It uncovered eight WHO panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame consumption who are beverage industry consultants who currently or previously worked with the alleged Coke front group, International Life Sciences Institute (Ilsi).

Their involvement in developing intake guidelines represents “an obvious conflict of interest”, said Gary Ruskin, US Right-To-Know’s executive director. “Because of this conflict of interest, [the daily intake] conclusions about aspartame are not credible, and the public should not rely on them,” he added.

  • Cyrus Draegur
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    10 months ago

    Yeah, actually.

    And, like, literally EVERYTHING has an LD50 value.

    For some things, the value is astronomically gargantuan, though.

    Like, if you have to consume more than your body weight of a substance within thirty minutes in order for it to have a lethal effect, it’s very improbable to ever happen by accident, and very difficult to make happen on purpose.

    Allegedly, the LD50 for aspartame is 10,000 mg per kg of body weight
    (I fucked up the math on the line that used to be here and got justly called out for it; 10,000 mg is only 10 grams. If someone weighs 60kg it would only be 600 grams which is still A LOT but not nearly what I thought it said at first) (And that’s how much to get to a fifty percent chance of dying - I don’t know what the shape of the curve was leading up to this point, it could be nonlinear.) HOWEVER, I can’t recall if LD50 only accounts for acute mortality, or if it also accounts for chronic mortality; like, if it gives you a type of cancer that takes 20 years to kill you somehow, is that even known? no idea.

    • @justastranger@sh.itjust.works
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      710 months ago

      10,000 mg per kg of body weight you would literally have to consume 10x your body weight in aspartame

      10g/kg is actually 1/100th your weight, not 10 times it

    • @phil_m@lemmy.ml
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      510 months ago

      Additionally to what the others already said:

      LD50 and “bad for your health” are quite separate things.

      Vitamin D for example has an LD50 of ~30mg per kg. So according to your logic, it’s way unhealthier than aspartame (factor ~100). Though in reality you would die without vitamin D intake.

    • @Psyblader@feddit.de
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      210 months ago

      10,000 mg equals 10 g, not 10 kg, so you would only need 1/100 of your body weight. Still an unrealistic amount, but far away from 10x.