Sigma Nutrition Radio

#561: Emulsifiers in the Modern Diet: Health Risk or Harmless Additive?

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Apr 29, 2025
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INSIGHT

What Are Emulsifiers?

  • Emulsifiers stabilize mixtures like oil and water and are used widely in processed foods for texture and shelf life.
  • They are chemically diverse and found in many products, from dairy to pastries, raising questions about uniform health impacts.
INSIGHT

Regulatory Approval vs Emerging Concerns

  • Emulsifiers have been approved as safe by regulators using animal toxicology and safety data.
  • Yet, current epidemiological and mechanistic research raises concerns regulators’ methods might miss chronic human health effects.
INSIGHT

Measuring Emulsifier Intake Challenges

  • The NutriNet-Santé cohort uses repeated 24-hour dietary recalls matched with food additive databases to estimate emulsifier intake.
  • Despite thorough methodology, there's no validated method for accurately measuring emulsifier intake, limiting result confidence.
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