Is it true that food additives are dangerous to health?

It is widely believed that food additives, which are indicated in products under the code E-XXX, are extremely harmful to humans and cause many diseases, including cancer. We decided to check if this is actually true.

IN Internet Can find various options lists dangerous food additives. These lists recommend print it out, carry it with you and check with them when choosing products in the supermarket. Also many websites about healthy lifestyles and correct nutrition they talk about the most harmful E-shkas. According to survey Vesti.ru, 65% of Russians are dissatisfied with the fact that products contain food additives.

Codification of additives using an alphanumeric index appeared in Europe in the 1960s. Then the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, together with WHO, decided to develop a clear and unified system for designating all kinds of food additives. This document called the Codex Alimentarius, changes and additions are regularly made to it. Each food additive in it has an alphanumeric code, only one letter is used - E (someone interprets its like Europe, other - as essbar / edible, which is translated from German / English. means "edible"). The first digit in the code indicates the type of substance:

1 - dyes;

2 - preservatives;

3 - antioxidants and stabilizers;

4 - emulsifiers and stabilizers;

5 — additives against caking and clumping;

6 - taste and smell enhancers;

7 and 8 - not used (except for antibiotics 710–713);

9 - glazing agents, softeners and other baking improvers, as well as other additives.

Speaking of nutritional supplements, it is worth noting that they have been studied in great detail. For each substance, the short- and long-term effects of consumption, acute toxicity, and the potential harmful effects of the additive or its breakdown products at various concentrations were analyzed. All of these supplements were tested on animals more than once, and when they were already approved, scientists continued to monitor the health of those people who actively consume them.

Speaking about experiments on animals, we need to deal with this term, as a semi-lethal dose, or LD-50. This concept refers to the amount of a substance that will kill exactly half of the experimental animals. To determine the semi-lethal dose, animals are given huge quantities of the test substance. For example, the public is concerned about the additive E-536, a ferrocyanide used primarily to prevent salt from caking. Approvedthat this substance is extremely toxic and leads to severe poisoning, disruption of the functioning of the lymphatic, nervous and gastrointestinal systems, as well as the liver and gall bladder. In fact, the semi-lethal dose for rats when taken orally is 6400 mg/kg. According to the calculations of British scientists, the average weight of a person is 62 kg, which means that LD-50 for such a person will be 396.8 g. The maximum allowed content E-536 in salt is 20 mg/kg, which means that to obtain 396.8 g of ferrocyanide you will have to eat 198 kg of salt. In this case, the fatal outcome will come much earlier, because the lethal dose of salt itself for humans is 250 g. Thus, food additives are contained in food in such small quantities that their dose does not even come close to lethal or dangerous.

Secondly, we obtain a significant part of the substances encoded in E-supplements from products in whose composition they are not indicated at all. For example, no one puts labels with this composition on fruits and vegetables. At the same time, E-300 contained in many of them, it is better known to us as ascorbic acid or vitamin C. Accordingly, the inscription on the package “contains vitamin C” is more likely to attract buyers, but the E-300 additive listed in the composition may repel them. E-500, which lists of harmful additives also recommend avoiding, is nothing more than soda. It's a similar story with preservatives. Since ancient times, people have tried to keep food suitable for consumption for as long as possible. To do this, they used salt and various acids. Today's preservatives are often naturally occurring substances. For example, if you don’t know that everything listed below is contained in regular lingonberry juice, then such a list of chemicals and food additives might scare someone.

Finally, the third argument in defense of dietary supplements is simply logic. Firstly, international organizations that monitor the quality of products would not approve of a harmful substance. Why would they deliberately poison you? Secondly, it would be extremely imprudent for a manufacturer to add a known toxic substance to its products, because in this case it would be subject to constant lawsuits and lawsuits. Indeed, some of these supplements may call people have allergies, such as the dye E102 - tartrazine. At the same time, no one is demanding a ban on natural allergens - milk, eggs, fish and seafood. 

A joint WHO/UN expert committee called JECFA closely monitors all research on supplements. Moreover, additives are banned not when evidence of their harm appears, but even at the level of suspicion. So forbidden hit additive E-123 - amaranth. Some experiments on animals that consumed large doses of this substance demonstrated its toxicity and carcinogenicity. And although further studies have not proven that amaranth is unequivocally harmful, the dye prohibited both in Russia and in the world.

However, it cannot be said that all nutritional supplements are beneficial in themselves. For example, E-250 (sodium nitrite) is a rather toxic substance, which nevertheless meets in the vast majority of meat products. And although sodium nitrite is not useful for the human body, the expert committee does not prohibit it, since it is precisely this that does not allow much more dangerous bacteria that produce highly toxic botulinum toxin to multiply in meat products. 

Moreover, foods containing many additives are often not very healthy on their own. So, many additives contain:

- sausages and processed meats, such as frankfurters (according to data WHO, eating 50 g of such meat per day increases the risk of colon cancer by 18%);

- fast food (in itself use fast food, as Australian scientists have found, increases the risk of female infertility);

- soda (by the way, for health almost equally not useful both sweet soda and soda with sweeteners).

Thus, the harm of food additives is greatly exaggerated. We consume a significant portion of these substances from other “natural” products without even knowing it. Moreover, usually the dose of a dietary supplement is extremely small and the substance in such an amount cannot cause harm. Other food additives are really not useful, but they protect our food from the growth of dangerous bacteria in it. In addition, you need to understand that there are usually a lot of food additives present in initially unhealthy foods.

Cover image: EFSA

Mostly not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is it true that vitamin C helps cure colds?
2. Is it true that monosodium glutamate is harmful to health?
3. Is it true that sea or Himalayan salt is healthier than table salt?