These two byproducts are formaldehyde and formic acid; it sounds like formic acid is the really bad one.
Formaldehyde is much worse for you than formic acid (formate). Formaldehyde and acetaldehyde are both aldehydes. Aldehydes are a very reactive functional group that can covalently adduct DNA and proteins. This can cause all sorts of bad things. Formaldehyde is worse because a) it’s more reactive (one less electron donating methyl group) and b) it can cross-link proteins/DNA because its basically able to react twice rather than just once like acetaldehyde and most other aldehydes. Covalently attaching two macromolecules that weren’t attached before is extra bad.
In contrast, the more oxidized forms of these aldehydes, formic acid/formate and acetic acid/acetate, are likely fairly safe and are basically unreactive. They are both fairly strong acids but your body is great at buffering itself.
Interesting! The current Sonnet 3.5 agrees (for equivalent concentrations), for the same reason you’ve described, and I was about to update the essay with a correction, but then 4o argued that 1. formaldehyde is metabolized much more quickly, so has little time to do damage or build up, and 2. that it considers formic acid’s inhibition of a critical enzyme (cytochrome c oxidase) in the mitochondrial electron transport chain to be pretty bad.
Or maybe a better summary of 4o’s argument is “In equivalent concentrations, formaldehyde is worse, but the differences in rapidity of metabolization mean formic acid builds up more and causes more damage in real-life scenarios.”
So I’ve linked your comment in the relevant section, sort of waving my hands and succumbing to both-sides-ism. Interested in what you think about the rapidity-of-metabolization argument.
Formaldehyde is much worse for you than formic acid (formate). Formaldehyde and acetaldehyde are both aldehydes. Aldehydes are a very reactive functional group that can covalently adduct DNA and proteins. This can cause all sorts of bad things. Formaldehyde is worse because a) it’s more reactive (one less electron donating methyl group) and b) it can cross-link proteins/DNA because its basically able to react twice rather than just once like acetaldehyde and most other aldehydes. Covalently attaching two macromolecules that weren’t attached before is extra bad.
In contrast, the more oxidized forms of these aldehydes, formic acid/formate and acetic acid/acetate, are likely fairly safe and are basically unreactive. They are both fairly strong acids but your body is great at buffering itself.
Interesting! The current Sonnet 3.5 agrees (for equivalent concentrations), for the same reason you’ve described, and I was about to update the essay with a correction, but then 4o argued that 1. formaldehyde is metabolized much more quickly, so has little time to do damage or build up, and 2. that it considers formic acid’s inhibition of a critical enzyme (cytochrome c oxidase) in the mitochondrial electron transport chain to be pretty bad.
Or maybe a better summary of 4o’s argument is “In equivalent concentrations, formaldehyde is worse, but the differences in rapidity of metabolization mean formic acid builds up more and causes more damage in real-life scenarios.”
So I’ve linked your comment in the relevant section, sort of waving my hands and succumbing to both-sides-ism. Interested in what you think about the rapidity-of-metabolization argument.