Nick Norwitz
speaker
450 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Nick Norwitz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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not only did it generate anxiety on behaviorally validated tests, but it was a transgenerational effect. So the offspring of the mice, and even the grand offspring... To epigenetic effects. Yeah, presumably.
So past, in this case, we're looking at the male lineage, but there was anxiety in the offspring and the grand offspring, even though they'd never been exposed to low-dose aspartame because their fathers and grandfathers had been exposed. So, you know, and...
There's, you know, physiologic explanations for how this might work, how aspartame also might affect brain health, how it's breaking down, how it changes amino acid transport to the brain. We can get all that. And also human data on, quote, say, irritability, including randomized controlled trials. So there's some signal in the human literature, for sure.
It's not the most rigorous of all time study, but then very concerning things in the preclinical literature. And the thing that people tend to do, the Diet Coke defenders, like a perverse Avengers or something, they tend to do is they put up a very implausible bar of evidence. So let's take the example of this study, this PNAS study.
What it's saying is in mammals, low-dose aspartame, the equivalent to what the FDA says is totally fine, it's like seven to 15% what the FDA says is okay, two to four eight ounce Diet Cokes can cause anxiety that is trans-generationally inheritable. You can ask, well, oh, prove this in humans.
I'm like, you're really gonna try to do a 50 to 60 year randomized controlled trial where you give human adults Diet Coke and then track, it's never gonna be done. And so you're asking for evidence that can't be collected. And I'm not saying the evidence is entirely watertight. So another paper just came out, and I think it was Cell Metabolism, on aspartame and cardiovascular disease.
And what they showed in mice, and also they had some monkey data, was that it can spike glucose and insulin. And what this did was increased plaque progression in susceptible mice, admittedly susceptible mice. However, the mechanism had to do with increasing certain molecules on the endothelial lining.
Basically, there were like baseball gloves for rolling around immune cells, the baseball that sucked them into the arterial lining and caused plaque to grow.
So there is a very clear physiological model with data in mice and primates showing how this could negatively impact heart health in conjunction with associational data saying artificial sweetener intake is associated with cardiovascular disease. Does this prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that diacocardial heart disease?
No, but you shouldn't need those data to incorporate the existing literature, which is of concern into your individual algorithm of whether or not you want to make the decision. So, and artificial sweeteners, to be clear, in humans have been shown to cause insulin resistance. Sometimes it takes longer than a day or so.
There was one study out of the Weizmann Institute, I think it was Nature, where they showed that it was saccharin in this case caused insulin resistance by changing the microbiome. In this case, it was a majority, but not all people had a response. There might be individualistic elements. It may take time to result. The data are not
absolutely proven without a shadow of a doubt, but there's enough there to say, this is concerning. And then the question is, where do you put the burden of proof? Is the burden of proof defined the implausible study that proves it without a shadow of a doubt? Or can you just say, you know, these literature are concerning enough for me to be like, I might be okay with freaking water.
It's funny because you actually hit on a broader point about this burden of proof. Because if you don't have evidence to say this is very harmful, and sometimes the harms manifest over a long period of time, then should you be allowed to introduce a substance into the food supply? And the fact of the matter is right now, the way it is, the answer is you are allowed. You are allowed, yeah.
And then after the fact, we might do some assessment.
And so let's say, just playing with random numbers here, there's only a one in 100 chance that any given chemical actually that is not proven to be safe over a long period of time is harmful. Well, if you introduce 10,000 chemicals... And they're all synergistic. Right. And so we see that with a lot of things. My position is we do live in a society of free choice. So I'm not for...
restriction of most things and more about better education. So I think we can talk about these things. I don't think Diet Coke should be outlawed.
Have you seen some of the coffees at Starbucks?
Again, informed choice. If you want sweet and say you're like, you know, you want sweet without calories, there are better options than aspartame or sucralose. I think you're going to have say monk fruit, stevia, I think are like totally fine. Allulose, I think totally fine. So it's a matter of making an informed choice. In this particular case, I think the sacrifice is basically negligible.
That said, if you want to have a Diet Coke, just understand and appreciate the data. Don't stick your head in the sand because the impact is potentially large. Genuinely, and this is going to sound hyperbolic, but I mean this sincerely, like say you're trying to conceive with your partner. You're a guy, you're producing more sperm every day. Is it worth it to you? Read this PNS paper if you want.
It's linked on a YouTube video that
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