E211, DNA, and science by press release
May 29th, 2007
If the Independent is intent on shredding any scientific credibility it once had, last weekend was a bold step toward that goal. No less than three pages (including the front page) were dedicated to whipping parents into a frenzy over the soft drink preservative sodium benzoate, which they claimed was suspected of being able to damage cellular DNA. The story, a winning combination of health scare, popular foodstuff, children, anti-oxidants, chemicals, E-numbers, premature ageing, and of course, “science”, proved irresistible to journos everywhere, or at least here, here, here and the Daily Mail’s subtly titled version, Chemical in soft drinks ‘can wreck your child’s DNA’, here. Big news indeed.
So what’s the story? Over to Martin Hickman at the Independent:
Research from a British university suggests a common preservative found in drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA.
The problem - more usually associated with ageing and alcohol abuse - can eventually lead to cirrhosis of the liver and degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Wowsers! Pretty grim stuff. The research isn’t cited, but it belongs to one Professor Peter W. Piper, an ‘expert in ageing’ at Sheffield University. Professor Piper published a study detailing the effects of sodium benzoate on yeast cultures. He found that the sodium benzoate had a toxic effect on the yeast, part of which involved damage to the yeast cells’ mitochondrial DNA and a rise in oxidant action. It’s all very complicated, and I don’t fully understand it, but you don’t need to be an architect to spot something wrong with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so to speak.
So here are the facts: sodium benzoate is a preservative added to soft drinks to prevent mould. Professor Piper performs an experiment which shows that yeast (a kind of mould, lest we forget), doesn’t do well when sodium benzoate is mixed in with it. I think I speak for everyone when I say “well, duh!”.
But that’s not a story. A story involves a human cost, and somewhere along the way, someone has confused yeast with humans and decided that E211 poses a threat to us all. I tried to track down the source of the news, and I found it[1]. I have a copy, I can’t share it because it’s under copyright, but here’s the bit that you need to know: no humans. Just yeast.
And there’s another problem: the research was published 8 years ago. There’s been no research since, to my knowledge, by Professor Piper or anyone else. So why has this story only hit the stands now? The answer lies in a press release summing up the threat in an easy-to-digest manner, authored by none other than Professor Peter W. Piper himself! You can see read press release for yourself here. It is dated 21/05/07, a little over a week ago. So now the question is, why has Professor Piper seen fit to publish a press release for his own 8 year old research? Over to the professor himself:
I published this - firm scientific evidence that benzoate can cause cell damage, at least in the laboratory - at the time, in the hope that the food industry and regulatory authorities would take the matter seriously. Instead they have chosen to hope that my work fades into obscurity and hide behind safety tests largely done ~50 years ago that would not have detected the damage I describe.
Ouch, sounds like someone has a chip on their shoulder. Now let us be very clear on this: as far as I can tell, Professor Piper has not performed any bad science within the context of his study. That much I can say.
However, Professor Piper has seen fit to whip the newspapers into a frenzy about a possible indication of his work. Sodium benzoate is not good for yeast. That much is obvious. But does E211 have the same effect on mitochondrial DNA in human cells? There is no evidence that it does. Would it happen on exposure to levels of sodium benzoate found in soft drinks? We don’t know. If it did, would these effects be severe enough to be considered harmful to our health? Nobody knows.
If you think I’m downplaying the risk, here’s the professor himself:
There is no firm evidence that benzoate causes significant damage in man, but in view of the above it is probable that it will cause some damage, although whether levels are significant is unproven/untested.
You won’t find that in the press release. Professor Piper stopped replying to my emails before I could ask why he chose to create this controversy. Perhaps he feels it is worthy of further study - I certainly do. But the way to go about that is to set out good scientific studies and perform them, not to whip up hysteria over some tenuous hypothesis in order to elicit funding. That’s unprofessional, unethical and unkind.
There is no evidence to suggest E211 is harmful to humans. That is the bottom line. When Professor Piper demonstrates toxicity of sodium benzoate in humans at levels found in soft drinks, I’ll shout it to anyone who’ll listen. But not until the evidence is in place. Until then, this stands as a sad example of cynical exploitation of the media, and is made especially galling by his recommendation that children avoid soft drinks, which plays ruthlessly on parents’ anxieties. This manipulation is something the Independent have opened themselves to through an utter lack of scientific literacy or desire to apply it. This is the state of science reporting in the UK today, and it’s enough to make me cry.
