It’s sorbitol.
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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The real mvp right here, fuck headlines like this
But if they just put it in the title, people won't click and get bombarded with ads! Think of the big corporations!
But…isn’t sorbitol a laxative??
Yes. Its also a sweetener.
I learned that one the hard way with some delicious sorbitol candies as a teenager.
all the -tols are laxatives, you heard ethyrthiol, i think its one of the potent ones that cause laxative effects the most. i heard tons of people were getting cramps or diarrhea for people who sensitive. some people are mildly affected by it, and some has no effect.
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Sorbitol-degrading Aeromonas bacterial strains convert the sugar alcohol into a harmless bacterial byproduct.
“However, if you don’t have the right bacteria, that’s when it becomes problematic. Because in those conditions, sorbitol doesn’t get degraded and as a result, it is passed on to the liver,” he said.
Pretty big caveat but the sensationalist headline is all people will see.
... In fish.
And after they had depleted the zebrafish's gut microbiota.
Comments like this are ignorant to evolution. Zebrafish are an extremely powerful model for drug development and toxicology.
You are obviously correct.
Nonetheless, the headline doesn’t even hint at the YEARS of research required before this becomes something people should worry about.
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Zebrafish are an extremely powerful model for drug development and toxicology.
Sure. But there's also a reason we don't do in silico molecular dynamics, test toxicology on zebrafish, and boom done drug is on the market. Even extremely close organisms, with LCAs much earlier than the zebrafish, can have wildly different reactions to potential drugs and dietary elements.
There are things you can feed a chimp but not a human.
Not at all, I'm just aware that this may not have any relevance to people, and right now it's little more than click bait fodder.
Do you think scientists start doing qualitative testing on humans first???
No, but I do expect people to assume this is based on humans which it isnt. If this research eventually gets there then we can see what it says, but for now it's just another click bait article.
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The headline (and the article for that matter) are very sensationalist and I don’t think they’ve presented this in a balanced way. They are discussing how sorbitol behaves in zebrafish with limited data presented on human biochemistry, and they discuss it in a vacuum without quantifying the amount of sorbitol it takes to cause a problem. Yes, any substance in excess can be harmful, but the amount of sorbitol in food compared to the amount of high fructose corn syrup makes it the substantially lesser evil. The artificial sweeteners are vastly more potent than actual sugar, so you don’t need very much of it to get the same amount of sweetness. High fructose corn syrup is used in massive amounts in food and is much worse for you on the scale that either substance would be consumed.
There's a whole cycle of perverse incentives with University Press.
The underlying research is necessary and valuable but the marketing arm of universities blow everything out of proportion.
The article doesn't read as very concerning. Too much of anything usually means bad. Under the right conditions anything can be bad. Figuring out what can be bad and when it can be bad can often take decades. Don't stress too much on trying to optomize out anything that can do you harm in a diet. You'd have nothing left to eat and even the greatest collective of biologist getting together to make the greatest nutritional shake meal replacement would probably miss something that causes issues decades down the line or people drink too much and overdose
Phew! Thank God I'm not a zebra fish, otherwise I'd need to seriously reconsider my diet high on sorbitol.
Tbh I am betting that it's gonna come out that they've known about the health risks all along, but they tried to ignore/cover it up for profit reasons.
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