Something like this is useful for the types of data points patients would have no reason to self-deceive over, however I worry that the general tendency for people to make their ‘data’ fit the stories they’ve written about themselves in their minds will promote superstitions. For example, a friend of mine is convinced that the aspartame in diet soda caused her rosacea/lupus. She’s sent me links to chat-rooms that have blamed aspartame for everything from diabetes to alzheimer’s, and it’s disturbing to see the kind of positive feed-back loops that are created from anecdotes in which chat members state a clear link exists between symptoms and usage. One says, “I got symptom X after drinking diet soda,” and another says, “I have symptom X, it must be from drinking diet soda!” and another says, “Thanks, after reading your comments, I stopped drinking diet soda and symptom X went away!” In spite of chat rooms dedicated to blaming diet soda for every conceivable health problem and the fall of American values, no scientific study to date has shown ANY negative side effect of aspartame even at the upper bounds of current human consumption.
Another example of hysterical positive-feedback would be the proliferation of insane allegations that the MMR vaccine causes autism. I would guess angry parents who wanted to believe MMR caused their child’s autism would plot their ‘data points’ for the onset of their child’s symptoms right after vaccination.
A site like this one may allow certain trends to rise out of the noise, but we must not forget the tendency people have to lie to themselves for a convenient story.
In spite of chat rooms dedicated to blaming diet soda for every conceivable health problem and the fall of American values, no scientific study to date has shown ANY negative side effect of aspartame even at the upper bounds of current human consumption.
And in spite of those studies, I get a terrible splitting headache within minutes of drinking a diet soda containing aspartame.
I’m in the middle of preparing a proposal that explains one way in which all previous aspartame studies are flawed. Sorry, not going to explain it now. Aspartame studies are actually pretty complicated. One flaw, which is not the flaw I’m focusing on, is that studies are done using fresh aspartame, even though it’s known that aspartame breaks down into other by-products after sitting on a shelf for a few months. Those by-products are not studied for safety.
The vast majority of studies demonstrating the safety of aspartame were done in lab animals who are incapable of getting, or reporting if they did get, many of the symptoms that people claim to get from aspartame.
Another interesting fact about aspartame is that many of the studies demonstrating its safety were funded by Donald Rumsfeld, who was CEO of Searle at the time.
Something like this is useful for the types of data points patients would have no reason to self-deceive over, however I worry that the general tendency for people to make their ‘data’ fit the stories they’ve written about themselves in their minds will promote superstitions. For example, a friend of mine is convinced that the aspartame in diet soda caused her rosacea/lupus. She’s sent me links to chat-rooms that have blamed aspartame for everything from diabetes to alzheimer’s, and it’s disturbing to see the kind of positive feed-back loops that are created from anecdotes in which chat members state a clear link exists between symptoms and usage. One says, “I got symptom X after drinking diet soda,” and another says, “I have symptom X, it must be from drinking diet soda!” and another says, “Thanks, after reading your comments, I stopped drinking diet soda and symptom X went away!” In spite of chat rooms dedicated to blaming diet soda for every conceivable health problem and the fall of American values, no scientific study to date has shown ANY negative side effect of aspartame even at the upper bounds of current human consumption.
Another example of hysterical positive-feedback would be the proliferation of insane allegations that the MMR vaccine causes autism. I would guess angry parents who wanted to believe MMR caused their child’s autism would plot their ‘data points’ for the onset of their child’s symptoms right after vaccination.
A site like this one may allow certain trends to rise out of the noise, but we must not forget the tendency people have to lie to themselves for a convenient story.
And in spite of those studies, I get a terrible splitting headache within minutes of drinking a diet soda containing aspartame.
I’m in the middle of preparing a proposal that explains one way in which all previous aspartame studies are flawed. Sorry, not going to explain it now. Aspartame studies are actually pretty complicated. One flaw, which is not the flaw I’m focusing on, is that studies are done using fresh aspartame, even though it’s known that aspartame breaks down into other by-products after sitting on a shelf for a few months. Those by-products are not studied for safety.
The vast majority of studies demonstrating the safety of aspartame were done in lab animals who are incapable of getting, or reporting if they did get, many of the symptoms that people claim to get from aspartame.
Another interesting fact about aspartame is that many of the studies demonstrating its safety were funded by Donald Rumsfeld, who was CEO of Searle at the time.
There’s some information here about the history of its approval. I don’t know whether it’s accurate.
Whatever happened to this?