How Much Diet Coke Is Too Much? Artificial Sweetener Confusion, Ultra-Processed Food & Alcohol: Solosode #487

Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life podcast, how much Diet Coke is too much? Artificial sweetener, confusion, ultra processed foods and alcohol. Oh my. Welcome to the Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond. Welcome to the Boundless Life podcast. I'm Ben Greenfield. As you may have heard, if you listen to the title of this show, I'm covering a lot of vices today. If you're drinking a Moscow Mule with maybe a packet of Splenda in it and eating a Twinkie, well, perhaps sipping a little bit of Diet Coke on the side, double fisting, then you're going to love today's show.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:55]: It's going to make you feel fantastic. So I actually have been drinking a lot of Diet Coke recently. Not intentionally. It just so happens that I have been home for two days out of the past 30 days. I was on a speaking tour of India and then I wound up in San Diego at a Mastermind event. And then I went up to San Jose to do some biohacking with my good buddy Matt Cook at Bioreset Medical, who put like a trillion exosomes and these new Muse stem cells into me. Shout out to Matt Cook. So I estimate I've been on 26 flights, 26 airplanes in the past 30 days.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:33]: I find that something that is carbonated helps my gut to feel less problematic when I'm on a flight and Diet Coke especially. This is actually something I learned from my mom. She'd drink a Diet Coke when her tummy was upset. For some reason, something about Diet Coke makes my tummy feel pretty good when I'm flying. Yes, it's a vice. Some people say I'm nuking brain cells and gut bacteria all at the same time. Is that true? You'll find out in today's show. All of the show notes, which I always make as juicy as possible, can be found at BenGreenfieldLife.com/487. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/487 and besides that, this is full on news flash show.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:17]: I'm not answering any questions today. I've been answering more and more questions over at the Life Network. That's basically this new platform I've built that is essentially like the Facebook for health huge community workouts, Q&As, AMAs, et cetera. Not to all of a sudden start throwing more commercials at you, but I'm also responding to more and more questions on that platform. I have another podcast called the RAW Podcast inside GoLifeNetwork.com not to say I'm still not going to be replying to questions here and there on this show, but today I've just got too many cool articles and news flashes and research to share with you. I know you're all on the edge of your seats wondering about Diet Coke, so let's go ahead and dive in. So I probably average at this point in my life, despite possibly averaging one a day this month, one Diet Coke maybe every two weeks. It's my vice, so shoot me, I realize it is like a processed food.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:14]: And there was a recent hubbub about Diet Coke based on new data showing a link between aspartame or aspartame, depending on your pronunciation preference, and Diet Coke. So there's this guy I follow who alerted me via his substack to the existence of a new study published two days ago in cell metabolism. This guy, by the way, is a great researcher, Nick Norwitz. He's been becoming more popular. Great YouTube channel, delves into the biochemistry of different food compounds, et cetera. Seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders, even though we've never actually talked in person. But I do digest some of his stuff. And so he published an article about this new study published two days ago at the time of this recording in cell metabolism, showing that low doses of aspartame, the pronunciation I'm going to use today, is linked to heart disease.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:10]: So there have been studies in the past that have linked artificial sweeteners to cardiovascular disease. No. Kind of like bodies in the streets. Huge long term human trials, but particularly there have been studies in rodent models in monkeys and occasional smaller studies in humans suggesting that aspartame may be linked to cardiovascular disease. So in this case what happened was this. This is very recent. Researchers fed mice aspartame and the aspartame cause was called a dose dependent acceleration of atherosclerotic plaque development, meaning the more aspartame they consumed, the higher the degree of atherosclerotic plaque development. They were not feeding mice even though this would have been really kind, nice cool of the researchers.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:01]: Actual Diet Coke, Coke, preferably out of glass bottles. We want to avoid the microplastics, of course, but nonetheless, the artificial sweetener you find in Diet Coke did cause a higher number of inflammatory cells in plaques that was independent of whether or not there was an increase or decrease in LDL cholesterol and also seem to contribute to insulin resistance, which of course can be a problem. Kind of paradoxical. A lot of people switch to Diet Coke away from sugary sweet sodas, thinking that they're doing their insulin resistance a favor. But aspartame actually triggers insulin release, stimulates the vagus nerve, which has a variety of sweetness receptors in it. And this triggering of the vagus nerve causes a subsequent increase in insulin. That long term, with higher doses of aspartame, can contribute to insulin resistance and also plaque development. So the way that this occurs, insulin, could trigger plaque development is that these insulin spikes increase levels of this thing called an adhesion molecule.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:09]: It's got one of those Star Wars R3D 2C3PO type of names. It's called CX3Cl1. So aspartame increases insulin and then insulin raises CX3Cl1 levels and that increase. Not to get too propeller hat nerdy here on you, that enables immune cells to invade the artery wall and that can then contribute to plaque formation. So the issue here is how much actual Diet Coke would you need to drink to cause the type of results that they were seeing in these rodent models? Well, they were giving the mice, in this case, food that had about 0.15% aspartame every day for 12 weeks. That's roughly the equivalent of you, a human being, drinking about three cans a day of Diet Coke. Now, interestingly, they were finding biological effects at even lower doses than that in some cases. But it appears that a lot of the more problematic issues related to aspartame kick in at about the equivalent of three cans of Diet Coke.