• Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Aspartame, when it hits your intestines, immediately decomposes into 40% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid, and 20% methanol. Phenylalanine and aspartic acid are nutritious amino acids, otherwise known as protein. Since aspartame is so much sweeter than sugar, it’s used in quantities small enough to make the methanol intake levels from a can of diet soda lower than what you would get from a cup of fruit juice.

    There’s no real danger.

    • naught
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      1 year ago

      From the reporting I saw, it can be a problem if you drink like gallons of the drinks every day, which can actually happen irl, but is not common. Worth pointing out but not a cause for concern

    • blackberries33
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      1 year ago

      Well, aspartame is a sure fire way to give me a migraine, so I don’t believe your explanation.

      • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Aspartame isn’t what is giving you the migraine. It’s either psychosomatic or something else in the beverage you drank. Unless you receive a migraine when you drink fruit juice.

        As to whether you believe me or not, uhh, I don’t know how to nicely put this. Factual reality doesn’t change just because you feel it should be different. The metabolic products of aspartame and its digestion are well understood. It never reaches your bloodstream intact.

        • blackberries33
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          1 year ago

          There is no way for me to know if you are an expert or an otherwise trustworthy source of information on this topic. You are a random person on the internet, who did not cite any sources. I should not automatically believe any explanation you offer.

          There is no need to be condescending.

          • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I don’t think you should, but I do think that Googling the metabolism of aspartame would be warranted if you want to be educated on the subject, rather than discarding it.

            https://www.greenfacts.org/en/aspartame/l-3/aspartame-3.htm

            That’s your information on the metabolism.

            As to amount you’ll intake, the average can of diet soda contains 0.18g of aspartame according to Wikipedia.

            According to the UK, fruit juice contains an average of 140mg/L of methanol naturally, due to fermentation of sugars in fruits. That means that 12 oz of fruit juice will contain an average of .05g of methanol, while an average soda would contain .036g of methanol.

            Here are the other metabolites of aspartame:

            Phenylalanine (essential amino acid) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylalanine

            Aspartic acid (non-essential amino acid) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartic_acid

            Amino acids are proteins. The difference between an essential and a non-essential amino acid is that while our bodies require both to live, we produce non-essential amino acids but must intake essential amino acids through our food.

      • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You know what, I get a migraine when I spend more than 10 minutes with my mother-in-law. Just because you don’t, doesn’t mean she can’t give you cancer.