July 14, 2023 — The WHO has taken its skill for exquisitely confusing messages on public health to new heights. One of its agencies, the IARC, declared yesterday that aspartame is “possibly carcinogenic.” At the same time, a separate committee of WHO, the JECFA, reaffirmed that it’s no problem if a person consumes up to 40 mg per kg […]
June 20, 2023 — Two researchers from the Harvard Medical School tell us we cannot have confidence in findings the World Health Organization gleaned from nutrition science related to sweeteners. But the problem is not limited to sweeteners. Writing in the New York Times, Anupam Jena and Christopher Worsham say the problem afflicts much of nutrition research: “This is […]
August 23, 2022 — To start an impassioned discussion on nutrition is easy. Bring up non-nutritive sweeteners. Some people see them as a plague in the food supply. Others insist upon evidence to back up such dire claims and can see only fragments propping up presumptions about harms that are yet to be documented. But once again, a study […]
March 25, 2022 — Sweet drinks never cease to activate controversies. For millennia, people have enjoyed them. But that enjoyment has also long sparked a reaction from folks who find fault with enjoying them. So often, people turn to science to justify their beliefs that these sweet beverages are either a good source of refreshment or a hazard to […]
October 9, 2021 — Reporting on non-caloric sweeteners has more in common with reporting on religion than science reporting. We see a constant churn of reporting about studies by people who are looking for evidence to support a belief that sweeteners must be bad for you. The latest headline from NPR on this subject tells us these sweeteners “may […]
May 29, 2021 — Is it still true that seeing is believing? Or in this age of truth decay, is it more likely that people see what they’ve already chosen to believe? We see a lot of this in politics and religion. But it also seems to creep into nutrition research. A case in point would be highly polarized […]
October 27, 2020 — Just in time for Halloween, JACC has published another scary study about diet drinks. The study finds an association with cardiovascular disease. It’s great fuel for the health news machine, but not so helpful for informing people about real health risks. CNN says this is part of a “growing body of research” suggesting something scary […]
June 7, 2020 — No fair! So says the Sugar Association. “Big sugar” petitioned FDA last week because they want food labeling to call out non-caloric sweeteners. Not just sugar. You can’t really blame them for trying. Righteous food activists have been beating up on sugar so much, for so long, that per capita consumption of sugar and caloric […]
January 13, 2020 — Is there such a thing as too much sweetness and light? This is a question that bugs people who just don’t trust artificial sweeteners. Thus, a new study in Nutrients will add fuel to their fires of suspicion. Researchers led by Alexander Nichol conducted a small, randomized crossover study of sucralose (Splenda®) and its effect […]
October 16, 2019 — Some controversies in nutrition seem eternal. People never tire of arguing that no-calorie sweeteners are bad for us. Red meat is either nourishing or noxious, depending upon who’s taking up the argument. The list is endless. And the arguments never fade because feelings are strong, though the data backing them up is often weak. And […]
