Wait, no it hasn’t, but that’s what this cheesedick is spouting over at YouTube. This is “Doctor” Mercola, whose “scientific evidence” for sucralose toxicity seems to boil down to:
“OMG! We can’t metabolically break it down!” Uh, that’s kinda the point. It binds with the same receptors as sugar, and thus we perceive it as “sweet,” but our bodies can’t break it down for energy. Thus, no calories.
“OMG! It ain’t natural!” Give me a break. Lots of things that are perfectly harmless or beneficial aren’t natural.
“OMG! It’s a chlorinated organic compound.” Yes, Captain Obvious. We know. So? It’s true that lots of chlorinated organics are toxic, but this one is not. How do I know? Well, there have been hundreds of toxicity tests on sucralose since it was discovered, and you know what? They found that sucralose is maybe, possibly, POTENTIALLY toxic…if you ingest 700 TIMES the recommended dose. Anything is toxic at that level. Hell, WATER is toxic at that level.
In short, this quack is on some scare tactic bandwagon because he’s a paranoid, delusional freak masquerading as a “doctor.” What’s more, he’s trying to sell a book about the evils of sucralose. I wonder if it comes packaged in tinfoil, so I can make a funny little hat too.
And yes, that’s my series of comments posted at the end. I have no stock in whatever company makes Splenda, but I hate this pseudoscientific scare tactic crap.
Someone should tell these pseudoscientific dolts that every person who has ever died was exposed to neutrinos before they died, neutrinos are produced in NUCLEAR reactions, and it would require a lead shield eight light-years thick to stop neutrinos.
Then we presumably shouldn’t eat peas or corn, either, because we can’t metabolically break down the hulls of those (as a look at your poo after eating them will show you). We shouldn’t eat beans, either- we can’t digest oligosaccharides in beans, which is what causes gas from eating beans.
How natural does this nut think modern food crops are? A lot of our domesticated plants and animals can’t even reproduce any more without human help.
Mercola’s warnings about Splenda aren’t surprising, considering that he also is anti-immunization, anti-fluoridation and says that concerns about bird flu are due to machinations by big corporations and governments.
Speaking of government, the FDA has not been very nice to Dr. Mercola, alleging that he has been illegally selling various nostrums based on undocumented health claims. More here.
What’s scary is that his website is popular and a lot of people lap up his quack pronouncements.
Sucralose is amazing. It’s like some form of incredibly sweet teflon. It passes right through you almost completely unscathed. Something like 95% can be recovered after ingestion unaltered, passing right through the gut, and the rest that is recovered is either unaltered in the urine, with a little bit, like a percent or two, if I recall correctly, conjugated to gluconoride by an unknown mechanism. It’s hard to figure how it could be dangerous, because it really doesn’t do anything. You take tiny amounts of it into your body when you eat sucralose-sweetened food, because it’s hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, and the great bulk of it isn’t absorbed at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if time reveals it to be one of the safest food-additives ever created. Like I said, it’s practically inert.
What I do find very interesting is how many people don’t like the taste of it. I can’t discern it from sugar at all except by the lack of syrupy mouth-feel, say, that you get in sugar-sweetened soft drinks. I much prefer it to the taste of aspertame. No accounting for taste, I guess!
Long ago, I did customer response for Splenda. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who were outraged that the chemical formula contains chlorine, which, as they pointed out, was a deadly and toxic chemical.
Well… yeah. In its elemental form. So is sodium. But put them together and you have… salt. Of course, those people were dwarfed by the people who couldn’t tell the difference between volume and weight. (But it says right on the box: measures cup for cup like sugar BUT THE BOX FEELS SO LIGHT!!!)
Er, splenda isn’t aspartame, or am I not understanding you?
Dudes, it’s obvious that Splenda is a mechanism of the military-industrial complex orchestrated by the Tri-lateral commission and implemented with the help of the Council on Foreign Relations as is obvious by Chlorine having a number of 17 on the periodic table! I mean, could they be so obvious? Hello! 17/23 correlation anyone?
No. In salt sodium and chlorine form ionic bonds. In sucralose (scroll down) a couple hydroxymethyl groups and a hydroxyl group normally found in sucrose (see structure near the top) are substituded with chlorine atoms (covalently bound) to make the product, 4, 1’,6’ tricholorogalactosucrose.
These carbon-halogen bonds in sucralose (pretty much an aryl halide, in which such bonds are the most strong) are very tight. Those chlorines aren’t going anywhere, quite unlike salt, from the crystals of which sodium and chloride ions easily dissociate in cool liquid water.
Screw Splenda. I was hoping for that final key in turning me into some sort of cyborg dependant on an unnatural substance that would make me invincible.
I have more than a few friendly acquaintances who are utterly horrified when they notice I am ingesting aspartame, “It’s been proven to cause holes in the brain” they exclaim. I reply with “Yeah, but I am diabetic, and I do like some sweetness in my life.” It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the fear mongers are beginning to rant against Splenda, which is a fabulous product for a person like myself. I put it on oatmeal and cannot tell the difference from cane sugar, and I can bake with it! **Splend(a)**did indeed!
I have a bad feeling that over the next few years, YouTube is going to become the next “I saw it there so it must be true” thing. Millions of morons uploading bullshit for millions more morons to watch.
It will become the new late night infomercial. Any shyster can upload any bullshit they want.
