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Diet Coke. Is it slowly poisoning us? Is aspartine actually dangerous? Is your daily Diet Coke habit a one-way ticket to an early grave? Or has the internet once again taken a perfectly good beverage and turned it into a public health emergency? In this episode, we’re digging into the science and separating the actual evidence from the fear-mongering. Because while Diet Coke might not qualify as a health food, some of the claims about it are a little bit more dramatic than the research supports. But before we crack open a crispy, marinated Diet Coke, we need your help spreading the word about the podcast. Come follow us on Instagram at Three Scheme Queens. That’s the number three Scheme Queens, all one word. We’re sharing lots of medical and Diet Coke humor over there, as well as a lot of behind the scenes chaos. And finally, if you want even more Three Scheme Queens, join us over on Patreon. We’ve got bonus content, exclusive episodes, and even more questionable conversations waiting for you. Now, grab your favorite artificially sweetened beverage, ignore the judgmental looks from the person drinking water next to you, and enjoy this season two throwback while we talk all things Diet Coke.
We’re talking about Diet Coke. We are deep diving into if Diet Coke gives you cancer.
Yes, we’re gonna talk about all of the alleged uh health issues associated with Diet Coke. Yep. And whether or not we believe it. So Well, I’d like to start out by saying I did believe it.
Before you researched? Before I researched. I would like to say also I did not stop drinking Diet Coke. Even though you believed it. Even though I did believe it. I was just like, yeah, this is probably a carcinogen.
I would say I have over the years I’ve gone through periods of my life where I have been abstinent from Diet Coke. And then periods of my life where I’m a heavy Diet Coke consumer. And pretty much every time I take myself off it is when I would like read some study or article. And mostly like dementia was what had me stressed out is like, does Diet Coke cause dementia? Because I already feel like I’m not as quick as I was a couple years ago. Leading into this episode before Kate said this is what we should cover, I was like, you know, I think it’s all nonsense.
So yeah, she’s been pretty anti-Diet Coke gives you cancer.
I mean, I also, I mean, full disclosure, I love Diet Coke. I wanted Diet Coke not to be bad for us. I think the evidence I found supports that, but I definitely was biased going into this.
So Yeah, I mean, I Megan and I both did some research on this episode, and I also could not find any evidence that supported Diet Coke causing cancer.
Diet Coke is a sugar-free soft drink produced by the Coca-Cola Company. It’s a variation of the classic Coca-Cola, but instead of sugar, it uses artificial sweeteners like aspartame to provide a sweet taste without the calories. Diet sodas became popular in the 1960s and 70s as consumers became more health conscious, leading to a growing demand for low calorie alternatives to traditional sugary sodas. Diet Cook was introduced by the Coca-Cola Company on July 9, 1982. It was developed as a new brand rather than a diet version of Coca-Cola. The idea was to create a distinct product that would appeal to consumers looking for a low calorie option. The introduction was a major success and it quickly became one of the leading diet sodas on the market. Its success could be attributed to its distinctive taste, effective marketing, and the growing trend towards healthier eating and drinking habits. For nearly half a century, Diet Coke has remained a popular beverage. At the same time, however, it has been blamed for contributing to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and dementia. So what’s the truth? Are the risks exaggerated, and if so, why? Or is Diet Coke merely a refreshing treat to be enjoyed in moderation? Hmm. I mean, I’m gonna go with the latter. I mean, I do enjoy a Diet Coke, so you know I am the definition I always say this, you know, like the memes where people are like, I went to a restaurant and ordered a Diet Coke and they only had Pepsi products, so I ordered a margarita instead. I’m like, that is 100% me.
I mean, it’s if they have Pepsi products, then it’s not the same.
Yeah, they’re just like sometimes like I just want a treat, and Diet Coke meets that need, you know? And I think there are probably unhealthier treats you could be giving yourself. So definitely that’s all I’m trying to say. Okay, so as we talk about these studies, I think we’ll talk more about this. Part of the problem is that any studies that have been done that have not been great studies do not really specify like Diet Coke versus Coke Zero, for example, which we know have different artificial sweeteners. Coke Zero has Splenda, sucralose, sucralose, which we allegedly may be worse for you.
Yeah, because like sucralose kills ants. It’s like an ant poison. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we give like you know, rat poison to rat poison, cumin.
Yeah.
It’s hard to like again, a lot of these studies don’t really differentiate the the beverage, the artificial sweetener, whatever. But um, for the most part, a lot of the information we’re gonna talk about is related to the artificial sweetener that is used in Diet Coke. So it’s aspartame, because that is what a lot of people kind of allege is the culprit and what makes Diet Coke so bad for you.
Aspartame is also known as sweet and low in the pink packets.