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:24]: When I actually tweeted about this, I said that the fact that I'm averaging one Diet Coke a day for the past month and the past that when I'm not traveling as much, I average maybe one Diet Coke every two weeks. Makes this to me a non issue in the occasional diet soda drinker. Especially if that Diet Coke is keeping you from, say, having an extra cocktail when you're out at the bar, or an extra serving of alcohol, which we'll get to later, by the way. Or that Diet Coke is helping you to not have an upset tummy on an airplane and release one of those nasty paint peeling airplane farts that causes all of your seatmates to squirm. So the issue here with aspartame, though, is interesting because it is actually I think of the artificial sweeteners out there and yes, I will say I'm a bigger fan of Stevia, Monk Fruit, allulose, these more natural sweeteners or sugar substitutes. But aspartame is the artificial sweetener I am least concerned about. Basically, when you consume aspartame, that gets broken down into amino acids. Basically, it gets broken down into aspartic acid, that's a naturally occurring amino acid, phenylalanine, which is another amino acid.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:38]: And then some of it actually gets broken down into methanol. And you'd think that's paradoxical, that you drink diet soda to not fart on an airplane and that it contributes to methanol formation. But methanol is not necessarily synonymous with methane. It's like an alcohol version of or. It's an alcohol, not a gas. So in the small intestine, aspartame gets broken down into aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. The aspartic acid and the phenylalanine, those go into your bloodstream, and those are used just like any normal dietary amino acid you might get from any other protein. Do not drink your Diet Coke as a source of protein.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:14]: That is not what I'm saying. What I'm just explaining to you here is the biochemistry of what's going on in your body. The methanol gets converted to your liver into formaldehyde and then into formic acid, which then gets excreted, as I'll fill you in on later, when we talk about alcohol, trace amounts of formaldehyde or acetaldehyde, for example, these aldehydes, these are found all over the place in the animal kingdom or in the plant kingdom, rather, in fruits, in vegetables, in fermented products. So small doses of this are not an issue when it comes to something like toxicity. So there has been some concerns circulated about the potential for aspartame to contribute to cancer. And now, based on this recent study, some concerns about aspartame being linked to plaque formation and insulin resistance. Now, we've already established that when it comes to aspartame being an issue for plaque formation and insulin resistance, that you would be needing to drink three or more cans or bottles or servings or however you're getting your Diet Coke, three or more per day, long term, for at least 12 weeks or more. I don't know a lot of people who are doing that.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:29]: I do not advise that. Like I mentioned, I would do at max during a hefty travel season, like one a day. But that's the dose that you would need to be concerned about when it comes to this latest study on heart disease. And diet soda consumption. Now, of course, I'm assuming you don't have other dietary sources of aspartame, Right? If you're drinking like three different other diet sodas per day in addition to the Diet Coke, and then you're putting some aspartame, I don't know, in your coffee or something like that, that could be an issue. But what I'm saying here is the equivalent of three Diet Cokes worth of aspartame per day would be where you'd start to get pretty concerned. So when it comes to the carcinogenic effect, if we look at the literature, again primarily in animal models linking aspartame to cancer, the equivalent number of Diet Cokes that you would need to drink per day for all of this formaldehyde and subsequent formic acid to eventually become carcinogenic would be, depending on the research that you look at, 12 to 20 plus cans of Diet Coke per day. That's how much you'd have to drink to hit regulatory limits.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:37]: Let me frame this in another light for you. I was recently listening to a speaker at a conference talk about microplastics. And this particular speaker said that she really did not recommend drinking Tapachico due to the microplastic content of Tapachico. And despite this person being very smart and saying a lot of good things about microplastics, I don't agree that Topo Chico is an issue. There was a study a few years ago that said that Topo Chico contains 10 times the amount of microplastics than any other bottled water, which is actually true. It does like it like whatever source they're using for their Topo Chico water has these trace amounts of microplastics in it that are higher than other bottled water. We're talking about the glass bottle, by the way. Not a plastic bottle, a glass bottle, but the amount in Topo Chico is about nine and a half parts per trillion of microplastics.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:28]: So think about it this way. If you were to fill 50 Olympic sized swimming pools with Topo Chico, you would have the equivalent of, I think about a tablespoon or so of microplastics in all 50 of those pools combined. Now, if you were to look at an average human being, an average human being drinks about one tenth of an Olympic size swimming pool over the course of their entire lifetime. So you could literally drink glass, bottled Topo Chico at 9 parts per trillion microplastic from the time you were born until like 80 to 90 years old, as the only water that you drink, and over the course of that entire lifetime, you drink about one tenth of an Olympic sized swimming pool full of Topo Chico and you'd barely reach regulatory limits for microplastics. I'm not saying that's a good idea. I don't endorse it. But whenever you hear about things like aspartame causes cancer, Topo Chico is full of microplastics. You always have to step back and look at the actual dosing in the research.