EFCA dismisses diacetyl-Alzheimer's link

[nicnik]

EFSA dismisses diacetyl-Alzheimer’s link

Quote from the article:
..............
In EFSA’s opinion, the research methods used meant that it was not possible to extrapolate the data to be used to assess the safety of diacetyl in foods or in terms of occupational exposure.

“The authors have not provided any correlation between occupational exposure and systemic exposure,” the opinion said.

“Based on these considerations, EFSA concluded that the information in scientific paper does not bring any new scientific elements for the safe use of diacetyl in food.”

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

Reading the whole article, it sounds like they are rejecting it more for exposure from eating than for inhaling, but both. I might be misunderstanding it, though.

I hadn't heard about the scare before, but sure enough, there were a lot of media articles about it a while back.

Here's EFSA's statement (abstract with link to full report included):

Statement of EFSA: Diacetyl

 

[Hydroscopic]

If you look up "Popcorn Lung" you'll see the issue. - Potential respiratory failure if inhaled in mass quantities, sure.

I'm skeptical that it facilitates Alzheimer's. One would guess that if that were the case that there would be international clusters of former plant workers suffering from Alzheimer's across the globe.

I know a few people that eat a lot of microwave popcorn. They're still on point with their mental state.

 

[nicnik]

If you look up "Popcorn Lung" you'll see the issue. - Potential respiratory failure if inhaled in mass quantities, sure.

Yes, I should be mentioning that this is NOT the same issue as the concern regarding diacetyl and other diketones and potential "popcorn lung" risk. That's a very serious disease that has a more formal name that I'll probably never remember.

Thanks

 

[Jimi D.]

Yeah, those workers were all heavy smokers too.

Diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione exposures associated with cigarette smoking: implications for risk assessment of food and flavoring workers. - PubMed - NCBI

 

[nicnik]

Yeah, those workers were all heavy smokers too.

Do you know if the guy who got it from obsessively inhaling the fumes from microwaved popcorn bags also smoked?

 

[Jimi D.]

Do you know if the guy who got it from obsessively inhaling the fumes from microwaved popcorn bags also smoked?

I've thought about that as well. Wish I knew.

 

[BigEgo]

Yeah, those workers were all heavy smokers too.

Diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione exposures associated with cigarette smoking: implications for risk assessment of food and flavoring workers. - PubMed - NCBI

Not everyone who got popcorn lung (Bronchiolitis Obliterans) was a smoker. That is false. Many were, yes, but not all. A quote from the Journal Sentinel:

But cases of bronchiolitis obliterans had surfaced in food processing workers years earlier. Two young, previously healthy workers at an Indiana baking company were diagnosed in 1985. The workers, who didn't smoke, had been working at the plant less than a year when their symptoms arose. Diacetyl was among the ingredients used at the bakery.

And this:

James Stocks thought it odd when Emanuel Diaz de Leon showed up in his medical clinic huffing and puffing in December 2011. Diaz de Leon was 41, active and a nonsmoker.

"It just didn't make sense," said Stocks, a pulmonologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. "His chest X-rays and lung function were like that of a 70-year old or a 50-year-old who smoked two packs a day."

Stocks asked Diaz de Leon where he worked and what he did for a living. The answer made him curious. Stocks knew a bit about flavors and had read medical journals and media reports about injuries popcorn workers had sustained from a flavoring chemical. But he hadn't heard of anyone becoming ill working in a coffee roasting plant.

He asked Diaz de Leon to bring him the company's material safety data sheets, which list the potential hazards of the ingredients that he worked with every day.

"The moment I saw the word diacetyl, I knew," Stocks said.

I've read the paper you linked a while back and they are wrong too (or perhaps ignorant of all the cases). Popcorn factories are not the only culprits. Cases have been found in coffee roasters (like the guy above) and bakery workers. The rash of popcorn workers being diagnosed in the early 2000's was not the first time this issue arose. There were cases, as I quoted above, back in the 80's and a rash of cases in the 90's at a flavoring plant in Ohio.

However, the paper you link does raise an interesting point. Since cigarettes have diaceytl in them, why are there no known cases of smokers (who didn't work in a diaceytl environment) getting "popcorn lung?" Could it be that the dosage isn't high enough? Perhaps, but the dosage in cigarettes is still well above the limits set by OSHA for worker exposure. Or perhaps smokers do get popcorn lung but it is misdiagnosed as severe COPD? I am no doctor, but I have read that this is an unlikely explanation as well since "popcorn lung" is a totally different diagnosis from COPD (even though the symptoms can be similar). A good pulmonologist would likely be able to differentiate the two as the doctor in the above article did. it might slip by some, but it definitely would be caught often enough for it to be "known" that cigarettes cause the disease.

I highly recommend reading the Journal Sentinel article. It was well researched and provides a lot of info on diaceytl and "popcorn lung." It only mentions e-cigs in passing.

 

[nicnik]

Not everyone who got popcorn lung (Bronchiolitis Obliterans) was a smoker. That is false. Many were, yes, but not all. A quote from the Journal Sentinel:

That article is very interesting. Thanks for your post.

 

[caramel]

[...] Since cigarettes have diaceytl in them, why are there no known cases of smokers (who didn't work in a diaceytl environment) getting "popcorn lung?"

'Cause their "cause of death" was always deemed to be "smoking", as to inflate the ANTZ statistics. See section 6.5 here:

http://www.uhs.nhs.uk/media/suhtide...certificateofcauseofdeath-notesfordoctors.pdf

 

[Hydroscopic]

Okay, I should be more clear. Last two sentences below the BOS mention was specifically in response to the study. I apologize as I didn't mean to thread-jack the topic.

In terms of the article and study in the OP, they still don't know if Diacetyl could pass the brain barrier to agitate the peptide that forms Alzheimer's. They were incredibly skeptical. The European Commission requested the review of More's discoveries and thus the result of reviewing the study, they looked at both environmental and dietary exposure potential.

Basically there were three problems with the study. First, while the researchers used cells that technically could have been used for these types of studies, they used non-differentiated instead of differentiated. The latter was found to be preferable for more accurate results. Secondly, the type of test they used was reported before to produce false positives and because of that finding they invalidated the study. Third, they didn't provide concentration levels to compare as they provided no blood levels for toxicity.

I may be incorrect on some of that since I'm not a medical professional. That is what I read from/how I read the review documentation.