Acrylamide in brown sugar: The CommonHealth report misses the forest for the trees - is it science communication or fearmongering?

CommonHealth Magazine yesterday publicly released its "2015 Black Sugar Ingredient Mega-Investigation," with a bold headline that pointed directly at: "Sampling of black sugar sold in stores finds acrylamide, a cancer-causing substance, in every single sample"Sugar Cubes via photopin (license))

Acrylamide is a water-soluble vinyl monomer(vinyl monomer) that can be produced during the cooking of certain foods and can also be found in cigarette smoke. The monomer acrylamide readily polymerizes into polyacrylamide, and polyacrylamide is a chemical raw material used in many manufacturing industries, for example: as a seepage-prevention agent for the foundations of dams or for tunnels, as an adhesive used in making drinking water, and as an adhesive in papermaking and in the synthesis of dyes.

As long as a food contains amino acids and reducing sugars, heating it at high temperature readily produces acrylamide through the Maillard reaction. The sugarcane juice used as the raw material for black sugar contains asparagine and monosaccharides (glucose or fructose), and its production process also involves high-temperature boiling, making it one of the foods commonly prone to producing acrylamide.

In 1994, acrylamide was classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a "Group 2A probable carcinogen," meaning that animal studies have confirmed it may cause cancer and has neurotoxicity, but epidemiological evidence is still insufficient to establish that it is carcinogenic to humans.

CommonHealth: Black sugar sampling finds acrylamide, a cancer-causing substance, in every sample

In this investigation, CommonHealth sampled 19 packages of black sugar from hypermarkets, chain supermarkets, organic chain specialty stores and farmers' markets. Overall acrylamide content ranged from 30 to 2740 ppb, and the top three black sugar products with the highest acrylamide content were Golden Horse Handmade High-Mountain Black Sugar, Yifeng Food Black Sugar and Gaoyangsan Black Sugar.