Pub Med had a couple of studies suggesting very high doses of aspartame could cause some problems. The metabolites were implicated. One study found if you give rats 550 times the normal dose problems occurred. One study found if you injected it into rats you could see problems but not when the rats ingested the chemical. And a couple studies hypothesized the mechanisms by which very large doses in humans might affect neurological processes.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I read today that women who drink tea are at a greater risk for rheumatoid arthritis. So I'm safe from aspartame induced MS, but I'm doomed for RA. Meh.

I drink a lot of diet soda and have developed RA over the last couple months. I don't drink much tea.

I suspect it is either genetic or viral or both and I was infected years ago from contact with patients. I should look for studies comparing these weird disorders with occupations.

 

[kerikiwi]

Googling has produced only crank opinion pieces

Well, that's a surprise.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

All the parts that make up aspartame are found in food we eat every day.

http://www.eufic.org/page/en/page/FR/fftid/question-answer-aspartame/


Following ingestion, aspartame breaks down in the gut into its three constituent parts: two amino acids - aspartic acid and phenylalanine-, and methanol, which are then absorbed into the blood.
The two amino acids (aspartic acid and phenylalanine) are building blocks of protein and are found naturally in all protein-containing foods, including meats, grains and dairy products. Methanol is also found naturally in many foods such as fruits and vegetables, and their juices and is part of the normal diet.

These components are used in the body in exactly the same ways as when they are also derived, in much greater amounts, from common foods and beverages (e.g. eggs, milk, cheese, meat, fish, fruits and vegetables). For example, a serving of non-fat milk provides about 6 times more phenylalanine and 13 times more aspartic acid than the same amount of beverage sweetened with aspartame; a serving of tomato juice provides about 6 times more methanol than the same amount of aspartame-sweetened beverage. Neither aspartame nor its components accumulates in the body over time.



Aspartame is composed of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, as the methyl ester.

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Aspartic acid and phenylalanine are ... found naturally in protein containing foods, including meats, grains and dairy products.

Methyl esters are also found naturally in many foods such as fruits and vegetable and their juices.

Upon digestion, aspartame breaks down into three components (aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol), which are then absorbed into the blood and used in normal body processes.

None are present in toxic doses in diet pop, and only people with PKU should avoid it since they can't break down protein properly. Those people know who they are and to avoid protein/phenylalanine and aspartame. They don't get MS from eating it though.