Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Is Splenda (sucralose) a dioxin?

Various - 2-10-2009 at 10:05

I know that sucralose was the subject of some controversy some time ago, but I missed all that and I'm curious as to whether the matter was ever resolved? Searching on Pubmed I saw an article stating that sucralose persists in the environment after excretion.

kclo4 - 2-10-2009 at 10:35

Are you referring to this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioxins_and_dioxin-like_compoun...

I don't think so.. it seems like they all need the base structure of a dioxin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioxin_%28chemical%29

Look at the structure of splenda, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose it is just chlorinated sucrose.

mr.crow - 2-10-2009 at 10:50

Yuck, I wouldn't eat that! At least its not fluorinated

Wikipedia says it is not soluble in fat, so it won't stick around like dioxin and would just be excreted efficiently. It also doesn't break down or dechlorinate which would make it persistent in the environment and maybe toxic to other life forms

Maybe dioxin is being used as a scare word to drum up controversy about food additives

kclo4 - 2-10-2009 at 12:15

I doubt it is bad for you. At least I haven't seen any evidence that it is.

Sounds like another aspartame story. Which for the record isn't bad for you.

zed - 2-10-2009 at 14:50

Thalidomide was also considered perfectly dandy.

The Romans were fond of Sugar of Lead, Lead acetate........Yummmmm.

Heroin was promoted as a cure for Morphine addiction.

Sigmund Freud was quite sure that self medicating with Cocaine was a miracle cure for neurosis.....And harmless.

Asbestos was a cheap, wonderfully light, heat insulator. Dangerous? Never!

Benzene was no big deal.

...........................................................................................

Only time will tell, what is, or isn't bad for you.

In the meantime, you pays your Nickel, and you takes your chances.


UnintentionalChaos - 2-10-2009 at 15:08

Quote: Originally posted by zed  
Thalidomide was also considered perfectly dandy.

The Romans were fond of Sugar of Lead, Lead acetate........Yummmmm.

Heroin was promoted as a cure for Morphine addiction.

Sigmund Freud was quite sure that self medicating with Cocaine was a miracle cure for neurosis.....And harmless.

Asbestos was a cheap, wonderfully light, heat insulator. Dangerous? Never!

Benzene was no big deal.

...........................................................................................

Only time will tell, what is, or isn't bad for you.

In the meantime, you pays your Nickel, and you takes your chances.




Actually, the romans were not fond of lead acetate, but it was an incidental contaminant based on the method of preparation of their defrutum and sapa. Boiling down grape must will net you a good sweetener, but lead vessels were used because they imparted no metallic flavors, unlike bronze and copper vessels. Of course, grape juice is acidic and liable to dissolve small amounts of lead.

hodges - 3-10-2009 at 06:59

I don't understand why substituting 3 OH groups with Cl would make it have zero calories. Is it because 1. you use such a tiny amount since it is so much stronger tasting than sugar that you consume practically no calories, or 2. the calories are there, but not in a form the body can use so it effectively has no calories?

Hodges

UnintentionalChaos - 3-10-2009 at 09:56

Quote: Originally posted by hodges  
I don't understand why substituting 3 OH groups with Cl would make it have zero calories. Is it because 1. you use such a tiny amount since it is so much stronger tasting than sugar that you consume practically no calories, or 2. the calories are there, but not in a form the body can use so it effectively has no calories?

Hodges


Well, the chlorines have very different properties than OH groups; namely that they don't hydrogen bond (well, they do, but poorly). Cl is also a good deal more bulky than OH.

Enzymes are generally fairly picky about what substrates they bind to, and the strength of this binding is dependant on the concerted formation of many weak bonds, mainly hydrogen bonds, but sometimes ionic attractions or london dispersion forces.

With the increased bulk and decreased bonding interactions it is quite likely that sucralose cannot bind effectively to glycosidases, which would normally cleave sucrose into glucose and fructose; a necessary step before they can be further oxidized for energy.

Also relevant is the fact that such incredibly small amounts are needed to confer sweetness. Even if it were fully digestable, it would not have any more calorie density than regular sucrose.

mr.crow - 3-10-2009 at 13:16

Heres a related link I found. Apparently they misunderstood instructions to test the substance with to taste the substance :o

http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2009/03/11/teen-chemist-and-sp...

kclo4 - 4-10-2009 at 19:51

Quote: Originally posted by mr.crow  
Heres a related link I found. Apparently they misunderstood instructions to test the substance with to taste the substance :o

http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2009/03/11/teen-chemist-and-sp...


That seems pretty odd to me. I wonder how true that is...
Seems like the first thing they'd think of to make an artificial sweetener is to add chlorine or something to it like they do with a lot of other analogues.

I wonder what the brominated, and iodinated ones taste like?