So, what is aspartame? It’s a low-calorie artificial sweetener that is commonly used as a sugar substitute. It’s composed of three naturally occurring substances. These uh three substances are actually foundations of proteins that are found naturally in milk, meats, and vegetables. So these are like naturally occurring substances. But when they fuse these amino acids together in a chemical reaction, that’s when they become, quote, artificial, right? Artificial sweeteners. So this resultant chemical is about 200 times sweeter than sucrose or table sugar. Justice for aspartame. Justice for aspartame, right after justice for the female dolphins and justice for Lee Harvey Oswald. Yeah, who can get it? So again, lots of allegations about how unhealthy these are for you. So we’ll start with cancer’s the big one that Kate touched on. Uh so aspartame has been linked to cancer since 2005 when a link was discovered between cancer in rodents and aspartame use. Now, if you go back and read the story with on which the Who makes that conclusion, the scientists fed mice five times their body weight in aspartame and saw an effect that they like, you know, went on to develop potentially liver cancer. This has never been observed in humans. We know that mice are more susceptible to cancer in general than humans. So the study that has kind of started all of this conversation, like not really a great study and not really realistic. Right. Who’s gonna drink five times their body weight? Yeah. Right. Rodents in general seem to have higher risk, I think, in all the studies of like liver cancer in general. Like so the fact that they develop liver cancer is also Yeah.
It could be coincidental. Yeah. Yeah.
There could be genetically predisposed. Yeah, rats over rodents over humans. Yeah. I mean, obviously humans get liver cancer, but it just sounds like it’s a cancer that more commonly affects rats. Right. Right. Uh since this time, there have been additional large-scale studies that have been unable to replicate the findings, and the FDA formally discredited the claim in 2013. The American Cancer Society released a statement that there is no clear evidence that aspartame causes cancer. Then in 2023, the International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that aspartame was possibly carcinogenic. So again, this sounds scary, except when you look at how they rate things. Okay. Okay. Okay, so the IARC rates things group one to group four. Group one, it’s carcinogenic to humans. Group two A, it’s like probably carcinogenic. Group two B it’s possibly carcinogenic. Group three, it is not classifiable as carcinogenic. And then group four, probably not carcinogenic. So these are like very vague ratings. Okay. Very vague. So where they rated this is to be right in the middle. So it’s possibly carcinogenic. And this was again, rating was based primarily on these animal studies that we talked about. And they did acknowledge that, like while there may be some correlation, we’ll talk a little bit. You can tell us as a fresh graduate, um, you know, about like these different studies and observational studies and cause and effect versus correlation, right? Right. So there really have not been any cause and effect. So even though we have like multiple studies with kind of different results, any study, any of these studies that are claiming to have a finding, it’s it’s more of like a an association, right? Not a cause and effect. Right. So anyway, again, this classification of 2B really just means that there’s some indication that there could be a potential link, but the evidence is not definitive. You know what? If you go by these IARC ratings, what they deem to be as carcinogenic as aspartame. Oh, tell me. Coffee. Aloe. Ginkgo bloba. Do you take some ginkgo for your memory? No. I I have at times in my life, and but I am not good about consistently taking supplements. And I have thoughts about supplements. So go back and listen to Big Pharma, right? I mean, I feel like you didn’t really express your thoughts on supplement. No, I I feel like that was mostly you and Andrew. Yeah. I was trying to not be a negative Nancy, really, and I was trying not to cause any drama as I talk about supplements and how little I believe in them. But she doesn’t believe in them. Coconut oil. It’s probably something you use all the time. So this is a bullshit list. I’m calling bullshit. Do you know what? I know. Well, that’s the point. That is the coconut oil? That is the point, is that these this is the only, I’m gonna go through all these people who disagree, but this is the only group that has said, like, well, there may be an effect. And if you’re following them, then we need to be cutting out coffee, aloe, ginkgo, baloba, coconut oil. You know what they’ve rated higher than 2B? What? Shift work and red meat. So we’re all we’re all gonna die anyway. So enjoy your diet coke. Okay. That’s where some of these rumors come from. But let me just give you some responses from some other groups that you may or may not trust, uh, like the FDA. So the FDA has stated, quote, scientific evidence has continued to support the FDA’s conclusion that aspartame is safe for the general population when made under good manufacturing practices and used under the approved conditions of use. It is one of the most studied food additives in the human food supply. To determine the safety of aspartame, the FDA has reviewed more than a hundred studies designed to identify possible toxic effects, including studies that assess effects on the reproductive and nervous systems, carcinogenicity, and metabolism. The joint FAO WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives is another body that assesses the safety of food additives. And in 2023, they responded to this IARC classification saying that there was no convincing association between aspartame and cancer in people and did not change its recommended acceptable daily intake. And we’re going to talk about what that is because that’s going to blow your mind. I don’t know that for a fact, but it would make sense because again, like this group is reiterating what I already told you that like aspartame is just substances that are already produced in other foods. They combine to make this artificial sweetener. So it’s not really like a chemical in a lab necessarily, right? It’s like so it would make sense that it would probably in the you know sixties and seventies be one of the earlier.
Yeah, I mean, I remember my great-grandmother had diabetes and she loved her sweetenl.
The European Food Safety Authority in 2013 came out and said aspartame and its breakdown products are safe for human consumption at current levels of exposure. And isn’t Europe like stricter about their food regulations? Europe is way stricter.
I think they have I think it’s like we allow like 10 times more chemicals in our foods and beauty products in comparison to Europe. So like I when I say 10 times more, there’s like 70 in Europe versus 700 that we allow in America.
