Red, red wine, you keep me fine

Some 54 years ago, I fired 6 arrows at balloons attached to a straw bullseye target. The target was less than 50 metres away from me. The occasion was a celebration of the Boy Scouts Movement. The late Queen was there, and I felt so proud to be part of the event. However, my archery skills were pretty poor. Robin Hood I wasn’t; I missed every single one of the balloons. Now for 54 years I have blamed my abject failure on drinking a can of Coca-Cola* before going out there with my bow and arrows. I don’t think I ever had the drink before, and I have certainly never drunk it since. We have it in the house, J likes it. However, we only have diet Coke in our store cupboard – each can’s description says the drink has: a refreshing taste, no calories, and no sugar.

All of which might be true. I have never drunk it so cannot comment on what it tastes like. It certainly doesn’t have sugar; instead it is sweetened by Aspartame, an artificial sweetener. Now if you have been watching the news last week, you cannot have failed to have seen the story from the World Health Organisation (WHO) who described aspartame as being carcinogenic. It was an announcement akin to saying that a glass of red wine a day protects you from a heart attack or a stroke. More of which later.

For a moment, let’s go back to aspartame. It was first developed in the 1960’s and is said to be 200 time sweeter than sugar. It started to be used in the 1980’s amid a growing awareness and increased legislation over the use of sugar in food and drinks. Now the WHO have stated that a safe daily limit of consumption of this sweetener is 40mg per kg of body weight per day. To put that into perspective, it would mean that the average person (which is probably worth a blog on its own) would need to visit our store cupboard 14 times a day, take a can of diet Coke and drink it every time.

What concerned me about last week's WHO story was both yet another ridiculous and sensationalising public communication over aspartame and the fact that this additive is to be found in so many other everyday products that I didn’t know about. Here is a simple example. Last Wednesday I took a walk from Lytham to Preston. It’s about 21 km long and the route is largely along a coastal path. I always walk light, and prefer to buy a bite to eat and drink along the route. It was a very hot day, I was thirsty, and was seduced into purchasing a can of no sugar 7Up. I thought it was a healthy choice. However, like many soft drinks, the sugar is replaced by aspartame. The WHO recommendation is just to drink water as sweeteners in drinks such as  diet Coke, and sugar free 7Up is not the answer to helping us keep healthy.

Even if we do, as the O recommends, WHO recommends, replace our fizzy dinks with water, aspartame is still in many other products. Toothpastes, mouthwash, sugar free sweets, our yogurts, no sugar Ribenia, and even in health products like Lemsip and chewable Vitamin C tablets. But actually, just how much of a risk are we from consuming aspartame in all these possible ways. The 14 cans of diet Coke test would seem to suggest the risk to our physical and mental health is low. Unless you are Donald Trump, that is.

The WHO announcement was based on work undertaken by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Despite the IARC researchers admitting there was limited but not convincing evidence, they still published the warning that aspartame could cause some types of liver cancer. The real risk appears to be for those people living with phenylketonuria (PKU), a rare inherited condition. These folk lack an enzyme which means they are unable to break down the amino acid, phenylalanine. Phenylalanine is the major building block for aspartame. Those living with PKU have to abide by a very strict low protein diet, and avoid foods where naturally occurring phenylalanine is found. This can be particularly difficult for families bringing up a child with PKU – take a look at Hannah’s story here. There are around 2300 people living with PKU in the UK.

So perhaps because of this clearly defined and well known risk to a small number of the population, rightly, there was a storm of criticism on social media. Some of which came from eminent scientists in the field of nutrition, statistics and dietetics. The general thrust of the criticism was over trying to use what was described as scaremongering tactics based on limited data, to try and persuade people to change their diet and behaviour.

This is not only not ethical, but also confusing and somewhat disingenuous. It runs the risk of more soundly researched-based public health messaging being ignored in the future. We saw what that could lead to during the Covid-19 pandemic as people were told government decisions were following the science. And when it became apparent that those who were taking the decisions were not abiding by them, many people chose to ignore them as well. Once people’s trust in the power of science is lost, it can be very difficult to regain.

And the red wine thread? Well Betty Regnard, who is a resident at the Westhaven Care home, has her 105th birthday coming up shortly. When asked what did she feel was responsible for her long and healthy life, she unequivocally responded by saying a glass of red wine every day. That said, back in 2018, Theresa Rowley, from Michigan in the US, celebrated her 104th birthday, and credited diet Coke for her long and healthy life. Now, I’m not a scientist, but if it came down to a choice between a glass of diet Coke or a glass of red wine, I know which one I will be drinking.

*Released in 1880, the first publicly sold bottle of Coca-Cola contained around 3.5 grams of cocaine.