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Some Soft Drinks May Damage Your DNA
Parallax Blue writes "The Independent is reporting new findings that indicate a common additive called sodium benzoate, found in soft drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max among others, has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA in a cell's mitochondria. From the article: 'The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA — Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of aging.' European Union MPs are now calling for an urgent investigation in the wake of these alarming new findings."
"uropean Union MPs are now calling for an urgent investigation in the wake of these alarming new findings"
While the FDA in the United States is doing what? Standing by turning their cheek?
this is nothing new, sodium benzoate is used as a preservative in acidic foods and drinks and in the presence of citric acid it can evolve very small amounts of benzene. benzene is dangerous because it is what we call an intercalary mutagen- what that means is it can insert its self between the DNA helix grooves and that is what can mess up DNA copying and transcription [translation from DNA to RNA to proteins etc.] in the USA benzene is allowed at 10ppb but in soem states it can be lower [california is 5ppb] to give an idea of how much that is an olympic swimming pool is 25,000 gallons, 95,000 liters and so 10ppb would be about a gram of benzene taken by weight. soft drinks in other countries have been reported to have up to 85 ppb although this can be fixed by reducing the amount of sodium benzoate and or citric acid in combination. citric acid can be replaced by malic acid which imparts that sour flavor in drinks.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Benzene Production from Decarboxylation of Benzoic Acid in the Presence of Ascorbic Acid and a Transition-Metal Catalyst (pdf warning) from Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, May 1993, Volume 41, Number 5
Shopkeeper: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse! ...That's bad. ....and just to add some actual comment: with the constant uncovering of bad effects of things thought previously to be entirely safe I find myself beginning to side with the anti-GM people... I mean I don't think it's definitely harmful, but the positive effects are mainly economic (and so reletively uninteresting unless money turns you on)- why can't be just deal with the good old food we're used to and know isn't going to do anything bizarre to our bodies. Not just with GM but with over-processing of any kind. When you've got beverages being made in ways to minimise only cost and maximise only the positive reaction with our taste buds then you're going to get stuff like this.
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
[Homer looks puzzled]
Shopkeeper:
Homer: Can I go now?
// It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis
Soda rots your teeth and probably contributes to diabetes II.
Diet Soda, it has been found in a European study (German?) to fuck with your blood sugar level - the body thinks it's getting sugar, pumps you with insulin, and it turns out you aren't getting any.
And all the sugar-substitue additives have been questions for years.
Drink Water or at worst carbonated water. Maybe a little tea or iced tea made from decent leaves (not the garbage leaves in lipton surrounded by bleached paper to dunk in water), or even a little expresso.
Leave out the soda pop, leave out most of the milk (thought to contribute to kidney stones), leave out the juice, etcetera. And for god's sake leave out anything sweetened with high fructose corn syrup - poison. Our ancestors were able to make due with water as a drink and so our bodies should be acclimated to it.
The funny thing is, we have access to the cleanest water in history, without it being muddy or full of minerals, and we found a "need" to have all this oversweetened garbage instead.
It's not hard, start drinking for a week - you'll be over the sweet addiction. I like ice water the best. If you have to, treat yourself to a juice drink or milk once a day.
Beer is still safe.
What?
Not to say that there might not be an issue, but The Independent was the Newspaper that first ran the WiFi scare in the UK - a couple of weeks ago and well before the BBC - and last Sunday's scare in the paper was over baby alarms. Both pieces were examples of really bad science journalism with widespread scattering of the term 'radiation' throughout and cleverly writen to wrap as much scaremongering as possible up in pseudo-objective and precautionary language.
s /article2586569.ece)
Today's leader article is a classic 'For The Sake Of The Children' rant (http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_article
... to Coca Cola. That was after growing up for 21 years in which cola was a treat that almost never found its way into my family's household.
Sugar? Check.
Caffeine? Check.
Citrus flavor? Check.
But the main thing that I loved above all else was the bite from the fizz. After I realized this, I made a quick switch to seltzer water with a lemon or lime wedge and sometimes some crushed mint. I get the same bite, but without all that extra stuff.