So if you don’t believe the United States government, maybe believe the Europeans. Yeah. So interesting, all of these groups that are like, you know what, we think it’s safe, they have released their recommendations for ADIs, which I think is like acceptable daily intake. Okay, acceptable daily intake of aspartame. And wait for it. Wait for this recommendation. Wait for it. The FDA has set the ADI at 50 MIGs per kig per day. 50 MIGs per kig? Yeah. And I’m gonna break that down for people about how much that is because that’s wild. The European Food Safety Authority and the Joint FAO WHO expert committee, they have recommendations that are slightly lower, but still kind of a massive amount, um, of 40 MIGs per kig per day. So that means that a person weighing 130 pounds would have to consume 75 packets of aspartame a day to even approach the upper end of this acceptable daily intake. Oh my gosh. And if we’re breaking that down into like diet coke, yeah, that’s over 14 diet cokes per day. My gosh, more than a case. And so what they’re saying is that at these levels, if you if you consume 14 diet cokes a day, looking at that population, they have not been able to find an association between aspartame and cancer, like diet coke conception and cancer.
Seems very definitive to me. And I I believe that aspartame has been researched a lot because again, I it I do it is it’s been around for so long and they haven’t been able to get it off the market. You know, people love a no-cow sweetener. Yeah. People love Splenda was all the rage at first, and now I think people are catching on about sucralose. Uh-huh. Yeah. I’m highly skeptical about any of the no calorie sweeteners. And that’s because I don’t like a lot of sweet stuff. So if I’m like, if I’m gonna have something sweet, I just want the sugar. Diet Coke is a different story because Diet Coke tastes better than regular Coke. Agreed, 100%. Yeah. I don’t even think about it, I don’t know.
You’re not doing it to be healthy, you just find it more refreshing.
I just like it. Yeah. But I’m also not someone who sits there and like pounds Diet Cokes. Like, I’m I got one and I’m good. You know? I mean I love a fountain diet coke. Breach girl. A fountain diet coke with sonic ice. I was gonna say, let’s do we’ve talked about this.
Styrofoam cup. So your but your favorite place to get a Diet Coke would be a sonic with a styrofoam cup and ice pellets. Yes. Or like ice chips. And the sonic straw is good because it’s like a wide straw. McDonald’s patent their straw so it’s like wider and it like improves the fizziness. But also they have very strict regulation on their syrup to carbonated water ratio, and that’s why it McDonald’s is like one of the best ice. Oh yeah, McDonald’s is good too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I really like it in a styrofoam cup. I I generally do like like hospital ice ice pellets, but I will say that at work we for for a couple of months had a new ice maker in our lounge that gave like chipped ice. Oh no, it was better than it was better. Really? It was better than the pellet ice, but then it went away. But yeah, mostly I think I’m like a I mean, I do drink diet coke not at work, but I’m mostly a Diet Coke at work girl, and I try to make myself alternate. I try to say, like, you had a Diet Coke, you need to go drink an entire bottle of water before you can even think about an afternoon Diet Coke.
So for me, it’s like I don’t I don’t think about the water to Diet Coke ratio. I think about do I want the extra caffeine?
I feel like the caffeine in Diet Coke is minuscule.
It’s minuscule, but like the extra caffeine for me is like will keep me up at night. You’re so sensitive. I’m just yeah. Do you ever think we need to like toughen up our bodies a little bit? I have got I’ve worked very hard at my sleep health.
Okay.
I have sleep health. I can like fall asleep wherever.
Uh I did kind of want to, because this we are a conspiracy theory podcast. So I did briefly before I go into a couple of the other things and then let Kate give us kind of her hippie perspective. Okay. Uh, I did want to to kind of talk briefly about why some people might have trust issues with like the FDA and which I think you touched on a little bit in Big Pharma, right? But like some of these government groups that are coming out, they’re like, oh, it’s cool, it’s safe, aspertame safe, right? Follow the money. So this might need a, I think, probably a deeper discussion in an episode. Your for you page is very similar to mine. Yep. Do you get the things about the um the conspiracy about the food pyramid? Yeah. Okay, let me tell you, girl. Yeah. So in the 90s, the USDA came out with the food pyramid that we all know from, well, we know from our childhood. Right. Right. It was like the food pyramid, and then it became like the plate. Correct. Yeah. Yep. Food plate was like the follow-up. Right. So there were years of research spent kind of creating this food pyramid that was supposed to kind of be a visual representation and tell us like how many servings of everything we’re supposed to have, right? So at the base of the pro of the pyramid, carbohydrates is like whole grains. Yeah. And then it was like fruits, vegetables. They didn’t really break down sugars and fats between like good fats and bad fats, right? But it was supposed to be like a visual representation of like what the majority of your of your intake should be and how many servings you have. 11 servings of whole grains a day or something. Six to eleven. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah, two. Six to eleven. Which is I think, can you imagine eating 11 servings of whole grains in a day? That feels like a lot of food.
Well, how big is a serving? Megan’s consumption of food and my consumption of food is different.
I’m like 11 servings. It’s like that’s my snack on the drive home. What are you talking about? What do you mean? Okay. So in 1991, they spend like years working with all these like nutritionists and developing this food pyramid. And then in 1991, it’s like gets sent off to be printed to be released to the public. But representatives for the National Cattlemen’s Association saw this coverage. They thought that it stigmatized their product. It put beef in the same category as fats and dairy and kind of limited how much you take in. So then they get together with other groups like the National Milk Producers Federation and they start protesting the pyramid. Um, so the National Milk Producers Federation and the National Cattlemen’s Association get together, they’re like pretty upset about this. So they complain, and the government says, you know what? We’re gonna pause this rollout. They spend a year revising the pyramid. It cost almost a million dollars to the taxpayers, you know, to just in the 90s, revised the revise this pyramid. This is the biggest waste of tax money. And so then, like 93 or so, the updated versions released to the public, and the researchers who had initially helped create it were like, wait, this is not what our recommendation was. There were much higher recommendations for grains, and there were much lower recommendations for fruits and vegetables. Whoa. And why? Because they were trying to support the economy, they were trying to support the the cattlemen. So, so wait a second.
