Chug Life

“On a predictable schedule, there’s a headline that makes you spit out your Diet Coke. This week, it’s that sucralose, the artificial sweetener found in Splenda, as well as Diet Coke with Splenda has been found to be ‘genotoxic,’ meaning it can break down DNA, which is widely accepted as something that’s not good and can lead to unpleasant things like leaky gut syndrome. But not so fast. Epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz … noted that the study took place in petri dishes, and said that it would take chugging 50,000 cans of Diet Rite Cola over two hours to reach the specific sucralose concentration levels where DNA damage was found to occur in the study.” (I drank diet soda at approximately that rate in my heyday.) GQ: Artificial Sweeteners Are Basically Fine, So Why Are We So Desperate to Find Something Wrong With Them?

+ The new generation of energy seekers doesn’t need to drink nearly as much as we did. Why? Because the new drinks are loaded with caffeine. “Some servings have nearly the same level of caffeine as a six-pack of Coca-Cola.” NYT (Gift Article): Energy Drinks Are Surging. So Are Their Caffeine Levels. (With all the lobbying around food, sugar, and big beverage, we’ll need to consume a hell of lot more caffeine to wade through all the studies and reports to figure out what’s good or bad for us.)

+ Taurine, found in energy drinks, helped animals live longer. Scientists want to try it on humans, too.