Dropped 30lbs in 3 months after that switch.
Not to mention sodium benzoate causes headaches in a good percentage of humans, and over the long term has been found to trigger obesity and diabetes in lab rats. (It might do this in humans too over the long term, but it's hard to get humans to sign up for such studies.)
It would be funny if it weren't so sad that people drink diet sodas that are loaded with this, and they think they are doing their body a favor.
From the article "Professor Peter Piper, a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology, tested the impact of sodium benzoate on living yeast cells in his laboratory."
and
"It is also added to pickles and sauces."
We've always known about Peter Piper's obsession with pickled peppers. Perhaps he is just starting a smear campaign so we will no longer have to worry about how pecks of pickled peppers Peter Piper actually picked.
On a side note, it says that sodium benzoate is used to prevent fungal growth, and yet Dr. Piper is declaring that it news newsworthy to note that benzoate inhibits the growth of yeast (a fungus). In related news, it appears that antibiotics may also kill off bacteria living in your gut. Dear God...
First you animate. Then you SUSPEND!!!
"Our ancestors were able to make due with water as a drink and so our bodies should be acclimated to it."
Sorry, but do you have any proof for this except from "it should be, because out ancestors did it"? You may disguise it with some evolutionary selection handwaving, but basically you are propagating the romantic notion of 'le bon sauvage' (the good wild [man]). Did you ever compare the average lifespan of 'our ancestors' with the current average lifespan? Maybe current culture does some things detrimental to your health, but overall it is much better then what our ancestors had to go through if you measure it by lifespan.
The other hidden argument that you use is that it is morally better to restrict yourself and almost never indulge on luxury. What are you, some monk that derives pleasure (oh no, bad!) from chastising himself?
The article was about someone making a health scare over an additive that has been tested and approved decades ago, on the basis of some muddy test in-vitro by, afaict, one researcher. Where are the references to peer-reviewed journals, have others replicated his results, etc. People apparently have a hard time understanding that a poison is not only in the substance, but also in the dose. It could very well be that with normal consumption you never reach a significant dose that has any effect at all.
I think that there is more danger in the trip to the grocery store wit your car, than there is in the additives in the soda pop you buy there.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Pffffft, been drinking this stuff for years, completely harmless, I'm just fi- *urk*
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
PubMed doesn't seem to have any papers on this, at least by this Piper guy... I'll wait for a peer reviewed publication.
the gene that produces vitamin C in mammals is broken in primates and other species that if corrected could prevent scurvy in malnourished nations. it is good to test and try to understand the effects of genetic engineering but to blindly fear it because of things like this is irresponsible
You're not just talking about genetically engineering foods, but now humans? On a massive, global scale?
1) Vitamin C is an essential nutrient for higher primates for a reason: our ancestors ate a lot of it, and thus no longer needed to produce it. These genes for synthesizing it that you want to "reactivate" haven't been expressed for millions of years, which means they haven't been selected on (to the same degree). For a programming analogy, how quickly does commented-out code become obsolete?
It's not at all clear that we're still capable of synthesizing Vitamin-C, that it's just a matter of "turning on" a gene somewhere: it might require extensive implantation of non-primate mammalian DNA into our genomes. And this is not a small change.
2) Who would research and administer this genetic re-engineering system? Big Pharmaceutical, that's who. You're naive if you think there's any good side to letting go about re-engineering the genes of any person, let alone impoverished people who are in less of a position to speak up about abuses.
3) I frequently hear pitches like this, for certain types of technological solutions which could save the lives of the desperate poor. In addition to your suggestion, we could, for example:
- i) genetically engineer a number of crops with higher yields, providing more food,
- ii) blanket Africa with DDT, killing mosquitoes (and therefore preventing malaria transmission),
- iii) actively destroy swampland in rural Africa and other tropical regions, to reduce the size of mosquito breeding grounds.