So, what you’re telling me, Megan, is that we’ve all been lied to about nutrition for our whole lives.
Yeah, well, they’re saying like the so the U USDA, US Department of Agriculture, who released this, who’s which is what we’ve we’re all taught to follow, right? Their primary mission is to make sure that the American agriculture industry is successful. So should they really be giving us nutritional advice? No. If it conflicts with their mission, no. So they’re just it’s like propaganda, right? So the people over the years are like, you know, there’s so many issues with this pyramid. Can we then there’s people blame it for like contributing to obesity because you know, people we were taking in so many grains. And again, I think there there could be a deeper dive into this as like a whole other episode. But again, can we it kind of goes back to this whole like can we really trust these government entities? Like, you know, who are they looking out for? Yeah, we know deep pockets. Yeah. So I just wanted to say, even though I’m like, oh, look at this, the FDA says aspartame’s all good. I just want you to note that we do have a history of asterisk. Yeah. Yeah. So then the other allegations I kind of wanted to go through, I’ve always heard like CAD. Does it cause can it can coronary artery disease be caused by diet coat conceptions? This one is a little bit tougher to tease out for me, but again, all the studies that do exist are observational studies. So, Kate, so observational studies, tell us about those.
Observational studies are like studies that you look at, is it retrospective? It can be. Yeah, right. They basically study the relationship between two variables.
Right. It can be like surveys, you can have people just like filling out surveys, you can be doing interviews, you can review medical records, you can just like direct observational studies, and you look at all of these different variables and you find associations, right? Like the patient, well, we now know this to be true, right? We could say like this patient had both hypertension and CAD. There must be an association between high blood pressure and coronary artery disease, right? But it doesn’t necessarily say the high blood pressure caused the coronary artery disease.
Yeah, so what you can do is you can do these observational studies and then sort of find these relationships and these correlations between variables, and then it can help you develop a study to help say this actually causes, you know, X actually causes Y.
But my and my takeaway is that we’re not there. We’re at, so we haven’t had any of these does X cause Y studies studies yet. All we’ve had is observational studies, have had very mixed results. Some of them do seem to show correlation between C A D and Diet Coke, but many of them do not show a correlation. So I think definitely more research here. There’s not enough evidence for me to be like, okay, I’m back off of my Diet Cokes because there could be a also like you know what else is correlated with C A D?
Diabetes. You know who we’re drinking the Diet Cokes?
The beets? The beets. We’re gonna talk about that in just a second. Okay. Because the only other thing I the only study that I kind of was like sort of thought found to be soda sort of interesting was that there was a more recent study that found that soda drinkers, meaning diet and regular, um, had a 10% increase in developing atrial fibrillation compared to non-soda drinkers. Interesting. So atrial fibrillation?
Kate Atrial fibrillation is just a fast heart rhythm in which one part of your heart doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to work. Yeah your heart two parts of your heart kind of pump together but when they start to pump separately one part of your heart the electrical activity is just coming from all over the place instead of in one succinct pathway. So that’s apib and then you have got a you can have a rapid response on the other side.
But this causes if your heart’s sort of quivering at times and not pumping effectively you can get blood pooling which can cause clots and that’s how we get strokes, right? Right. So aphib, that’s kind of scary to be like, oh my gosh, this increases my risk of AFib. Keep in mind 5% of the population has aphib. This is a pretty common rhythm issue. We know it occurs more in people who get older right we do know it occurs also in patients who have CAD and that kind of thing. More problems with their heart. Interesting so it’s like oh man okay well that’s maybe something to think about. DAD equals coronary artery disease I keep saying sorry but interestingly do you know what else causes the same risk of atrial fibrillation that 10% increase? Tell me about it, Maggie. Four ounces of juice a day. So like if you’re supposed to cut out your diet coke you better also be count cut cutting out your cup OJ in the morning with which apparently OJ is coming back.
It’s a good thing to do in the morning. Prevent that scurvy it helps or your adrenal gland overnight they like you know your cortisol levels. They use a lot of vitamin C to help make cortisol so if you get a morning orange juice sort of helps you know regulate those cortisol levels. Cortisol levels help with your circadian rhythm. Okay. Okay. So vitamin C people it’s good for you.
