nymwit

From a Texan: Welcome to the heat dome!

I wonder what a LLM trained on the increasingly…shifted content Twitter has recently would look like.

I don’t know enough to disqualify the studies they cite, but I guess at least these folks seem to be the opposite of industry shills? There is an Alzheimer’s section. US Right to Know: Aspartame

The Alzheimer’s Association (safely covering their asses) defers to the FDA’s approval but does note concerns have been raised. it’s myth 5 here

I’d definitely buy the appetite increase. I think there is good research into how the brain perceives through taste and other mechanisms to understand foods as calorically dense (sweetness, umami, fatty) causes reinforcing/reward of eating behavior, making you eat more. [I really had to hold back saying “neural pathways”. Always wanted to say that. I’m not really qualified to.]

This has the look that triggers my dietary literature skepticism, but it’s not very diet-y, mostly just on the science and previous studies as far as I’ve read so far The Hungry Brain.

I hope you’re doing well.
I was looking for more information on this topic and browsing this Study suggests association between consuming artificial sweeteners and increased cancer risk and chuckled seeing this in the section describing limitations:

reverse causality cannot be ruled out

Which I guess means the participants that had cancer later means the (undetected at time of study?) cancer made them consume more Aspartame? Sort of fit your anecdote.

I sort of cringe (more of a nose wrinkle really) at OP’s “it’s known in some circles to be bad” You see beliefs and correlative evidence constantly misrepresented as proof and truth in food and medical science (reporting and discussion).

I get it. The body is a hugely complicated system, it’s hard to figure these things out. What does even figuring them out mean with the amount of complicating factors of this affects that which affects this which causes this.

I’m open to the idea that lobbying and such means Aspartame (and other industrial food products) has really been pushed through.

It’s also obviously been studied quite a bit and it’s hard to believe all the studies saying it’s safe at recommended levels are bunk or fraudulent.

This news was on another instance where the discussion included that the IARC carcinogen classifications do not take into account exposure/dosage. A whole bunch of things can be carcinogenic depending on exposure. Haven’t we all read how the rats that got cancer from saccharine had epic doses? It was just magnitudes more than a human would consume.

If an observational study won’t cut it (I see you, @xthedeerlordx, and appreciate your comment and explanation), how does one prove the causation? Don’t you need randomized controlled trials which would be extremely onerous controlling for various factors and basically making the (ideally large number of) participants live in a lab for whatever amount of time the study takes to really prove causation? I’d genuinely like to know. It seems like for a lot of things correlation after correlation after correlation is the best we’re going to get.

If I promise to switch to oat milk, can I keep the cheese?