geoffrey modest medical blogs

  A recent study found that the “artificial sweetener” xylitol was associated with increased thrombosis and cardiovascular risk (see xylitol assoc with thrombosis and cardiovasc risk EurHeartJ2024  in dropbox, or  doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehae252 )   Details/Results  (will review the various aspects of the study independently): -- untargeted metabolomics (metabolomics involves studying a set of metabolites present within an organism that may be involved with development of the disease), in the initial discovery cohort:     -- evaluation of the plasma from 1157 sequential stable subjects undergoing elective diagnostic cardiac evaluations found that the presence of the chemical C 5 H 12 O 5  was associated with the incident major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) of MI, stroke or death over a three-year period     -- a more selective analysis subsequently showed that this C 5 H 12 O 5  chemical w...

  The WHO recently published a tome (210 pages) on the health effects of non-sugar sweeteners (see https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240046429 for access). Thanks to Jorge Finke for bringing this to my attention.   Details : -- 283 studies were included in the systematic review/meta-analysis, including adults (and pregnant women) and kids   Results :   Adults, comparing those with higher intake of non-sugar sweeteners (NSS): -- weight/adiposity (32 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 13 prospective cohort studies):     -- body weight: in RCTs, there was a 0.71 kg loss (-1.13 to -0.28) in NSS consumers     -- BMI:   in RCTs, there was a non-significant decrease of 0.14 kg/m 2  (-0.30 to 0.02) in NSS consumers ; in prospective cohort studies, there was a there was a significant increase of 0.14 kg/m 2 (0.03 to 0.25), p=0.01     -- incident obesity: in prospective cohort studies...

  A large French population-based nutrition study (NutriNet-Sante) found that artificial sweeteners (especially aspartame and acesulfame-K) were associated with increased cancer risk (see  artificial sweeteners and cancer PLOS2022  in dropbox, or doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003950) Details: -- 102,865 adults in the NutriNet-Sante study were included, from 2009-2021, with a median of 7.8 years of follow-up, comprising 708,905 person-years. All needed internet access to be included -- mean age 42, 79% female, BMI 24 -- family history of cancer 38%, diabetes 2%, >2 years after high school education 65%, current smoker 17%/former 32%/never 50%, physical activity level low 21%/moderate 37%/high 28% -- alcohol intake 8 g/d, saturated fats 33 g/d, dietary fiber 19 g/d, added sugar 39 g/d, % of energy from sugar 8%, sugary drinks 48 ml/d, whole grain food 34 g/d, fruit and veges 405 g/d, dairy 196 g/d, ultra-processed foods 17 g/d,  -- artificial swe...