So okay well that’s good because we also know that you know high cortisol can cause coronary disease right sure can. So you would circle back to diabetes though, right? You had mentioned a lot of diabetics drink diet soda and we know diabetes has an association with CAD coronary disease. And I think you’re right. I think that’s kind of where we get it a lot of these is like how can we say cause and effect and how do we know it’s not like that was a sequence of events. Right. Right. But I wanted to look into this also because what I’ve always been told by people is diet soda that can can cause diabetes can cause weight gain because your body thinks it’s sugar, your pancreas releases insulin causes a hypoglycemic reaction causes your blood sugar to drop which then makes you want to go eat something and so in fact it’s like potentially causing diabetes. Yeah these are the lies that shape magazines yeah I mean this is definitely like things we heard growing up right fitness magazine yeah like all those magazines fact checked not true they follow people’s glucose levels and there is no rise or decrease in glucose with the diet coke that you know that would perpetuate this theory. I’m sorry Rika on the weight gain diabetes there’s very mixed data um between weight and diet soda consumption again there are some studies have been published that have been like pay people who drank diet coke or other like um artificially sweetened sweetened beverages had some improvements in body weight and like cardiometabolic risk factors. There’s other studies again like not causative correlation observational studies that like nope maybe we see people who drink diet soda have a higher weight and again it’s hard to say like you’re saying did they gain weight they’re trying to like cut you know they’re trying to lose weight so they they cut out sugar do they have diabetes maybe are overweight they’re trying to yeah so it’s hard to say what is causing what right the in 2023 who did advise against the use of aspartame for weight loss purposes because they just said there’s low level evidence that it will help you lose weight but not a lot of evidence out there that like it’s gonna cause diabetes or aching. Right. So if there really is an association it might be less of a role with like your pancreas and your insulin release and more of a role with your gut microbiome. Now actually you’re gonna probably like this because we’re gonna talk a little bit about the gut microbiome.
I have the gut microbiome this is really like your wheelhouse do you want to tell the people what the gut microbiome is so the gut microbiome your body has a natural microbiome in general your skin has a microbiome your mouth has a microbiome and your gut has a microbiome and microbiome is basically made up of bacteria that live in your intestines and you know you can have like yeast in there and you know anyway it they’re all different types of organisms that make up the normal flora of your the the lining of your intestines and these new research is continuing to come out about the mic the gut microbiome but what we’re finding is a lot of these bacteria in our gut is actually like they’re very beneficial to digestion and um you know making sure that you know our food gets break broken down and then different byproducts are good for us and there’s a lot of evidence that supports like your gut microbiome has this like you know gut brain connection.
The gut brain connection is wild to me it’s wild because they you know some studies are like you know the the gut is our brain because it it talks so much to our brain about the different hormones that we need to so anyway I love I will nerd out a hundred percent over the gut microbiome I love the gut microbiome so tell me about the gut microbiome well you know and they talk about this yes the that this association with we talk about yeah the the correlation with your brain and how your brain functions your mental health um inflammatory diseases autoimmune diseases so we yeah there’s a lot happening there now there was this 2014 study on mice and they were like artificial sweeteners may be altering their gut microbiome which could potentially affect glucose metabolism and contribute to insulin resistance now I will say that the challenge looking for all these studies and trying to fact check them again as I mentioned at the beginning is like very few of these studies actually differentiate between like the type of artificial sweetener what the type of diet soda is if it’s getting more specific and they’re looking at diet sodas. So like this study looked at saccharin.
That’s equal.
Yeah so it’s like this isn’t even the same artificial sweetener so it does it have the same effect we don’t know. I will say that it’s also hard to like and and these are animal studies too we haven’t even seen these we like we don’t know that necessarily because it happened in a rat it means it’s gonna happen in a human.
Also where these mice were animals like where their gut was were their gut health to begin with. Yeah to begin with exactly also they might have different bacteria in their gut than we do. Yeah that’s what I mean we’re not I think again it’s like they do these little rat studies and they’re like up it’s probably I will say they it probably does alter our gut microbiome but I don’t think there’s a lot of research in the gut microbiome because I think it’s hard to study.
And then f the final thing before I turn it over to you also I want to notice memory issues because this is like I said the one that kind of scared me the most in 2017 there was this like Boston study that came out and they had looked at like over a decade looked at 4,000 people and they looked at how much diet soda they drank and found that patients who drank one or more artificially sweetened artificially sweetened drinks per day were three times more likely to have a stroke or develop dementia than those who drank less than one per week. And this is like pretty significant these findings are still cited today again this was enough to make me go off diet coke for a while but the study has been criticized now because again it shows a showed a correlation not a causation so we don’t actually we didn’t actually prove that the diet soda was causing these issues the study didn’t differentiate between the types of artificial sweeteners didn’t account for other potential factors so like other variables they didn’t look at like did we have equal distribution in in this population of diabetes of genetic risk factors that kind of thing right and there were numerous limitations like it relied entirely on patient self-reported recall data. So I think again we need like some good research research studies before we can say aspartame is bad.
Yeah we talked about in our big pharma episode that research is expensive.
So the conclusion from my research again trying to deep dive into some of these studies that have been cited out there is that most of these studies have generally not found significant negative effects and again we have no studies that demonstrate that diet sodas and other products have sh have a consistent pattern of memory impairment diabetes stroke coronary disease cancer there is the liter the evidence is not out there. The literature is not out there and I love my literature so I’m gonna just keep enjoying my ice cold refreshing debunked what else what other thoughts do you have?