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:24]: So when it comes to Tapo Chico, yeah, I mean, it's got microplastics in it. 10 times the amount of any other water bottle. But that 10 times is such a small amount. It's kind of like me saying the air quality index in, let's say the air quality index in Park City, Utah is 10 and the air quality index in Boulder is 5. And you could frame that as saying something like, did you know that the air quality in Park City is twice as bad as that of Boulder? But the overall air quality index we're talking about is so low, it's such high quality in both cases, it's a moot point. But it depends on how you frame the argument or the research or the claim. That can be a little bit stimulatory or fear mongering in some cases. So when it comes to Diet Coke and aspartame, yeah, I would not exceed 12 to 20 cans per day if you want to avoid the cancer risk.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:16]: I wouldn't exceed three cans per day if you want to avoid the heart disease risk. But you do not have to swear off diet soda altogether. Yes, I'm a bigger fan of, you know, Zevia putting some stevia in your Pellegrino or your sparkling water if you want to do that. But again, if you like a Diet Coke every now and again, it's not a problem. Now some people ask me about the difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke and there is a difference. Okay, Coke Zero not only has slightly less caffeine than Diet Coke, which is probably a plus if you don't want to over consume caffeine. And I will admit it does have a more authentic cola flavor than Diet Coke does if you're looking for that nostalgic Coca Cola feel. But the Coke Zero is actually sweetened with a combination of aspartame and acesulfamipotassium, acesulfamine potassium, or as is sometimes called Ace K.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:07]: So Ace K is different than aspartame. I think it's more concerning than aspartame. It's about 200 times sweeter than sugar. And it is commonly used with aspartame or sucralose in sugar free sodas and protein powders and many processed foods. But unlike aspartame, Ace K is not metabolized into amino acids or into methanol. It's absorbed into your bloodstream and typically tends to be excreted unchanged in your urine. But that does not mean it doesn't have impacts in the body. There are some rodent studies suggesting a potential cancer link with high amounts of Ace K consumption similar to aspartame.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:46]: There are also some studies indicating that it might slightly stimulate insulin secretion. So similar to aspartame, it might contribute to long term insulin resistance. There are a few animal studies suggesting that it might alter your gut bacteria in an unfavorable way. Not as bad as sucralose can. Sucralose is bad news bears for your gut microbiome. But Ace K can still alter the gut bacteria a little bit. And then there's like one study in rats that found that it might cause potential neurotoxicity. But it was pretty high doses of Ace K.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:16]: I don't have the actual amount in front of me, but it was a high dose. So when we look at a lot of these issues with Ace K, you would still need to drink quite a bit of Coke Zero. You'd actually need to get closer to about 22 cans per day of Coke Zero to reach some of these issues. But if you look at the research overall, there's more evidence that suggests that Ace K could be a bigger issue, particularly for your gut and for cancer risk and even insulin secretion compared to aspartame. So if I had to rank the artificial sweeteners in order of the ones that I think are worst versus least worst. Man, I sound smart today. I would say aspartame would be the safest. And then Ace K is next and then sucralose is last.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:10]: So long story short is if you see these headlines about Diet Coke causing heart disease or aspartame causing heart disease, just kind of like raise an eyebrow at it. Because there's a little bit more to the story than that. But it does fall into one of those categories of processed or ultra processed foods. Why am I telling you this now? Because there is another study that recently came out on ultra processed foods. Now, before I talk to you about that study and what it found, let's quickly define what an ultra processed food actually is. So you can dry, crush, roast, boil, freeze, pasteurize and engage in a variety of other methods to process a food, to change a food from its natural state. And typically, after you've kind of pulverized the food like this, you'll add ingredients back into it. And in the case of many pappaged ultra processed foods, the ingredients that are added back into it include preservatives to increase shelf life and stability, sugar, salt, fat.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:14]: And unfortunately, when it comes to fat, many of the fats being added in are oxidized, they're heavily processed, they've been heated, they've been pressurized. So we get some of these rancid seed oils, which can cause some inflammation compared to an oil in its more natural state, like extra virgin olive oil or eating an avocado or something like that. Now, ultra processed foods typically also contain artificial colors, flavors, stabilizers, et cetera. So there's a big difference between me saying that whatever banana, coconut, water smoothie that you're having in the morning is ultra processed food. Which it is, it's kind of processed, right? It's been put in the equivalent of a food processor and an ultra processed food, which again is dried, crushed, roasted, boils, freeze, pasteurized, heat and dried, powdered, et cetera, but then has all of these things added back into it that can often have a deleterious impact on your metabolism. And even if we shove all of the concerns aside and say there's no research at all on deleterious effects from a toxicity standpoint, there is absolutely no doubt that because you do not feel as full as fast when eating these ultra processed foods, because you don't have to chew them as much, they just go in and out of your mouth more quickly, they're hyper palatable, you tend to eat more, people tend to eat more. And this is not just me saying it's based on research. When they have a diet high in ultra processed foods.