I know a lot of people just use TikTok and Instagram and don’t care to find an alternative, but I don’t know what that number scales to outside of my personal circles

Are we sure about that? Many people exclusively used third party apps and wouldn’t use it otherwise

Well said. It surprised me that we didn’t already know this given the rigorous amount of prior studies

Haven’t we known for decades that it doesn’t cause cancer??

(I typed a long response and it got rekd by lemmy instability :C ) Short version: I intentionally stopped short of saying artificial sweeteners affect the gut microbiome. I have read studies that show that they do, but I’ve also read studies that show they don’t. A lot of studies on sweeteners either study a few at once, and often seem to study them interchangeably, which is unfortunate and makes finding the truth difficult. It’s hard to keep up with, and hard to draw conclusions from reading studies. I’m capable of reading studies and meta-studies critically, but when it comes to artificial sweeteners I feel like I’m in a vast sea of studies that contradict each other and have conflicts of interest, and I am not an expert by any means. I’ve read enough to feel cautious about them, especially with the recent potential linking of Erythritol and stroke (and many Stevia sweeteners being cut with Erythritol), and the recent linking of cancer with Aspartame. And before you think I’m crazy for mentioning the Aspartame, I know the study didn’t prove anything. What was surprising about it to me was that after decades of heavy studies finding Aspartame isn’t carcinogenic, suddenly out of the blue one comes up and says “Hey, maybe?” I’ve pretty much never thought fake sugars were carcinogenic, but given some can still influence blood sugar (that one seems definitive), some may affect our gut microbiome (less definitive), and we have taste receptors in our stomachs that bind with sweeteners the same way the ones on our tongue do, I avoid them. Plus some of them legit upset my stomach, which is also a thing for some people.

Anywho, I ended up retyping most of it in different words I guess. Tl;dr, in the spirit of this post I think artifical sweeteners could be the next thing that we find out is bad for us but didn’t know. However, I don’t actually think there’s any hard evidence for it, just strong evidence that we don’t know the whole story yet. Whether or not they end up being bad for us, there’s definitely a lot left to learn

Other people are saying 2, is that close to 100m?

Yup, but the chemical they replaced it with is almost exactly the same, and there’s not much of a reason to believe it’s any safer. Also, it could be safer if they just didn’t dump the chemicals, but we all know how that goes.

Lol true. But it has been studied enough that I believe it, plus fiberglass wasn’t invented to replace asbestos, it was already in use

Well yes, and cigarettes are worse than vaping. But I hope you wouldn’t encourage children to vape just because it’s better than cigarettes, given there’s a good deal we don’t know and many mixed regulations/enforcements.

If I had kids I’d avoid giving them artificial sweeteners and excessive sugar. I don’t judge parents who don’t though.

I think attributing that to the use of color is a dramatic over simplification. The capitalization of human psychology stems from one thing and one thing only, our current form of capitalism which prioritizes maximizing short term shareholder return above all else, with long term shareholder return coming in second.

Also, if you’re not going to let me pull the Hitler card in this situation, I can just pull the slavery card. What’s worse, a population with a high rate of depression, or a population with a high rate of literally a slave? (We have that too in the US because forced prison labor is a thing and is considered constitutional at the moment)

Or what about when entire ancient civilizations had their history erased when conquered?

Or what North Korea is right now?

Like, seriously, you’re telling me the use of bright colors is the worst crime ever committed against humanity? We’ve been using colors for thousands of years, you could at least pick something like Sugar that’s actually addictive and causes disease and depression. Or cigarettes which also do that while also fostering poverty cycles. I could come up with so many things worse than using colors.

PTFE is the product, Teflon, not the chemicals they use to make it. PFOA was replaced with another chemical that is basically almost as bad, potentially exactly as bad

Yes, because although it can cause irritation, it’s not known to cause cancer. It’s probably fine to be around without a mask once in a while

I mean, I think Hitler committed worse crimes, just saying. And DuPont. And a lot of other companies/people.

Artificial sweeteners. Everyone is so obsessed with whether or not they cause cancer that their other potential effects get much less attention. There’s a major industry push to keep them on the shelves, and we still have only recently discovered the gut microbiome.

Lol good point

Worth noting US corn is quite different than corn of the past due to selective breeding and such

That sounds a lot like correlation not causation. Countries that use a lot of corn syrup also use a lot of every other food industry chemical, and somewhere in that chemical soup could be something real, but it’s probably not the corn

I also use Arch btw

Isn’t that just carbon?

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4043030-hard-liquor-consumption-is-up-60-percent-since-the-1990s/

I know, it’s the hill, but I’m on mobile and don’t feel like getting a better source. We’re not drinking more than ever, but we are drinking more, and it is becoming more normalized again. Also doing it for thousands of years isn’t much of an argument since we only recently even discovered cancer