Okay so I I do have some thoughts um I think that as a society and as we’re moving towards like I think millennials are sort of moving towards like a more health conscious state right we’re we’re watching our parents you know get sicker we’re watching society get sicker we are slowly but surely running out of social security medicated Medicare like we are understanding the cost of healthcare the rising cost of healthcare and so I think we’re sort of trying to figure out like how can we prevent these chronic diseases right so um cancer is definitely up there cancer has been the top two leading causes of death in the US for 75 years and according to the National Cancer Institute 40% of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in their lives. I know it’s it’s scary. So I think it’s natural because younger people are also getting cancer you know we’re hearing how these young girls are getting breast cancer and it’s scary. And maybe you know you and I could be hearing about it more often because of you know the line of work that we do but it is sort of out there and at least in on my for you page it’s out there. So I think it’s natural for people to sort of like look at the things that they’re putting in their body putting on their bodies and all the things and sort of try and figure out like okay well what are the environmental risk factors that I can eliminate to help prevent getting cancer. That was a scary statistic I will share another statistic for you in 2024 there were two million new cancer cases however um however the mortality rate fell by 27.5% so that means that we’re getting better at treating cancer just not at preventing it. Yeah and not at preventing it.
Maybe better at finding it yeah probably finding it earlier you know there’s new studies that are coming out that are saying screening like lung cancer for instance uh we well Megan’s laughing at me things we fight about yeah my friend Rachel who listens to the pod she and I always bicker about appropriate recommendation for cancer screening because there are some studies not just on lung cancer but in general like I think we’re talking about this with mammograms too that maybe we over mammogram if you if we do too much screening then we find benign things that then we worked up which then we get complications from the workup and so it is like a risk benefit. I think we have to weigh that but tell us what the literature shows.
Well I mean the literature is saying that we need to like the recommendation is that if you have certain risk factors like uh men and smokers have a higher risk for lung cancer. So if you have if you’re a man and you’ve been smoking for X amount of years, you’re over 50. Yeah and you’re over 50, you’re gonna get a CT scan and they do it once a year. And we’re finding it. So a 27.5% decline in mortality is a great thing. Yeah let’s celebrate that. Let’s celebrate that. So you think that we’re all we this is like in general in the world cancer is a real problem we’re facing and it’s making us all anxious and so people are just looking for things that they can well I think the idea the theory is that all of these all of these substances like preservatives in food aspartame the idea is that if they’re chemicals made in the lab and they’re not naturally occurring maybe the chemical that’s being made in the lab is interfering with our natural biological processes. And that sort of I mean we know that too much exposure to UV like can interfere with that. Smoking is a huge I think smoking is like the most studied carcinogenic. I think Americans are trying to find sources of where they can prevent cancer and because of that study what in 2005 you can like oh yeah there’s that guy that said vaccines cause autism.
I mean people grasp onto that and then even people come out and they go it’s been debunked it doesn’t matter because people are like this is something I can do and I can to minimize my risk or my child’s risk right it’s my control.
It’s it’s what I can control.
Yeah.
So I think it’s fine if people don’t want to drink diet coke because they want to decrease the risk for cancer. But don’t shame your friends who are enjoying a Diet Coke okay I think that also Diet Coke you know it it was made in the 60s. The 60s is when diabetes started to like really come about as a chronic disease in America and it’s also when the obesity trends sort of started trending up and then in 1994 I was going to say the 90s I feel like it was then we were like everyone was on Weight Watchers.
We were all you know get we’re going to the 2000s right and we talk about like I mean the Jessica Simpson being overweight in that picture is like just what’s really wrong with us.
Right. Yeah really wrong with our society. In 94 the CDC declared diabetes type two as an epidemic. So I think you’re looking at all these things and Diet Coke was really just made as a marketing tool to continue to have consumers drink their product. Right.
Coke wanted to people to continue to drink their product so yeah that diabetes is a problem how can we fight how can people are afraid of sugar they don’t want to gain weight they don’t want to have diabetes right give them an alternative. Right.
Yeah I’m gonna tell you guys a little bit about what actually does cause cancer and then different ways you can prevent it. Let’s have an educational moment. So cancer the the most indicative factor for cancer age. The older you get the more likely you’re gonna get some sort of makes sense you’ve been exposed to more things in your life exactly and you know what all the processes our body has like a normal process to try and you know cancer is just a mutation every time I think about cancer I just interrupt you I’m sorry but every time I think about cancer like on like the cellular level it’s wild to me it’s just like the DNA you screwed up one time and just kept replicating.
Right. Right?