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:37]: And there are some other issues with ultra processed foods I'll get into momentarily. So this, this recent study that came out a few days ago at the time of this podcast recording, looked at whether ultra processed foods can contribute to weight gain. So what they did was they took a bunch of young men and they gave them a diet of ultra processed foods. And they took another group of young men and they gave them a diet without any ultra processed foods. The ultra processed foods were things like soda and donuts and french fries. So as a matter of fact, there's a very helpful graphic at examine.com that that was showing some of the sample meals. And so, for example, for breakfast, the ultra processed meal would be like blueberry yogurt, turkey sausage, a croissant and some margarine. And for the non ultra processed foods, it was sliced fresh fruit, Greek yogurt and walnuts.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:29]: The lunch in the ultra processed food group was potato chips, chicken nuggets and a diet lemonade drink. And then in the non ultra processed food group, it was a salad with chicken breast and farro, which is kind of like a grain, apples, grapes and a vinaigrette. And then for dinner, the ultra processed group was commercial cheese and peanut butter crackers. Actually sounds really tasty. A commercial turkey meatball marinara sub on white bread and provolone cheese. Gosh, that also sounds fantastic. Gosh darn it. And a diet lemonade drink.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:02]: But then for the non ultra processed group, they had a salad, they had some black bean hummus, a beef tender roast, some couscous and some carrots. I have to admit, the commercial turkey meatball marinara sub on white bread and provolone cheese with commercial cheese and peanut butter crackers almost sounds better. See, this is the problem with ultra processed foods. Even a super healthy guy like me, it's like my mouth waters when I just describe ultra processed foods. But nonetheless, what they found in this study was that the guys eating the ultra processed foods not only gained a significant amount of weight, 2.4 pounds more than when they followed a control diet, and I am sorry, they actually did. Like the same group was eating the ultra processed food group and then they shifted them to the non ultra processed food group. So while following the ultra processed diet, they consumed an average of 814 more calories per day compared to when they were eating a more natural diet. They chewed significantly less per calorie.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:01]: Right. You're supposed to chew your food like 25 to 40 times per bite to get a lower blood glucose response and increased feelings of satiety and better nutrient absorption. You don't do that with ultra processed foods as healthy and or as tasty as that peanut butter is. And they gained 2.4 more pounds when they were eating the ultra processed meal. And a big part of this is not because necessarily there's something magical going on with the metabolism when you eat ultra processed foods. The biggest issue here is that you just eat more calories, period. When you're eating ultra processed foods, it's kind of like with weight loss in general. Yes.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:37]: If you're eating a lot of really natural, nutrient dense food, you could argue that your thyroid is healthier, your metabolism is less high or maybe you have more hormones to go around, you're healthier. So maybe you're lifting weights more and exercising more. But really the biggest contributor to whether or not you're going to lose weight is how many freaking calories you're eating, you know, regardless of the food quality. Like I could get somebody to lose weight drinking 2000 calories of Coca Cola a day, as long as they're burning like 2100 calories a day. I'm not endorsing that. I don't think it's healthy. But when it comes to ultra processed foods, the number one issue that we see with it is you just eat freaking more. All, all arguments for scientific processes in the way the ultra processed food is metabolized aside.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:22]: So that's pretty concerning when it comes to 814 more calories per day. That adds up. That's a lot. But then there were a couple of more studies that came out recently showing some other big issues. So some of you may have heard of the term sarcopenia. Sarcopenia, that's a significant reduction in muscle size and strength that occurs with age, but can also occur in situations like a sedentary lifestyle, cancer or chronic disease, et cetera. So there was another study that analyzed 10,255 adults and the individuals in that study who fell into the highest quartile of ultra processed food consumption, meaning they had more than 55% of their daily calories from ultra processed foods. They found a significant association between higher amounts of ultra processed food consumption and elevated loss of muscle mass.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:21]: Even in young healthy adults. You wouldn't expect to be losing muscle that quickly. So incredible decrease in muscle quality and muscle quantity when consuming these ultra processed foods. So what's interesting here about these studies is that they looked at the actual health of the muscle, right. Like I just mentioned, not just how much muscle do you actually have because you lose muscle with a high intake of ultra processed foods. Probably the number one reason being it's just harder to get ultra processed foods that are high in protein. But what they looked at was whether there's a connection between ultra processed food intake and what's called the degeneration of muscle tissue. So this other study had 666 participants and they were observing the effects of ultra processed foods on muscle quality.