[1] Piper, P.W. (1999) Yeast superoxide dismutase mutants reveal a potent in vivo prooxidant action of weak organic acid food preservatives Free Radic. Biol. Med. 27, 1219-1227.
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21 Comments Add your own
1. coracle | May 29th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Urgh, I saw the headline to this story on Slashdot and didn’t dare read the thread. Too many loonies on there.
Whatever happened to the Indi, it used to be a quality paper and then seemed to decide that whipping up hysteria was preferable to calm reporting. Shame.
Anyway, I’ll be sure to keep sodium benzoate away from my DNA.
2. RPM | May 29th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
What differences between fungal mitochondria and animal mitochondria (or cells) may make this lethal for fungi but not dangerous for humans?
3. Kingreaper | May 29th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Hmm, I was wondering when I saw the reports of this what sort of science it was coming from. Very interesting info, thanks.
4. Filip | May 29th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
The news was in Belgian newspapers this morning, so I guess it’s going worldwide without any chance of rectification.
Thanks for trying to clear this mattter out, now I can reassure my mom that soft drinks are still safe.
5. Frank the SciencePunk | May 29th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
RPM, that is an excellent question. Truth is I don’t know.
It’s really not about whether sodium benzoate is harmful to human mitochondria. It’s a dosage question - we, being so very much larger than a little yeast cell, can tolerate a much, much higher dose of sodium benzoate.
Can the levels of sodium benzoate in a can of Fanta do us harm? Great question. I wish someone would research it instead of writing alarmist press releases.
6. Frank the SciencePunk | May 29th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Thanks Filip, this story is gathering pace but we still have a chance to stand up for reason. Please spread the word about this article and link to it where appropriate - this will help boost the pagerank on Google and ensure people get a chance to read beyond the hype.
7. Judith Elaine Bush | May 29th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I find this 2001 (public) review article by Piper to support your conclusions: http://mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/reprint/147/10/2635.pdf
The concern is how some yeasts are adapting to the weak acidic environments (if my skimming is correct) — apparently different mutations of yeasts are resistant, and the mutations to cause the resistance is different.
1) “Other naturally occurring preservatives are weak organic
acids. They include benzoic, acetic and sorbic acids.
These, together with [others], nowadays constitute the acid preservatives most widely used in large-scale food and beverage preservation. It is possible though to trace the practical use of weak acid preservatives back many centuries, …” Personally, i read this with some comfort. At some level, humans have been ingesting this stuff for centuries. Not science, but reassuring.
2) p 2640 discussed benzoic acid (and sorbic acid) and the mitochondria. Again, the desired effect is that the yeasts die so that the foodstuff is not spoiled. A little oxygen keeps the yeast-icide functioning.
Not that i drink much soda, but sodium benzoate does show up in lots of foodstuffs.
Thanks for adding your note to the Wikipedia discussion page. I don’t know if it was good netiquitte, but it’s how i found your notes.
8. Longevity Science | May 30th, 2007 at 1:59 am
Thank you for your interesting story!
I thought perhaps you may also find this related post interesting to you:
Longevity Science: Soft Drinks Linked to Aging ?
9. stever | May 30th, 2007 at 10:34 am
I saw the cover and didnt even bother reading it - but after all the lazy journalism, sensationalism and bad science in their ongoing cannabis panic I have to say this doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. pathetic.
How the IoS got it wrong…
10. coracle | May 30th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Bah, my link should have been DNA.
Silly mistake on my part, might make more sense now.
11. John Matthews | May 31st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
And I always laboured under the illusion that science hacks might actually have some scientific training and knowledge - this is strong evidence to the contrary. I am very disappooined in the Independent for starting this media ’storm in a coke can’ - it just goes to strengthen my opinion that the Independent is becoming the Daily Mail of the left!
Well done SciencePunk - another well thought out and researched debunking of a popular news story!
12. Melissa Lee | October 21st, 2007 at 5:27 am
Although this is a rather old blog- i have to add that it is so easy to access the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet on Sodium Benzoate and you can soon realise that even without it getting a peppering from piper he picked a potential product that poisons people anyway..!
13. Frank the SciencePunk | October 21st, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Oh Melissa, despite my absolute love of alliteration, I have to point out that the MSDS for Sodium Benzoate paints it as a relatively benign substance:
Inhalation and skin contact are expected to be the primary routes of occupational exposure to Sodium Benzoate. Although ingestion (swallowing) of sodium benzoate may be harmful to laboratory animals, it is not harmful to humans in small amounts when mixed with food.
