The US Food and Drug Administration has proposed revoking its regulation authorizing the nationwide use of brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, as an additive in food.
The FDA’s decision comes after California banned the ingredient in October by passing the California Food Safety Act, the first state law in the United States to ban brominated vegetable oil. The additive is already banned in Europe and Japan.
“The agency concluded that the intended use of BVO in food is no longer considered safe after the results of studies conducted in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health … found the potential for adverse health effects in humans,” said James Jones, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for human foods, in a statement.
For anyone else curious, it was in there as an emulsifier, particularly for citrus flavor oils.
These days it’s mainly found in generic branded products, such as Walmart’s Mountain Lightning. Mountain Dew is one of the more recent big brand names to remove it, back in 2020.
Interesting case from the Wikipedia:
That case sounds crazy… I am not the healthiest of people, but who can drink 2 or more liters a day every day? Sucks that it happened, but I guess it is good that we found all these terrible things it does as well? I just wonder how it affects people in moderation. Does it really do anything in low doses over long periods of time, or would it be harmless? Of course, why even find out if it can just not be used…
It’s a form of self-medication. More than likely these people need a diagnosis of who-knows-what.
When I still drank pop regularly, my rate of buying it was 2 12 packs of cans every other day, so a 12 pack of 355ml per day, or about 3.8L. I’d just have them by my desk and when one ran out, I’d grab one of the other flavour and just alternate all day. I’m not really sure how I didn’t end up diabetic or obese because pop was my main drink when I wasn’t getting drunk for almost a decade after leaving home and being in charge of my own habits. I kept that 3.8L peak going for a couple of years until information about HFCS and then sugar in general started my journey from pop to juice then to mostly just water.
Sounds like our one friend a while back. He was super skinny and didn’t drink alcohol but he would bring a 12 pack of Pepsi with him and would call them blue bullets. We had no idea how he survived, years later he even got an ok report from the doctor which we all thought was crazy including himself. He has stopped in recent years, thankfully, and knew even though nothing happened yet something bad was definitely going to sooner or later.
It was in Gatorade and other sports drinks for a long time, and athletes probably drink more of that while also pushing their bodies to more extremes than the rest of us, and I didn’t see any evidence of harm going on there when I was looking up what BVO was.
The body is really great at removing both things, but with any substance, too much can exceed an organ’s capacity to desk with it. Even water is deadly (very painfully, too) if you drink too much too fast. Your cells will burst from osmsosis. Brain cells are especially susceptible. It’s called hyponatremia.
Probably cause real athletes don’t drink Gatorade. Too much sugar and not enough potassium. Electrolyte beverages and coconut water are more common among athletes.
The people who are drinking 2+ liters a day aren’t drinking any water. Soda is literally the only form of hydration they get. I know it sounds unbelievable but I used to know people who lived like this. Personally I wouldn’t last a day before my body starts demanding water. I don’t know how they do it.
And that’s why you don’t eat or drink huge amounts of any one thing. Sounds like smaller amounts, even daily, would be perfectly tolerable by most people.
There’s a guy who drank up to 4L of Earl Grey tea every day until he developed muscle and eye problems. Or the guy who ate a bag of black licorice every day until he had a heart attack and died.
Exactly. Most things we can handle from time to time. It’s constant exposure that tends to make most things problematic.