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:15]: One of the key findings of this study was that higher consumption of ultra processed foods, we're just gonna start calling them UPFs. I feel like I'm filling up a lot of airspace saying ultra processed foods. So higher consumption of UPFs was significantly associated with intramuscular fat, right? Those fatty streaks that you see in a nice ribeye steak, but that aren't necessarily synonymous with health in humans and often associated with cardiovascular disease. These were increased significantly in muscle. Intramuscular fat was increased with a high amount of ultra processed food consumption. And this was kind of the case for most of the muscles in the body. And then another study that they looked at in Brazilian teenagers, right? Not like old people, like young virile adults, 1,525 adolescents. They found that the teens who consumed higher amounts of ultra processed foods had significant lower muscle mass and significantly lower lean body mass.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:11]: Lean body mass is the weight of everything in your body except fat, including your muscles and bones and organs. So muscle degradation, potential bone degradation, potential organ degradation with a high consumption of ultra processed foods. As a matter of fact, here's what's significant. The researchers found. See, I'm picking up my pen. To really drive this point home. I mean, it's about to get serious, folks. The researchers found that for every 1% increase in the percentage of calories coming from ultra processed foods, there was a corresponding decrease in muscle mass by 0.04 kg and a decline in lean body mass by 0 point by .01 kg per meter squared.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:47]: So essentially, the more ultra processed foods that you consume, the lower the likelihood that you are going to be able to maintain not only muscle quantity, but muscle quality. So I realize I just said a lot of scary things about ultra processed foods, but here's the way that I think about it. You know how there's a lot of like food scanning apps now that allow you to scan the label of a food and see the carbs, the fats, the proteins, the calories, et cetera. I think those are mildly useful for a lot of people, but I don't even have one installed on my phone because my objective in life is to eat from or to have as few foods in my pantry and my refrigerator that even have scannable labels, right? So the idea of shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store, I realize this is super basic, but some people just need to hear this, right? Shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store, you got the eggs, you got the dairy, you got the seeds, you got the nuts, you got the meats, the grains, you have the produce, the vegetables, the fruits. You don't have a lot of scannable things on the perimeter of the grocery store that should comprise the lion's share of the grocery shopping that you do. Like, you should just try to be opening up crinkly packages as little as possible. And I mean, even when you travel, you can go the route of like sardines and avocados and little lettuce wrap. I mean, there's ways that you can do this.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:09]: As a matter of fact, you know, I usually have a Whole Foods order or a grocery store order waiting for me when I get to the hotel room when I travel. And it's, you know, it's great. It's like Brazil nuts and macadamia nuts and some like 95% dark chocolate and some sardines and some avocados and some seaweed wraps and one of those like organic salad greens mixes with a bottle of olive oil. And that all just gets put into the mini fridge or as much of it as I can squeeze on the mini fridge at the hotel. And yeah, I usually take out all the, you know, whatever, the booze and the beer and the wine and the soft drinks, except the Diet Coke, of course, and everything else that's in the mini fridge to make space for all this stuff while keeping my fingers crossed it's not one of those fancy automatically activated mini fridges that charges you every time you touch anything in it. I have been known to call down to the front desk and tell them that I am traveling with medications and need an extra mini fridge in my room because I do consider avocados to be a medication. But there are ways that you can, even when traveling, eat a lower amount of ultra processed foods. So is it all bad? Not necessarily.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:16]: There's a silver lining. And here's an interesting silver lining. There was a paper that came out January 6, 2025, so pretty recent in the Lancet, and it was looking at the link between ultra processed foods and cardiovascular disease. As would be no surprise to you after hearing what I've just said, the participants with the highest total ultra processed food intake had an 11% increased risk of cardiovascular disease. They're most likely drinking many more than three cans of diet soda a day. They had a higher intake of sugar, sweetened beverages, artificially sweetened beverage, and processed meats. However, there were some people who ate a high amount of ultra processed foods who had a 6 to 8% decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. In particular, higher intakes of cold cereals, fat free popcorn, crackers, yogurt and dairy based desserts were all associated with a 6 to 8% decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:16]: Now here's my hypothesis about this. I don't think cold cereals, fat free popcorn, crackers, yogurt and dairy based desserts like, I don't know, Ben and Jerry's necessarily drop your risk of cardiovascular disease. But I think people who are already thinking about being healthy, hitting the gym, getting some sun, going outside, maybe walking during work, things like that, they're thinking at the same time, yo, I'm gonna have the fat free popcorn and gosh, I'm not gonna have pop tarts and tater tots for breakfast, but I will pour myself a bowl of Wheaties, right? And I heard yogurt's good for you. I'm going to do some of that. So I think that there's a little bit of self selected healthy user bias in the results of these studies. And so certain ultra processed foods that are marketed as healthier versions of ultra processed foods are likely linked to lower risk of cardiovascular disease because the population choosing those versions of ultra processed foods are making healthier food, lifestyle and exercise choices in other aspects of their life. So I'm not telling you to rush out and go buy fat free popcorn and crackers. If you have a diet high in ultra processed foods, those would be the best form of those to consume.