Posted on 07/23/2007 10:21:22 PM PDT by neverdem
Two foods once thought healthy sushi and diet soda pose grave health threats, according to two studies released yesterday.
The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is launching a campaign against sushi, encouraging women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning to have children in the near future to stop eating raw fish and cut down on their intake of even cooked fish with high levels of mercury. The campaign was prompted by a citywide survey that showed that women of childbearing age in New York had three times the level of mercury in their blood stream as did women in the same age group nationwide.
Meanwhile, a study published online in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, by nine researchers affiliated with Harvard, Tufts, Boston University, and the federal government's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute from a center at Boston University found that people who drank one or more soft drinks a day, including diet soda, were 48% more likely to have conditions that lead to heart disease. The thousands of participants of the study had a 31% increased likelihood of becoming obese, a 25% increased risk of high blood sugar, and a higher risk for low levels of "good" cholesterol, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.
The soda industry and the seafood industry lashed out at the studies.
"This study doesn't prove any link between soft drinks and increased risk of heart disease. Its assertions defy the existing body of scientific evidence, as well as common sense," the president of the American Beverage Association, Susan Neely, said of the soda study. "It is scientifically implausible to suggest that diet soft drinks a beverage that is 99 percent water cause weight gain or elevated blood pressure."
"It is extremely..."
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
If a lab rat is force fed only aspartame for its entire diet, in quantities representing hundreds of times what the normal human consumes on a daily basis, maybe this will occur. Of course, this would be the case with many ingredients that are normally harmless to humans. Good grief, even water has an LD 50%. But to think that any of the maladies you list above can occur from consuming aspartame in our diet is just absurd. This is the kind of misinformation that empowers the food police and toxic terrorists as they gradually take away our freedoms.
There are NO studies that show any of the things you claim.
You should look at the chemical composition of an orange, or an apple or countless other “natural” foods. Everything you eat is made of chemicals. Chemical is NOT a bad word. The lefty tree huggers have managed to make it one but that's a sham.
You have bought in to “junk science” which is a tool of the left. You really need to study up on some basic science so you won’t be a victim of the left’s propaganda machines. (this applies to many FReepers, by the way)
You mentioned that your cholesterol and blood pressure were fine and I was pointing out that that wasn’t the reason people avoid Aspartame, and that it was more for harmful effects in other areas. I was also careful to say that it was all still controversial and not 100% proven, but there are lots of studies on the subject. I also should have said “man-made” or synthetic but it doesn’t matter.
In the end it’s all risk vs reward, if it’s worth it to you to drink diet soda when there’s a slight possibility the artificial sweetener could be harmful that’s cool, I can’t stand the way it tastes anyway so it doesn’t matter for me. And while you’re accusing me of talking leftist junk science, I hope you’re not the type who trusts the government FDA to tell them what’s safe and what’s not to consume.
Not any more--Trichinosis is nonexistant in the American food supply. Besides, freezing kills the parasites.
It still exists in Turd World countries....
4 oz of methanol is a lethal dose. Smaller amounts blind the imbiber.
They were real characters who were a lot of fun to be around. They all lived to be old men. Some of them are still alive and are well into their 80’s. As I said, your body does a good job eliminating poisons. Worrying about a small amount of formaldehyde coming from aspartame doesn’t make any sense.
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