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Better Living Through Chiral Chemistry
Atario writes "A long time ago, I remember reading in some science magazine that someone had the bright idea of using enantiomers (the two forms of asymmetrical molecules, like left- and right-handed versions of the same one) to make zero-calorie sugar -- turns out, in general, that sugars are all asymmetrical, and everything generates and uses only one of the two chiralities (handednesses) for each one. If we consume a mirrored version of, say, sucrose, we might get all of the sweet but none of the calories. Sweet-tooths rejoice! But nothing ever came of it. Now, however, Wired has an interesting article that explains what the holdup has been and indicates the logjam may break soon, but, as it turns out, in a non-synthetic, albeit nonzero-calorie, way."
Seems like every time they come out with a new 0-cal sweetener, that is safer then the last, it turns out to have some unforseen side effect that makes it worse then the last.
"Anything is possible with enough programmers, time and pizza." (Substitute caffeine for time as needed.)
I was impressed by the role serendipity has played in the discovery of sweeteners. But
In 1937, a University of Illinois grad student discovered another sweetener when he set his cigarette on a lab bench during an experiment - testing a would-be antifever drug - and then took a drag off the cyclamate-coated end.
might be taking things a bit too far. Smoking in the laboratory? My how times have changed!
Still, the cyclamates are now banned (in the US anyway), while you can still buy cigarettes in any quik-E-mart. You just can't smoke them in the laboratory! Or in most public buildings.
This is very common practice, since it would take too many animals to do a proper test at the expected dose. To determine a 1/million fatality, you would need millions of lab rats if you'd test at the human dose.
So, if you would test at 100 times the expected dose in humans, this would be a proper experiment for an artificial sweetener.
However, if we would do the same experiment with ordinary sugar, you would get very strange results. If you would look at the risks of consuming 100 grams of sugar a day in a human, the experiment would involve daily consumption of 10 kilograms of sugar a day. Needless to say, the mortality in the subjects of such experiment would be 100% within a week or so (probably sooner).
But when testing at the normal dose, I would not be surprised if you'd find that a group on sweetener would have a better life expectancy than a group on 'real' sugar.
A one-in-a-million chance on cancer would, in my opinion, be better than a one-in-ten chance of contracting obesitas, diabetes and/or cardiovascular problems.
When looking at the total risk, it would be wise to ban sugar and favour sweeters right here, right now. Luckily, people can choose for themselves, but I think they should be informed better.