[ProjectBarks]

How much more risk? Is this a hit piece by big sugar or something? This article is so sparse on details. Exposure to the sun increases the risk of cancer. Emissions let off by cars increases the risk of cancer. I’m just curious…

The HR has fairly large bounds... 1.03 to 1.25 so there is increased risk but this still does not tell you if people who consume a lot of sugar substitutes also exhibit behaviors that increase their risk of cancers. Such as also consuming highly processed food.

[weberer]

They link directly to the study

>Compared to non-consumers, higher consumers of total artificial sweeteners (i.e., above the median exposure in consumers) had higher risk of overall cancer (n = 3,358 cases, hazard ratio [HR] = 1.13 [95% CI 1.03 to 1.25], P-trend = 0.002). In particular, aspartame (HR = 1.15 [95% CI 1.03 to 1.28], P = 0.002) and acesulfame-K (HR = 1.13 [95% CI 1.01 to 1.26], P = 0.007) were associated with increased cancer risk. Higher risks were also observed for breast cancer (n = 979 cases, HR = 1.22 [95% CI 1.01 to 1.48], P = 0.036, for aspartame) and obesity-related cancers (n = 2,023 cases, HR = 1.13 [95% CI 1.00 to 1.28], P = 0.036, for total artificial sweeteners, and HR = 1.15 [95% CI 1.01 to 1.32], P = 0.026, for aspartame)

A HR of 1.15 means it increases your risk of cancer by 15%.

[nonameiguess]

Note that if you divide the total cases by the number of study participants, you get a total cancer incidence rate of 0.0326. If we assume roughly equal numbers of participants using versus not using artificial sweeteners and solve for AVG(x, 1.15x) = 0.0326, we get 0.0303 for non-users and 0.0348 for users. So your risk goes from about 3% to 3.5%.

Not nothing, but I'm not sure that really ticks off a worry box for me. Though I don't personally eat much sweetened food at all, artificial or otherwise (work from home and enjoy cooking, so I make most everything from raw ingredients).

[ProjectBarks]

Those bounds are fairly wide. Also, my other frustration was an article that has provocative headline, great for sending to your friends, but doesn't do anything but link the study. What are the odds someone is going to read the study? What are the odds they are going to go and learn what HR rate is?

Seems to me all good things for this article to do.

[bduerst]

What would be a good boundary here, in your opinion?

The 95% CI lower boundary for most of the cancer risks are still > HR 1.00, which seems significant enough to call out an increased risk correlation.

[shtopointo]

As far as breast cancer is concerned – they said that there is an overrepresentation of women in the study:

> Debras highlights that 78.5% of the participants included in the analysis were women

[bduerst]

That doesn't necessarily mean that breast cancer can be dismissed. It seems that there are increased numbers of women in both the control and artificial sweetner/cancer populations.