- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
I’m linking this article here since it has Canada specific information.
How is this regulated in Canada?
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in an email that it is responsible for the surveillance of chemical residues in foods and how they follow Canadian regulations, while Health Canada sets the maximum level for environmental and industrial pollutants in food.
However, it’s not clear whether these protein products are regulated as food or natural health products, and Health Canada could not respond to CBC’s questions by deadline.
Goodridge wants to see Health Canada set guidelines for these protein powders or dietary supplements, he said.
“There are no specific federal limits for lead in protein powders or dietary supplements,” Goodridge said. “This, in my opinion, is a big regulatory gap.”
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I’ve never understood why it matter if something is technically food or a supplement or something else.
If it is meant to be ingested or absorbed by a human, shouldn’t it have the same regulations?
The list of tested protein supplements and their lead content are listed in this article.
A single serving of these protein powders contained between 1,200 and 1,600 percent of CR’s level of concern for lead, which is 0.5 micrograms per day.
Canadians consume on average 0.1ug per kg bodyweight per day so that 0.5ug ‘level of concern’ is bullshit.
1600% of that suspicious limit would be within the norm for a an 80kg (175lb) person.
But if that’s normal for a person, wouldn’t it still be concerning that these people are seeking out a product which effectively doubles the normal amount someone not on the supplement typically consumes naturally?
If the average person consumes 0.1 / kg of body weight, wouldn’t this make it so they are now consuming 0.2 / kg of body weight?
I know it’s still not %1600 and instead a %100 increase but still could be concerning.
It could be, but it could also be trivial given the 8x lead consumption in the 80’s.
I think the whole protein powder industry is a fad but having the CBC legitimize claims like this is how you feed anti-science smooth brains. They get to point at the ‘health product’ and call foul because the CBC said there is killer lead in it. It took seconds to find the Canadian lead numbers, the CBC could have done the same to give context.
Looking at the list, it looks like plant based ones tend to have high amounts of lead, while whey proteins are in the lower end.
Also, the list is pretty stupid. They use the number of servings as the measure of unit, instead of basing it on grams of protein. For example, “Momentous Whey Protein Isolate” has 20 g of protein per serving, and according to the list, it’s okay to consume 3 and a third servings per day, giving you 66 g of protein. “Dymatize Super Mass Gainer” has 52 g of protein per serving, and it’s okay to consume 4 servings per day, giving you 208 g of protein. 66 g vs 208 g of protein for the same amount of lead, yet in the list they are considered almost equal. Also, why do they first use “servings per week” and then in the better products “servings per day” as the unit of measure?
I’m wondering if the liver being a filter is why those numbers are lower.
I think they are trying to show you "servings safe to consume over a time period. Servings per week vs daily servings probably indicates that those drinks have enough lead you should not be consuming them daily.
Yes, mine was on there. Made my smoothie without it.
Look up the numbers, Canadians consume on average 0.1ug/kg body weight per day. The ‘worst’ one listed is still within the norm for an 80kg person.
This studies shows that Organic, Plant based and Chocolate flavored proteins seem to make much more likely to have higher amounts of lead.
https://cleanlabelproject.org/protein-study-2-0/
This is the ConsumerReport doc with the actual mcg per serving numbers.
That clean label project seems dodgy. I clicked through everything I could find, and all they’d do is point fingers at big, vague findings, like plant and chocolate proteins are more likely to have lead. They’ll list their little list of products they certify… but not give values. Note the difference in comparison to the consumer reports, which explicitly says how much contaminant per serving they found.
This whole hype is bullshit, Canadians get 0.1ug/kg body weight per day. Even the ‘worst’ one listed still falls within the norm for an 80kg person.
I wonder if the chocolate ones are from sourcing from counties using leaded gasoline, or used it more recently than countries that stopped.
This was an issue decades ago since farms in countries had old cars that still required leaded fuel for lubricating valves etc and that fall out landed on crops.
From my interpretation of looking around a bit on the topic of lead in food and especially supplements. There definitely a decent amount of companies that don’t seem to care enough to know.
Some companies could go from low to high heavy metal contents and for them it’s luck of the draw since they aren’t that on top of things.
We really need a proper regulatory network for these things.
I thought the lubricating valves thing about leaded was a myth. Sunshine just posted about it yesterday
Hmm, maybe. Original purpose was higher octane to prevent engine pre ignition, but I thought added affect was valve slide lube
Aviation fuel (like personal sized planes) is still leaded because it makes the engine more reliable.
Just curious anyone get a heavy metals req/test from their doctor?
In Canada? Good luck. Unless you have something considered clinically relevant, it will be extremely hard to get this publically funded.
Were you exposed to an industrial accident? Do you work in an industry where you’re likely to be exposed to heavy metals despite ppe? Are you showing symptoms of acute heavy metal exposure (and those symptoms couldn’t be explained by something else)? Unless you answer yes to any of these, odds are low. Why?
Because if we don’t test, it isn’t real and no one needs to do anything about it. If they started testing folks (costly in and of itself) and found lots of people were high in lead, they would need to identify the source of the toxin. Finding the source of the lead would be extremely expensive, and we already know it’s probably from lots of sources that are expensive to clean up and damaging to industry. That would cause more costs. So in Canada, we just don’t look.
This is how it has been for a long, long time. It took forever to get them to take lead out of gasoline, asbestos out of insulation, put warnings on fish for mercury, admit smoking was bad for you, etc.
Maybe you can find a private clinic that can test for you, or a naturopath (often they do the same tests as an MD, at the same lab, just you pay out of pocket; backdoor private medicine). Maybe you can pool testing with a number of folks to get the food you eat tested, and source food from places less likely to be contaminated. While there has likely always been some heavy metal contamination in some types of food in some places, the industrial agriculture we use today has made it far worse, as had years of contamination from leaded gasoline, arsenic-based pesticide, etc. If you have the time and resources, maybe you can avoid it. Again, good luck.
This was actually their top story for a while, which is surprising when you consider that “high” means still within US regulatory guidelines.
Some researchers believe that no level of lead is “safe” and that the effects of exposure are cumulative.
But at the same time, there’s a little lead in everything.
Both things are actually mentioned in the article, and it means setting an arbitrary limit is the best anyone can do.
Supposedly this has been a problem for over 2 million years….