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:23]: But ultimately there have been studies showing that not all ultra processed foods might be bad for you. But even then I think there's some bias and some subtle nuances that we need to take into consideration. So should you be a total propeller hat wearing nerd like me and you want to dig into any of these studies that I've just mentioned, you can visit the show notes at bengreenfieldlife.com/487 to take a look. All right, so let's. We've talked about diet soda, we've talked about artificial sweeteners, we've talked about ultra processed foods. So what's left? Alcohol, of course. Alcohol. I get a lot of questions about alcohol because I average right now I average about five drinks a week.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:04]: Nice glass of organic wine with my family at dinner. Lately we've been playing some really intensive ping pong matches and I'll sometimes grab a little mezcal tequila with some club soda and a squeeze of lime and I'll sip on that while I'm playing ping pong. I rarely have more than one drink. Occasionally if I'm on a date with my wife, I'll have a cocktail before dinner as we're chatting and then her and I will share a glass of wine with dinner. But I'm not a heavy alcohol consumer. As a matter of fact, I was talking with a friend last night and I said, dude, if I was gonna go party. Not that I even do much partying these days. I'd much rather take a slightly higher dose of psilocybin or a couple of grams of THC than I would alcohol.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:46]: Because I think that high amounts of alcohol intake are worse for you than even using like a, like a mild dose of a psychedelic or a little bit of wee or something like that. Even though I still think that THC kills brain cells, I think it nukes fewer cells in your body than high intakes of alcohol do. So anyways, why am I telling you all this? Well, there was a recent study in a sleep journal that looked at the effects of alcohol on sleep in healthy adults. And if you. Kind of similar to the Topo Chico or the Diet Coke argument. If you look at what the news said about this study, it said, alcohol destroys sleep. Alcohol destroys sleep. So I thought, huh, I should go look at this because, like, I get great sleep scores and I realize it's totally anecdotal and I have a glass of wine with dinner or like I mentioned, a cocktail wine, playing ping pong before dinner quite a bit like five days out of the week at least.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:41]: So when I looked at the actual dose used in this study, that did indeed show that there was an increase in sleep latency. So the amount of time that it took to fall asleep was actually longer with alcohol, which is kind of interesting because some people say they fall asleep faster, but in this case it was longer. But then they looked at the, the REM sleep, the rapid eye movement sleep, and it showed that there was a negative impact on rapid eye movement sleep, what they described as REM sleep disruption. However, when you actually look at the impact on REM sleep, the reduction in REM sleep quality occurred at two or more drinks. I realize that's not very much alcohol for a lot of people, but two or more drinks is a lot of alcohol for me. I'm not having that on barely any night, unless again, it's a date night with my wife, which is once every couple of weeks. And then with the sleep latency, how long it takes you to fall asleep, it was five drinks or more. Okay, so when you see a study that says alcohol destroys sleep, and then you'll hear some social media influencers saying any amount of alcohol is horrific for your sleep, it's actually two drinks or more that affects your REM sleep quality.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:02]: And then five drinks or more that influences your actual sleep latency. So again, you have to take into consideration the actual dose. So here's the thing about alcohol and the way that I think about it, I think alcohol actually plays a role in longevity. And I'm going to explain to you my reasoning here. Now, before I do, I should couch this all with a few caveats. The first is that if you have a history of problematic drinking abuse in the family related to alcohol consumption and other issues that would make alcohol problematic, aside from the metabolic or biochemical implications of alcohol, it could be a good idea for you to avoid. Same thing if you're married to someone or have a significant other who struggles with self control around alcohol, probably best to just not have it in the house. There are other things that you can do to get antioxidants or induce endogenous antioxidant production if you do not have access to healthy versions of alcohol.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:09]: If all you're drinking are big California cabs with 70 plus different herbicides and pesticides. Probably not a great idea if you're gonna be drinking wine. If you're drinking like margarita mixes chock full of high fructose corn syrup or let's say for example, non organic beer, and maybe even you have some gluten issues so it's causing gas and bloating with you. There are a lot of issues we need to take into consideration beyond just alcohol itself. So you need to have a healthy, clean source. If I'm out at a restaurant and I'm ordering a glass of wine, I typically will look for three different countries on the menu that all tend to use really good organic biodynamic prep methods in their wine. France, Italy and Neuse Orde. And then for hard alcohol, I'll typically choose Mezcal tequila because it has a lot of agabin fibers in it which are insoluble fibers that may have a positive impact on gut health and also lower the glycemic index of the food that you're consuming.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:08]: And then I will also, nowadays if I'm at home, like this stuff called Kreos. It's a special alcohol made from mastic tree extract, which also is healthy for the microbiome. I actually first discovered this stuff at a longevity conference of all places. It's called Kreos K R E O S I think. I have no financial affiliation with the company. It just, my gosh, it tastes amazing. So it's kind of like Ouzo, that Greek alcohol or if anybody's chewed mastic gum kind of tastes like that. So anyways, oh, a little bit of coconut water on ice with a squeeze of lemon.