Sodium Benzoate – What you need to know

Patients ask me often about preservatives and my response is always, preservatives are dangerous. One preservative that is added to many foods, soft drinks, juices and even some liquid nutritional supplements is sodium benzoate. This particular additive has a seriously harmful potential when mixed with ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) as it creates BENZENE – a known carcinogen. Read the following excerpts from various researchers on this harmful chemical.  

Peter Piper, a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology who has been studying sodium benzoate for eight years at Sheffield University, found that the preservative seriously damages living cells.

"These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether," Prof Piper told The Independent on Sunday.

The findings came from laboratory tests conducted with sodium benzoate on living yeast cells. Prof Piper was alarmed by the chemical's destructive impact on the "power station" of the cells known as the mitochondria.

"The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number if diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously," Prof Piper continued.

"There is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA — Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing."

Sodium benzoate occurs in small amounts naturally in berries, but is used in large quantities to prevent mould in soft drinks.

The additive has been the subject of controversy for some time. Last year it was revealed that a chemical reaction between sodium benzoate and vitamin C creates benzene, a carcinogenic chemical.

"The food industry will say these compounds have been tested and they are complete safe," Prof Piper said. "By the criteria of modern safety testing, the safety tests were inadequate. Like all things, safety testing moves forward and you can conduct a much more rigorous safety test than you could 50 years ago."

He advised parents to think twice about letting their children drink products containing the chemical.

The UK study
The latest study was carried out on a range of soft drinks containing sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) – two preservatives that seem to produce benzene in the presence of heat and ultra-violet light.

Tests showed that the average benzene levels in the soft drinks were above the UK limit of one part per billion, but still below the World Health Organization limit of 10 parts per billion.

Highly toxic substance
However, the Environmental Working Group, which published a similar report on drinks produced in the United States, advised consumers to make a point of avoiding soft drinks and juices that contain both ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate because of the possible danger of ingesting benzene.

In higher quantities, benzene is a highly toxic, hazardous substance and a known human carcinogen.