The argument for these technologies (saved human lives) is easy to advance. There are various specific counterarguments to be used for specific cases, but there are two general counterarguments:
A straightforward swap of human lives in exchange for some consequence we haven't defined or investigated is never a great idea. What if we replace all crops with engineered ones, but those are all wiped out ten years later by a plague that preys on the new genetic homogenity of these crops? What if there's something else that grows in swamps that, it turns out, we really need? The appeal to lives saved is always an emotional appeal, but there's no point to the trade if we don't know the price.
The reasons for Third World poverty are not technological, but social and political. We could give more food to hungry people now; we don't need to wait till we get higher-yield crops. (To relate to your example, we could send Vitamin-C pills to malnurished nations now: surely this would be cheaper that a widespread program of genetic re-engineering!) And if we aren't giving it away now, aren't we fooling ourselves by thinking that we will when we have more to give away?
If anybody's interested: There's currently quite a number of marketing campaigns across of Europe for the new Coca-Cola Zero. According to its Wikipedia's entry, the product can contain sodium benzoate depending on the country where it's sold. If you're cautious and want to be on the safe side, you might want to stick to regular Coca Cola or Diet Coke which appear not to contain this stuff.
:/- spoon(_).
Okay, here's some numbers for you...
The acceptable FDA levels for caffiene consumption is 200 mg/day. (please note the lack of any determination of this based on how much you weigh.)
The acceptable FDA levels for aspartame consumption is 50 mg/kg of body weight. The more you weigh, the more you can acceptably consume. (The American Diabetic Association disagrees, and puts the acceptable levels at 17 mg/kg of body weight.)
The acceptable FDA levels for sodium benzoate consumption is 340 mg/day. Again, note the lack of any change in this based on your body weight.
Now, sodium benzoate is what the article is about, right? So, how much sodium benzoate is in a soda?
All of these are for 12 oz. cans.
Pepsi: 1.15 mg
Mountain Dew: 2.3 mg
Diet Mountain Dew: 2.5 mg
Dr Pepper: 1.15 mg
Coke: 1.15 mg
Diet Coke: 2.5 mg
So, if you're a Dr Pepper "junkie" like me, you'd have to drink almost 300 cans a day before you would have to worry about being above the FDA guidelines.
Now, yes, of course, it's possible that the FDA data is out of date. Yes, it's possible that there hasn't been enough study and maybe the acceptable levels of sodium benzoate need to be adjusted.
Even if they're off by a factor of 10, how many people do you know that drink 30 Pepsis a day?
More research, less scare tactics. Thank you.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Driving your car is a simple danger. You know immediately upon arrival whether you dodged that 2 ton bullet. However, you won't know for 10 years whether that hamburger you ate gave you mad cow disease. I won't know for 30 years whether the orange soil (containing natural asbestos) construction sites in my area has given me lung cancer (and the companies responsible for digging up the stuff will be out of business, so I won't be able to sue them). Apparently you have to wait 40 years before you know whether the sodium benzoate you are drinking gave you parkinsons. (I gave up sodas for unsweetened green tea 10 years ago because the concentrated sugar/corn syrup alone was killing me in much more immediately noticeable ways.)
I find simple dangers much easier to handle than complex ones. Our area (Virgina) has Lyme disease and copperhead snakes. You won't know for a year whether an unnoticed tick from your walk in the woods gave you Lyme disease - a life long debilitating illness. But you know right away whether a snake bit you. The complex dangers just pile up in my mind with no resolution, causing a general background of stress of worry. The simple dangers cause momentary stress that is soon resolved, leaving a feeling of relief. I can see getting addicted to simple dangers just to experience the relief at the end.
Don't forget all that dihydrogen monoxide in our water supply.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Wow ... your logic seems to be: This finding about sodium benzoate disagrees with the previous FDA position. Therefore it must be wrong.
You seem to have completely missed the point of the article, which that this is a new finding about the dangers of this substance. Naturally the previous FDA numbers would be out of date if the new finding is true. And your example of a factor of ten is completely spurious - where did you get the ten figure from?
More thought, less posts. Thank you.
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
try some Open Source Cola?