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:40]: Oh my gosh, so good. So anyways, let's talk about alcohol. So the common claim is that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption and I do not think that's true. So there is a widely cited UK Biobank study showing with a very large population that half a drink per day is not harmful in women averaging half a drink per day and is actually associated with better brain markers in men. In addition to that, there is an epigenetic aging study. And shout out to Chris Masterjohn in his article alcohol's surprising role in your health and longevity, which I will link to in the show, notes DNA markers of aging can improve with up to one drink a day in a dose response manner, meaning as you get closer and closer to one drink per day, average DNA markers of aging improve. So why is this? Well, alcohol is not just a toxin as many people would lead you to believe, even though it does have a toxic effect. Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:49]: As do many plants, as does the sun, as does exercise. Right. Many of these things that have a toxic effect based on the law of hormesis are bad for you in large amounts, but good for you in small amounts. Right? They induce cellular resilience in small amounts. Alcohol falls into that category. It's actually a macronutrient. It's categorized as a macronutrient like proteins, fats, carbs, about 7 calories per gram. It's metabolized very much like fats.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:16]: Ethanol is broken down into acetaldehyde, which is toxic, but again that's not a problem in low amounts, and then into acetate. That acetate gets used for energy, just like fatty acids get used for energy. Now acetaldehyde is often cited as a really bad thing, which it would be in high amounts because it is toxic. But there are many other so called aldehydes that you find in other macronutrients. Carbs, fats, proteins, they all have something called methylglyoxal in them, very similar aldehyde as acetaldehyde. And your body has many detox pathways to handle aldehydes. Did you know, for example, that most fruits and vegetables have more acetaldehyde than wine? So theoretically you should be taking that popular hangover remedy anytime you're having a large salad or a fruit smoothie, if you're going to take it to minimize acetaldehyde uptake or acetaldehyde metabolism when you consume a glass of wine. Many people, even people who don't drink, have natural trace levels of acetaldehyde in their blood.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:20]: So yes, alcohol is toxic. Yes, alcohol is a poison or namely the byproduct of alcohol. Acetaldehyde is a poison, but that doesn't mean it's bad for you, right? Some poisons, some toxins are good for you. Heck, there's even people who do like bee venom therapy combo, which is where you burn holes in your arm. I've done it. It's horrible. You throw up, but it's supposedly good for your immune system. Or for an Instagram post, you burn holes in your arm or put little bits of frog poison on your arm.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:47]: People now in the biohacking sector, I was recently at a longevity conference where there was a guy selling scorpion venom and all of these things, these things in small watered down doses improve cellular resilience and increase your body's own antioxidant production. Trace amounts of some of these things in alcohol seem to do the same thing. Now, there are some populations who would still need to be concerned about alcohol. For example, there are some cancers that basically would be that your, your risk for getting them would worsen with high levels of alcohol consumption if you have a genetic risk factor for those cancers. So an example of that would be like liver cancer or even liver psoriasis, right? Like if you have liver issues, the healthy dose of alcohol is actually about zero drinks per day, right? If you have really elevated liver enzymes, liver psoriasis, liver fibrosis, the benefits of alcohol are outweighed by the cons of alcohol if you fall into that category. The other categories where if you have a high genetic risk or pre existing issues with these, you would completely swear off alcohol, esophageal cancer, breast cancer, and what's called community acquired pneumonia. I can't say I fully understand what community, community acquired pneumonia is, but it seems to respond really, really unfavorably to alcohol consumption. So if your doctor has sat you down and said, Jimmy, you have community acquired pneumonia or a genetic risk for community acquired pneumonia, then avoid alcohol.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:21]: But besides esophageal cancer, breast cancer, liver psoriasis, liver cancer, liver fibrosis, and community acquired pneumonia, there are not many other cases in which alcohol would need to be completely avoided. Now, alcohol has these hormetic effects like I was talking about. It increases your antioxidant defenses. So low doses of alcohol upregulate enzymes that neutralize oxidative stress. It boosts vitamin A activation, which is important for testosterone, for immune function, even for vision. It improves mitochondrial function in a very similar fashion to fasting and ketone intake. One popular ketone a lot of people use, 13 butanediol that is actually, believe it or not, an alcohol, and it supports the cardiovascular system, right? Moderate doses, low to moderate doses of alcohol are associated with better HDL cholesterol, better blood clotting mechanisms via lower levels of something called fibrinogen and reduced clotting risk. So when it comes to diseases where some alcohol seems to be protective, here's what you need to know.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:26]: Heart disease. Your risk of getting heart disease drops at up to two drinks of alcohol per day, which is like my max dose period. And we're not talking when I'm saying, Note that I'm not saying per week because there's a big difference in the way that your body metabolizes say seven drinks on a Saturday night all at once in a party binge like format, versus a glass of wine with your family at dinner each night. If I told you that running was good for you, but you ran 30 miles on the weekend, you're going to feel way worse than if I told you running is good for you and you run like two miles every morning. So anyways. Heart disease, the risk drops with up to two drinks of alcohol per day. Diabetes, the risk for diabetes drops with up to one drink of alcohol per day. Alzheimer's and dementia, your risk drops with up to one drink of alcohol per day.