Ingestion of large amounts may cause stomach pain, nausea and vomiting. Skin irritation may occur based on human exposure.
14. FemaCamper | February 27th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
This is all part of a massive eugenics program to kill us all. Get us sick, have us take pharmaceutical drugs, get more sick, and die.
15. Frank the SciencePunk | February 27th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
@ FemaCamper
So let me see if I have your theory down right. You believe that a preservative in soft drinks and fruit juices that prevents spoilage and food poisoning is actually there to make people sick, and every government and drink manufacturer in the entire world is in on this plan, so that they can carry out a eugenics programme, even though they have absolutely no way to control who drinks these ‘pharmaceutical drugs’ and in what dosage?
In other words, the world government wants to kill people who drink Fanta. Riiiight.
You’re a fucking idiot.
16. KevinG | February 29th, 2008 at 8:21 am
@Frank,
Brilliant!
17. Jodi | May 30th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Frank,
Your Feb 27 entry was great for a stay at home Mom’s afternoon chuckle.
I will go back to my Diet Coke and call my husband who works for the Pharmaceutical Company about his major plot to rule the world.
Here I thought we were just trying to make people feel better and live longer and with their diet pop, stay thing :)
I guess I need more time at a University.
18. md | June 30th, 2008 at 7:30 am
as far as i know if the chemical can damage the yeast cells it can also damage human cells and it does make sense if u say that we are bigger than yeast so it wont harm us cause our cells are of similar size i.e. very small . now im not saying that they are out to kill us or anything but we should not discredit the research so off-handedly.
19. Frank the SciencePunk | June 30th, 2008 at 9:17 am
@18 md:
The issue here isn’t whether E211 can damage human cells in the same way, or cause ill effects (I would be wrong to dismiss that possibility out of hand).
The problem is that Prof. Piper made claims about E211 and humans that his research can’t support. We can’t go round banning everything that has some vague, highly tenuous connection to being harmful.
20. Ree | July 20th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I’ve read some of the “Peter Piper” study and listened to the news story’s about E211-sodium benzoate. Scary stuff! From what I glean, the sodium benzoate reacts with the (added) vitamin C in friuty drinks and soft drinks , etc. to form Benzene a known Carcinogen. This seemed to be the main concern.
The latest news story is that the additive has been banned in Great Britain.
I also read what you had to say on the subject and I must admit that I like the idea that yeast cells were harmed by the ingestion of this substance, but are the yeast cells the ONLY cells that were harmed or mutated?
I’ve been looking for more info on this and haven’t found the answers. Do the two ingredients E211 and the added vitaminC , in fact form “Benzene”? Are all cells that come in contact with this negatively effected? What is an acceptable level to ingest without fear of harmful effects?
I ran across a site: tradezone.com that has the breakdown of the product and effects.
Good grief! What to think ? If you know of any clear-cut studies, I would be grateful.
Thanks !
21. Frank the SciencePunk | July 20th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
@20. Ree
You’ve got a little mixed up on this.
1) You are correct in saying sodium benzoate can mix with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to form benzene. This, however, is quite rare, and depends on things like heat and shelf life. (see here)
2) As far as I know, the additive HAS NOT been banned in Britain.
3) Sodium benzoate is added to food and drink specifically to inhibit yeast mould growing and thus spoiling the food.
4) Prof. Piper’s research showed that free radicals increased in the yeast cells when they were dosed with sodium benzoate. He has not demonstrated a similar effect in humans. Moreso, there is no strong evidence that this effect, even if it happened in humans, would lead to the illnesses he lists.
5) Most foods and drinks that claim to have sodium benzoate removed have simply replaced it with another benozoic salt, e.g. potassium benzoate, which acts in a very similar manner.
6) The site you linked to is a standard hazard sheet - every chemical used in a lab will have something similar. It’s important to take into account things such as how much you will come into contact with, for how long, and by which route (contact, ingestion, inhalation). The levels of sodium benzoate in food are controlled by law. Interestingly enough, many foods (cranberries, Parmesan cheese) naturally contain sodium benzoate, often at levels higher than those permitted in manufactured foods.
7) There is currently no strong evidence that E211 poses a risk. (ignore anyone citing the famous Southampton Study, it’s not worth the paper it was printed on).
Have some faith in regulatory industries such as the FDA and the Food Standards Agency (UK), they exist to keep you safe and healthy, and they’ve not indicated that E211 is anything except a useful additive.
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