Artificial Sweetener Intake: Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:03] your daily food sources combined, you consume more artificial sweetener than consume more artificial sweetener than the actual top limit allows for? Have I, and have we all, been poisoning ourselves with fake chemical sugars this

[00:16] whole time and feeling all smug and sciency about it? We have at least three very, very good reasons to delay the panic, at least for now. Don't rule out that mean you can eat all the artificial sweeteners you want? It does, but with a

[00:31] sweeteners you want? It does, but with a major, major qualifier. From the overwhelming insights of the hundreds of studies we've done so far in it appears as if artificial sweeteners are super, super safe for consumption.

[00:48] A few aberrant studies, often done on old, sick rodents or with no raw data made available upon request, do say otherwise, but the absolutely vast majority say that sweeteners are super safe for long-term consumption.

[01:03] And not just the occasional diet Coke here and there, but way, way more than that. In fact, in order to push into the lower bound of safety for artificial sweeteners, depending on the exact sweetener, you'd have to drink like 15

[01:17] sweetener, you'd have to drink like 15 to 20 or more diet sodas every single day for years in order to potentially get a negative health effect. And mind you, that lower

[01:30] bound is still safe, and the conversation for it being maybe questionable really only begins at like 20 or more diet sodas every single day for years and years and years. Like man, I have my vices and all, and I

[01:47] love to drink me some diet sodas, but I might drink like six of them on like a very high consumption day, and I often go days without drinking a single one. right? Right?

[02:00] Anakin and Padme meme? Well, Because it turns out that many of us fitness folks, maybe you included, get in our artificial sweeteners from a whole lot more than just diet sodas.

[02:16] fitness industry regularly consume protein bars, protein powders, pre-workouts, canned energy drinks like Monsters, diet sodas, of course, and even the occasional artificial sweetener infused diet yogurt. Like, the folks at

[02:32] Dannon making the Light & Fit Greek vanilla yogurt, you guys need a Nobel Prize. That goes so hard in the paint. Scott, remember that one time you pissed yourself? >> It It's so good.

[02:44] >> Just the greatest day of your life? It's amazing. It's amazing. Okay, first, that's a whole lot of often daily products consumed with artificial sweeteners in them

[02:56] other than just diet soda. And it all adds up. Second, some of these products can contain even more of some artificial sweeteners than diet soda does. So, now you're consuming artificial

[03:08] sweeteners from left to right, and who knows how much of them you're getting in. Is it possible that on net, from all of your daily food sources combined, you consume more artificial sweetener

[03:21] you consume more artificial sweetener than the actual top limit allows for? Well, let's set up a sample day of consumption and find out. Let's say you use two scoops of a heavily sweetened pre-workout. Look at

[03:35] you with your two-scooping ass. That good good. At the high end, that could give you roughly 100 mg of sucralose and 160 mg roughly 100 mg of sucralose and 160 mg of Ace-K, two very different sweeteners.

[03:49] powder in the morning and two more later in the day. A lot of folks have two example, and two scoops of casein protein at night, so that's actually quite realistic for many people. At roughly 60 mg of sucralose per scoop,

[04:03] that adds another 240 mg of sucralose. Then you drink three Diet Pepsis, pretty typical day, adding approximately 96 mg of Ace-K and 372 mg of aspartame. That's sweetener number

[04:18] You also eat two heavily sweetened protein bars, contributing around 60 mg of sucralose and 40 mg of Ace-K. Plus four light Greek yogurts, adding

[04:30] approximately another 60 mg of sucralose and 60 mg of Ace-K. Add everything together, and you get approximately 460 mg of sucralose, 356 approximately 460 mg of sucralose, 356 mg of Ace-K, and 372 mg of aspartame.