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:13]: Parkinson's, your risk drops with up to two drinks of alcohol per day. Kidney stones and kidney disease. Actually, people who don't drink at all have a higher risk of kidney stones and kidney disease than people who have low to moderate amounts of alcohol up to two drinks per day. Venous thromboembolism. The risk is lowest with one to two drinks per day, even compared to those who do not drink any alcohol at all, probably because of the hormetic effects of this so called poison. And then when it comes to actual mortality risk, all cause death rate. So it appears that when it comes to longevity, living the longest time possible, the sweet spot comes out to 0.3 to 0.5 drinks per day on average. Which means that if you're averaging 10 to 15 drinks per month, you are likely increasing your potential for longevity even compared to someone who does not drink at all.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:15]: Again, we're assuming here that this is a small amount on random days of the week, not all at once. And that is from healthy sources. So spreading the drinks out over the week is obviously much healthier than binging. And seven drinks per week, seven drinks on a Saturday night is much, much different than having like one drink per day. I still think you should avoid alcohol if you have a history of alcoholism if you don't have access to healthy sources of it. If you feel, as Chris notes in his article, if you feel worse, not better when you drink, probably just not a good idea to drink. And then your ability to have a certain amount of niacin, whether from a dietary or genetic standpoint, that can also affect alcohol. So if you have like an NAD deficiency or you have some kind of a mitochondrial damage issue, if you're inflamed, if you're oxidized, if you have a really hard workout, those would also be reasons to avoid alcohol.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:06]: So in my opinion, alcohol is not purely good or purely bad. It depends on the context. The best dose for most people, if we want to be as safe and conservative as possible, comes out to about 0.3 to 0.5 drinks per day on average, which comes out to about 10 to 15 drinks per month. Even though I think you could, if you wanted to make a case, particularly for cardiovascular health, of there being a beneficial effect of up to two drinks per day. I play things on the safe side, so I don't get close to up to two drinks per day. But it's interesting, the effects on cardiovascular disease and then with cancer, if you have a risk for certain forms of cancer. I would avoid alcohol altogether, but the overall takeaway message is this. Alcohol is a poison.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:51]: Alcohol is a toxin. So are many other things. Many fruits, many vegetables, many biohacking modalities and exercise practices are all toxic or poisonous to the body. But low amounts of these toxic or poisonous stressors can induce a bounce back effect in the body, a resilience increasing effect that can actually be beneficial. So no, I'm not going to swear off Diet Coke. No, I'm not going to swear off alcohol. I may occasionally have a fat free cracker with a little bit of peanut butter spread on it. Even though I think of all the things I mentioned, you could make the least healthy case for ultra processed foods.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:33]: Freudian slip there. But ultimately I just want to get you thinking with this podcast episode about what science says, what the headlines say and the difference between the two. And I also want to give you permission like you do not have to be, based on the standards of many healthy biohacking enthusiasts out there, what might be considered to be perfect, Right? You don't need to worry that much if you're occasionally having a handful of crackers, preferably tallow, not seed oil crackers, or a glass of wine or a Diet Coke, right? I'm giving you permission to engage in those things in low to moderate amounts. I can't say I've seen much evidence for ultra processed foods being healthy for you because it's so hard to eat little of them. But if you're replacing unhealthy things in your diet, like, I don't know, ice cream with some dan and yogurt, or you're replacing french fries with some wheat beans, or you're replacing, I don't know, potato chips with some beet chips that are technically ultra processed and maybe have some sunflower oil and sugar on them, there are worse things you could do. I think. There are bigger fish to fry. Fry in avocado oil preferably, but fry nonetheless.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:57]: So anyways, I know that you probably have questions, probably have comments, probably have your own feedback. So what I'm going to do is open up the show notes to all your comments. I read many of them, most of them. So if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/487 you can leave your comments. I have an AI clone over there you can ask your questions to as well, and it's pretty good. It's a lot smarter than me, actually. Trained on 10 years of my podcast and articles and books, and kind of makes me feel bad that a robot is slowly replacing me. And then if you want more of my personal, raw and occasionally controversial thoughts on podcasts that I've done in the past with guests and also, if you want to ask a question and kind of be fast tracked to the front of the line, visit golifenetwork.com where I've got plenty more goodies for you.

Ben Greenfield [00:49:43]: So that's all. Thanks so much for listening. Leave the podcast a review or a ranking if you enjoyed it, wherever you happen to listen to podcasts like this. And until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield with the Boundless Life podcast signing out. Have an incredible week. To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks and content to become the most complete, boundless version of you, visit BenGreenfieldLife.com.

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