Right. And it and it but not only that it like bypasses all of the built-in checks and balances our checks and balances that our cells do. And so it just becomes a bigger and bigger problem because the cell just had a little mutation in all the checks and balances. Our body is so smart. I mean constantly our our body’s recreating cells and then as that cell is going through the process of like making sure it’s all shiny and new and everything looks good if there is a cell that doesn’t look good then our bodies typically kill that cell off and it just gets you know absorbed into the bloodstream and wasted out in our waste with our waste system in our bodies. So I think it’s really interesting and really cool the way um and that’s that’s designed partly with our immune system. So as you age your immune system gets more tired as do other parts of your body and so that is part of the reason why age is associated with cancer. Your immune system is just not doing what it’s supposed to do or doing what it did as well as it did as you when you were younger yeah cancer is also genetic. We know a lot of genes are associated with cancer um like breast cancer ovarian cancer pancreatic cancer colon cancer is a big one all of those cancers you know your your doctor is this is why it’s important to know what is your family history so that your doctor can better screen you um and keep it on their radar. You know if you’re starting to have these symptoms that could line up with some sort of cancer they can screen you early and get treated early which again is part of why our mortality rate is down. It’s because work of we’re becoming smarter on how to treat cancer and look at screening for cancer cigarette smoke and tobacque those are like big carcinogens infections we know like when you get HPV that causes cervical cancer uh Epstein bar can cause some cancers lymphomas um radiation if you are exposed to radiation for long that’s why when you’re in the hospital it’s like what Megan says like when when you have to screen these people you also have to get these people exposed to radiation and what is the cost benefit or what is the risk benefit in that immunosuppressive medications like if you have an autoimmune disease if you’ve been recipient of a transplant those are all again this goes back to the immune system you’re suppressing the immune system you’re suppressing the checks and balances that your body has to sort of screen out that atypical cell and then the atypical cell becomes you know a mom and starts replicating. There’s also factors that may have affect the risk of cancer so that’s diet alcohol has been shown to be um associated with some cancer physical activity obesity diabetes which again we could talk about is it the diabetes that’s causing the cancer and then environmental risk factors. These are all things that we know can cause cancer not diet coke not aspartame and like Megan said it is highly studied it is the oldest like no calorie sweetener and I think if you want a diet coke you can have a diet coke you know okay let’s talk about preventing cancer. So going back to the immune system it’s really important to help keep your immune system strong you know it’s really good for your immune system sleep being on a normal circadian circadian rhythm. But also like right aren’t they saying now women need like 10 hours of sleep a night yeah when’s the last time you got 10 hours of sleep a night I slept the other day until 9 30 in the morning and I was like oh my gosh I slept so late. But you didn’t get the kids off to school? Bourbon boy slept till 8 a.m and he woke up and he was like Joey was the only one up patch was still sleeping. Like we all slept in late I don’t know I I forget what we were doing. We must have been busy because you know I’m at that point in my life where my kids can get up without me it’s great. Highly recommend. 10 out of 10 I’ll never forget when Lori friend of the pod was like all you have to do is get to the point where the kid can learn how to turn on the TV on you know I think stress is so high in the society and stress really does a number on your immune system. So learn how learn ways to manage your stress cope with your stress that’s very easy to say there’s a lot of coping mechanisms you can adapt you just have to be able to continue to adapt to those coping mechanisms but bringing down your stress level is extremely important in taking care of your immune health we know typical some types of foods can help you like foods that what we’ve heard about antioxidants, right? Asay berries, blueberries, all types of berries, green tea, dark chocolate we love a dark chocolate beans and legumes, spinach grapes, broccoli, leafy greens, nuts and pot pomegranates those are all really like good things antioxidants. So basically what antioxidants are is there are there’s this idea that the more free radicals in your body the more likely that that’s those are like carcinogenic and the antioxidants will go and they’ll bind to those free radicals and sort of neutralize them and you know help them to move on their way. I think of it as a positive ion and a negative ion and the negative ion is your uh free radicals and then your positive ions are your antioxidants and that’s just to help become a neutral you a positive plus a negative is cancel each other out cancel each other out exactly eating whole foods so making sure your diet is rich in foods again that are not processed um eating seafood especially those rich in omega 3s is girls you know I love some seafood yeah Megan is the queen of seafood especially salmon mackerel and sardines do you like sardines Maggie? No okay so my great grandmother loved sardines and she always had a can on them and they’re like coming back in the like nutrition community.
Aren’t they really salty salty though?
What come what comes in a little tin? I feel like I bunch of they’re both they both come in tin. Yeah I feel like I’ve people have brought those to like wineries before yeah yeah for like a little charcuterie with a little side of anchovies.
They’re they’re very flavorful. I mean I’ve used an anchovy in cooking before like because they like disintegrate. So they they’re like you can put them in like sauces and stuff and they disintegrate and they just become like flavor. Um but like seeing it on a pizza I don’t know I don’t know you know there’s something about disintegration and it just becoming a thing and then it just is eating you’re just like eating it in the sauce. You’re eating the essence but like no I don’t think so. So anyway going back to the eating the fish, uh omega three fatty acids are renowned for their anti inflammatory processes or properties and we know that you know cancer is an inflammatory process An inflammatory process. And then exercise, my big one, you guys go move your body. Exercise is so good for you. It goes back to it rejuvenates you. It helps boost your energy levels. It helps boost your immune system. Getting that, I mean, even just moving your body, all of that, you know, you’re you’re turning over your toxins, you’re getting all that out, you’re sweating out things that don’t need to be inside of you. I mean, exercise is great. It could be you could go for a brisk walk, you could do some yoga, do a little hit, do some crossfit. Maggie, you want to do some crossfit? She’s a no. No.
It’s a no from her. Not if you want to remain uninjured. Okay. Tai chi, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tai chi we say for the older people. If you if you can’t, if you can’t um go run a mile, just do some tai chi, my friend. Good for your balance, decreases your fall risk, has health benefits.
It’s like yoga, but like it’s like a martial art, but in yoga form.
Yeah.
Yeah. That’s what Tai Chi is. Um, so yeah, those are some things you can do for cancer. I would like to say that I am with the general population that there’s more things causing cancer. Although Megan, I did do a deep dive on deodorant. No, no evidence. There’s no evidence that supports Here’s the thing.