[04:45] Now, let's compare those numbers with the FDA's acceptable daily intakes, otherwise known as the ADI. For a 150-lb man, the sucralose ADI is approximately 340 mg. So, he would reach about 135%

[05:01] of it. For a 175-lb man, the ADI is roughly 397 For a 175-lb man, the ADI is roughly 397 mg, putting him at about 116%. Even for a 200-lb man, and that's a big man. Wait, where am I? Whose ADI is

[05:15] approximately 450 mg, he would just barely exceed it around 101%. But, that's still in excess. Meanwhile, his Ace-K intake would reach only about 26 to 35% of its ADI,

[05:29] depending on his body weight, and his aspartame intake would only reach about 8 to 11% of his ADI. So, in this aggressively sweetened, but genuinely possible bodybuilding diet, sucralose is the one sweetener that

[05:42] could cross the FDA's acceptable daily intake. But, let's not fuss around about it. It's still over the line. It's in excess. All right. I'm legit freaked out right

[05:54] now. Have I, and have we all, been poisoning ourselves with fake chemical sugars this whole time and feeling all smug and sciency about it? Scott all sweeteners are bad, like, "No, you're dumb." And then we've been killing

[06:08] ourselves with fake sugars. >> [sighs and gasps] Should you be pulling your children out of school tomorrow so they can better understand and execute your will upon your seemingly imminent death? Mhm, not

[06:23] so fast. We have at least three very, very good reasons to delay the panic, at least for now. Don't rule out panic is what I'm trying to say. The first massive reason to stop panicking, at least for now, is that the

[06:37] minimum thresholds for artificial sweetener consumption are so absolutely conservative in and of themselves that when you look into them, it kind of looks like a joke. First of all, the limit is actually 10 times below the

[06:50] actual value which regulators think will begin to possibly cause you harm if you kept at it over years and years of consumption. It's like seeing a 70 mph speed limit and going no faster than 7 mph just to

[07:06] be extra safe. Second, and this is really wild, amazing news in our regard, is that the safe 10x figure is usually is that the safe 10x figure is usually already down another 10 times to put it

[07:19] in a safety margin for the translation of animal to human application. The animals are tested with way higher values. again. Okay, okay. This means that whatever is

[07:34] the low margin for animal safety technically means something animals can technically means something animals can eat daily for their whole lives, And only if they go above it, do they see potential downsides, potential

[07:48] downsides. They cut that by 10x and then cut that They cut that by 10x and then cut that by 10x again just to be extra sure. by 10x again just to be extra sure. Again, that animal 100x number is the

[08:00] sweeteners consumed daily that still shows no harm to the animals eating it. So, when you eat double the human acceptable daily intake, the ADI, you're not doing the equivalent of driving at 140 mph. No, no, that would be

[08:15] dangerous. You're doing the equivalent of driving 1.4 mph. Now, imagine someone seeing you drive literally at slower than walking speed and go, "I tell you

[08:28] what, that boy's reckless. He's going to get himself killed driving that fast and eating all them artificial sugars." Why does that sound absurd? Because it is. That alone should help you stop sweating, but here's another reason to

[08:43] and say their request to pull your kids out was a mistake. Each artificial sweetener has its own mechanism of action and thus, harm. These are in fact usually very distantly

[08:57] related chemicals, after all. Thus, each one has its own acceptable daily intake and the acceptable daily intakes of each sweetener do not add up. Thus, you might consume over the total ADI for all sweeteners in milligrams

[09:13] daily, but not breach the ADI for any single one because you're eating some Ace-K, some aspartame, and some sucralose. Sorry, kids, you still have to go to fifth period algebra today. Lastly, but importantly, the animals in

[09:30] most of these studies on the safety of sweeteners are fed high, consistent amounts daily for their whole lives. Most people, even if they eat too much on some days, rarely eat too much on all

[09:43] days. I got mad respect for your artificial sweetener habit, my pimp, but unless you're in a cage eating spoonfuls of the stuff literally every day of your life, your grind ain't enough. You have to try harder.

[09:59] because your death from too many artificial sweeteners isn't imminent or Does that mean you can eat all the artificial sweeteners you want? It does, >> [gasps] >> I highly suggest eating no more than

[10:14] >> I highly suggest eating no more than your GI tract can handle in a given meal because with some sweeteners, especially the sugar alcohols found in many protein bars, the guts get to move in pretty fast.

[10:27] school to tell them that if you're ever on the john for more than an hour, to not bother with the ambulance and just call the coroner and tell them to bring a shovel because they'll have to dig your body out of an Olympus Mons of your

[10:40] own diarrhea. It's not the best way to go out, but it's not the worst. Look at you, croaking on your own terms on porcelain throne. I see you, king, and I'll see you guys next time.