Sodium Benzoate - Ashley Works

 

Figure 1. From DNA and Disease by Dr. H. Lei, 2007,http://www.eyeondna.com/2007/

05/28/ sodium-benzoate-and-vitamin-lovelifelikeyourself.wordpress.com. Reprinted with permission.

Sodium Benzoate is a benzoate salt that actually occurs naturally in foods such as plums and cranberries. It can also be found in some spices such as cloves and cinnamon, but only in tiny amounts. Most of the time sodium benzoate is chemically manufactured, and the chemical acts as a mold inhibitor, or a food preservative. It’s decently cheap to produce and works very well as a preservative. Mostly the compound is used in the soft drink industry, although it’s not only used in food. If you look on many bottles containing items such as cosmetics and lotions, you’ll typically find sodium benzoate as one of the preservative ingredients. The reason you will note sodium benzoate is listed in the ingredients of so many foods and cosmetics is because it works very well at killing bacteria, yeast and fungi.
 
Also studies have suggested that it causes Parkinson’s disease, and hyperactivity in people who do not already have ADD/ADHD. However, sodium benzoate on its own is not considered a carcinogen, and you would have to consume a huge amount of it in order to have toxic levels in your body. Just to be sure I looked into the toxicity of sodium benzoate in a rat. The LD₅₀ is 4070 mg/kg, which means it takes a lot of the compound to cause death in rats. To be on the safe side, the concentration of sodium benzoate is limited by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. to 0.1% by weight. So really there’s not a lot they can put into our foods that will cause us any harm. The same cannot be said of benzene, which researchers now show has the ability to affect mitochondria in cells and cause cell death. Scientists have called for the U.S. FDA to retest the potential dangers of sodium benzoate and citric acid (containing vitamin C) in soft drinks, because the tests proving its safety are quite old. In the mean time it may be a good idea to lower the levels of soda containing vitamin C that you are consuming, depending on how you feel about the FDA’s word that it’s truly not dangerous…