I respect, I have because I do I give Kate a lot of shit. Okay. And she just takes it like a good friend. She doesn’t know that. And sometimes I’m like, was that too much? And she laughs. She’s like, no, we’re good. But I guess I respect that you have I just as we know we’re a couple girls with anxiety. Okay. And I respect that you can put the time and energy into shopping for your like hippie deodorant and your hippie laundry detergent and like checking all of your ingredient lists in the grocery store. I just feel like there is already so much to worry about in life that I can’t take on more things. Yeah. So then I it like overwhelms me and sometimes me have to hear you talk about it. But but if it makes you feel good, you do you.
Well, my whole my whole journey with hippie deodorant is not based on cancer. You know this, right?
Is it about break out your skin?
Yeah. I’m just a sensitive Sally.
I know, and I can’t like maybe you need to toughen up. Maybe we need to have some exposure therapy.
No, it hurts so bad. I I used to get burns, guys. I used to get burns on my underarms from any person.
That’s also because we both were we both were on prescription aluminum.
There is carcinogenic material that has been found in tampons, and I use organic tampons. Go look it up. We’re not sponsored, but Cora, the best tampons on the market. I love all of their products. It’s a female-owned company. You buy a box, you can it all they also give boxes to you know women and underserved countries for menstrual products. I love the company. I want them to sponsor us. But Cora, go look them up. They’re at Target, they’re at CBS, they’re everywhere. But they’re my favorite. Colleen loves them. She would vouch for them too. And I’m trying to get Megan on them, but you know, there is carcinogenic material and tampons.
Bourbon Boy also uses the hippie deodorant, though, right? Yes, he does. Do you drive that? Is that a cancer thing? Is that a skin thing?
I actually don’t rem I think he also started breaking out it with um deodorant, and I was like, I’ll just get you some of mine. And so he did, and then it you don’t stink. So the deodorant I use, I will also you know what? I’ll just do a whole link sesh for you guys. This is called Primally Pure, it’s one of my favorite companies. It’s also female-owned. They are again primarily pure, they’re very like organic, 100% ingredient list. Um they try and source their ingredients from the fair trade stuff. So they started out small and they’re getting bigger. You can find them online at Primally Pure. I love them. Bourbon Boy uses the charcoal deodorant, and I am using, I feel like the bergamot one right now. I like blue tansy too. Blue tansy. Anyway, go look them up. Megan’s just like staring at me like I can’t believe you’re linking these hippie. There again, guys, there is no evidence that supports aluminum is like there, I don’t even think there’s a correlation between aluminum and breast cancer. I think breast cancer rates are just on the on the up. But it makes me feel better. And I don’t use hippie dippy laundry detergent anymore.
Oh, since when? Since you were we’re saving up?
Yeah. Since we’re watching our bank accounts. I just also like you have it’s all about risk and benefit, right? What are you what are you gonna risk and what are you gonna benefit? Why am I Bourbon Boy does our laundry and he would only use goals? But he used like regular detergent for himself, and the kids, and then like used my fruit, and I’m just like, okay, this is ridiculous. Like, I don’t need to do that. I’m very partic I again, I’m particular about like my makeup. My makeup’s all clean. I don’t I don’t wear a lot of makeup. The we uh my hair products are clean, my body lotions clean, everything’s my face washes. Like I use Manuka Honey off my face.
I got some I got some festive Halloween hand soap at Home Goods, and she had some at our cart, and then she was like, you know what? I don’t want this. I said, because it’s not hippie, and she was like, bingo, you know, hippie hand soap.
I got mine from Trader Joe’s though. Oh yeah. Trader Joe’s has really good Trader Joe’s has really clean products that are also cheap. So go look at the Trader Joe’s stuff.
So final thought, enjoy all things in moderation, do what makes you happy. Yeah, we’re gonna keep drinking our diet.
I think really the idea is just like pursue health in whatever way you find you need to pursue health.
So but I think it also it and it also goes back to like we all do want to be healthier people. Uh and like you said, cancer is on the rise, but like going back to chemtrails, right? And you were like, but don’t like sit in your house because you’re afraid to breathe with what’s in the air. Like I think we’re saying you can do things that that you can do, you can make some adjustments in your life that you’re comfortable with that you think can can make you a healthier person, but you’re not really gonna be able to avoid every potential trigger. Right. And don’t lose sleep over that.
And also, like you well, you can use the same argument, like, oh, the FDA is just trying to make money off of us getting sick, but also like these products that are like quote clean and you know, or like the the out there that’s like the radiation from our cell phones and the airpods and the you know, all the things like that’s just like based on theory. And like, sure, like radiation will like I said, it is carcinogenic, but you can also like drive yourself crazy and then your stress levels get high and then you’re lowering your yeah, exactly. So like just find your balance. Find what find what you find find is the most important thing to you. You can’t do everything perfect. Because like Megan said, at the end of the day, we are all gonna die. And you could do everything right and still be part of the 40% that gets cancer.
Yeah. Yeah. Or you could get, you know, hit by a car tomorrow. So at least I enjoyed my diet coke tonight, you know? Yeah. Can’t take it with you.
Kate, what should the people do? Uh yeah. So if you really enjoyed this episode, what I want you to do is pull out this, pull out your phone right now and text somebody this episode. Say, you know what, I think you would really enjoy this, or you know what, I think this would really tick you off. And you’d have a lot to say about it. And you know what? I love a fight. So bring it on. After you text somebody, you can scroll on down, leave us a five-star review, uh, send us a little comment, find us on Instagram. And thanks for listening. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next Tuesday.
See you next Tuesday. Bye.