Caramel Coloring, E150D, or Coca Cola Brown: Not So Carcinogenic as Some People Would Have It

You probably have read it in the NEWS: "Caramel Coloring in Cola carcinogenic!" Well, after yesterday's post on aspartame, I thought it might be advisable to have a closer look at this one, as well. After all, it suddenly appeared more likely that the sulfite ammonia caramel in your diet coke would kill you than the overly dreaded artificial sweetener aspartame.

Although almost none of the webpages, which covered the carcinogenicity of caramel coloring cites the original source of this information, it is yet not difficult to find the respective study (Moon. 2001) on PubMed. It was published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry and contains the following small table with data about the amount of 4(5)-Methylimidazole (a byproduct of the production process) in five commercially available cola softdrinks:

cola soft-drink	amount (μg/mL)	in one bottle (μg/591 mL)
brand 1	0.36±0.02	212.76
brand 2	0.32±0.01	189.12
brand 3	0.30±0.01	177.30
brand 4	0.32±0.02	189.12
brand 5	0.36±0.00	212.76

Now, on their own, this figures are hardly significant. Put into the context of the findings of a previous study (NTP. 2007) on the toxicity of this particular chemical, however, they may be disquieting, yet far less alarming than the media would have it:

[...] carcinogenic incidences were observed in experimental mice when they were fed diets containing 0, 312, 625, or 1250 ppm 4-methylimidazole for 2 years. The amounts of 4-methylimidazole in these diets were equivalent to average daily doses of approximately 4, 80, and 170 mg/kg of body weight to mice. If a person weighing 60 kg consumes one bottle of cola soft drink, only 3.3 μg/kg 4-methylimidazole is ingested. Therefore, the amounts ingested from these beverages may not be significant.

As with my previous blogpost on aspartame. I do by no means want to trivialize the toxic potential of these chemicals; nor is it my intention to encourage the use of any chemical substances in foodstuff, BUT I want YOU not to fall victim to each and every fear monger, trying to tell you that XYZ will kill you instantly, when the very science he references tells otherwise. In fact, if you are a man you probably would not have to worry at all, since the NTP study showed "no evidence of carcinogenic activity of 4-methylimidazole in male F344/N rats" at either of the injected dosages over a 2 year period. And in case you are a women, you better open another bottle of coke immediately, because you still have 999x0.5l bottles of Coca Cola to drink today (and for the next 2 years) to "feed" the cancer ;-)

Diet Coke & Liver Damage? Long Term Very High Dose Aspartame Consumption Impairs Antioxidant Defense of Rat Livers.

The ever-growing group of health conscious costumers is rightly very skeptical of artificial sweeteners in general and Aspartame in particular. A recent study (Abhilash. 2011) done by scientists from the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala, India, seems to rectify this attitude.

The scientists fed rats drinking water that contained either no, i.e. 0mg, 500mg or 1.000mg aspartame per kg body weight day for a period of 160days. The rats from the 1.000mg/kg group showed...

[...] a significant increase in activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and γ- glutamyl transferase (GGT). The concentration of reduced glutathione (GSH) and the activity of glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and glutathione reductase (GR) were significantly reduced in the liver of rats that had received aspartame (1000mg/kg.b.wt).

The presence of "leukocyte infiltration in aspartame-treated rats (1000mg/kg.b.wt)" further underlines that high dose aspartame consumption over a period of 160 days induced "hepatocellular injury and alterations in liver antioxidant status" by increasing the detoxification burden on the liver to supra-physiological levels.

Yet, what does that mean for the average consumer? Let us put the figures into perspective: 1 liter of diet coke contains about 390mg of aspartame. The rats in the high dose aspartame group in the study (which is the only one where anti-oxidant status fell enough to induce histological side effects) received 1.000mg/kg of aspartame per day. In human equivalent dosages (HED), this is 162mg/kg, which would be 11.35g of aspartame or 29 l diet coke for a 70kg adult. Not that I want to trivialize the possible liver toxicity due to aspartame consumption, but let's be honest: you would probably long have died from hyperhydration before you would notice any of the toxic effects induced by the consumption of an artificial sweetener, which - far from being healthy - is yet not as toxic as some health-fetishists would have it.

In spite of the fact that a diet coke here and there won't kill you, you should still ask yourselves, whether or not you really need this "spawn" of a society where we want all the convenience and (unnaturally sweet) taste of unhealthy foods without the negative consequences for our health? I mean, you obviously chose the "diet" version because you want to avoid sugar; but do you still want the sweet taste, which (at least for some artificial sweeteners, eg. Nakagawa. 2009) has been shown to increase insulin secretion even in the absence of direct beta cell stimulation!? If you are willing to accept this compromise and do not care about the other chemicals your average can of diet coke "nourishes" you with, fine! But do not tell me later on, I had told you that diet coke was good for you ;-)