Question about the added preservative BHT

[timeuser84]

Hi, is this preservative bad the human body or not healthy? It's in my honey bunches of oats cereal.

 

[berkeman]

What have you read about it on the web? Look for good sources of info like NCBI, etc.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Hi, is this preservative bad the human body or not healthy? It's in my honey bunches of oats cereal.

Hard to tell without more information. How many tons per day do you usually eat?

 

[phyzguy]

I would worry more about the health impact of the large amount of added sugar in your cereal than this preservative.

 

[Vanadium 50]

A lethal dose of BHT in Honey Bunches of Oats is only about a million calories. The cyanide in the almonds will get you first.

 

[jim mcnamara]

After google-ing 'honey bunches of oats nutrition' I find that 2/3 cup of dry cereal contains 14g of added sugar - sucrose. Sucrose in excess is implicated in NAFLD in pre-adult teens. Several RCT's -- Robert Ludwig at UCSF, show likely causation.

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is strongly associated with Metabolic Disease and its endpoints: early onset of type II Diabetes, and Cardiovascular disease

So I do not agree with @Vanadium 50 - you won't die from cyanide in almonds. Or too many calories. I vote for NAFLD->Obesity->Metabolic Disease and its sequelae as your primary cause of death by cereal consumption.

Of course you may simply eat one bowl per week... problem solved.

I'll put links if someone actually wants to read them.

 

[Tom.G]

Sucrose in excess...

Please define "excess" for both pre-adult teens and, if applicable, for NAFLD in adults.

 

[jim mcnamara]

@Tom.G

Sure. My answer was aimed for the OP. US humans of any age are at risk. There are case studies of type II diabetes patients. Absurdly enough: in the US type II occurs at almost any age, but incidence rate is an increasing function of age and population:
Adolescents --
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3874486/

So all of this is applicable to the entire US population.

Sucrose is a dimer - fructose and glucose. Fructose is the problem. Glucose is not.

Our fructose metabolism evolved as a means of getting fruit like berries in the human diet. It is relatively new to primates and evolved in support of our need for Vitamin C. Glucose metabolism (like Krebs Cycle) is truly ancient. Our bodes are really good at using it, not so much with fructose.

Cane sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup are new to our diet. Our biochemistry did not keep up with the changes.

I hope this paper is readable enough to answer your questions about the relationship of fructose consumption to NAFLD.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5893377/

The average US citizen consumes 152 pounds per year of sugar. Approx: 68946g. Divide that by 365 and you will see excess.

Data sources:
Per US HHS, 152 pounds of sugar came from here:
https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/nhp/documents/sugar.pdf

About 15g/day of Corn Syrup from here:
https://www.statista.com/statistics...mption-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup-in-the-us/

Perhaps this why the US FDA mandated the "added sugars" line in the nutrition label on processed foods.