Aspartame, The Silent Killer

[Sol Invictus]

Aspartame - The Silent Killer


Aspartame is marketed as NutraSweet, Equal Spoonful, Benevia, NatraTaste and since the patent on it has now expired it likely will come on the market under many different names.

Undoubtedly you have heard that Aspartame is a safe sweetener and people use it to loose weight. Unfortunately that information is criminally false and misleading. You can find out more about how public relations firms shape and manipulate the public's beliefs on the "Why you believe what you believe" page.

Aspartame is made of 3 components, 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid and 10% methanol (wood alcohol). In the body methanol breaks down into formaldehyde (embalming fluid) and formic acid.

Aspartame banned in Europe for children's products

On the European Common Market, Aspartame is banned for all children's products. Why is this not the case in Canada and the U.S.? Because Monsanto - which owns the NutraSweet Company which manufactures Aspartame - pays off the FDA, the American Medical Association, The American Dietetic and Diabetic Associations, Congressmen and Senators and virtually anyone who gets in the way, and in other countries too. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation caught them red handed and aired a program where Monsanto was trying to bribe Canadian Doctors at Health Canada.

More on the Monsanto company: Monsanto is the world's largest manufacturer of poisons, not only of the citizens of the world but also of the environment. In 1995, Monsanto ranked 5th among US corporations in the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory, having discharged 37 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land, water and underground.

Responsible for mass poisoning of the world. How Robert B. Shapiro, President and CEO of Monsanto and the other members of the board, many of whom call themselves "Doctors" can live with themselves, knowing what they and the company are responsible for is incomprehensible. The entire lot should be prosecuted for mass genocide. Their track record of plain lying, falsifying and concealing data, bribery of officials, and the list goes on, is truly astonishing.

To quote the Toronto Globe and Mail reporting on the outcome of a three year trial, "The evidence of Monsanto's executives at the trial portrayed a corporate culture where sales and profits were given a higher priority than the safety of products and its workers..... They just didn't care about the health and safety of their workers. Instead of trying to make things safer, they relied on intimidation and threatened layoffs to keep their employees working".

Aspartame contains 10% methanol

NutraSweet (Aspartame) is composed of linkages of aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. The aspartic acid acts as a neuroexcitatory agent. When NutraSweet is digested, it yields 10% methanol (wood alcohol). The wood alcohol (methanol) is widely distributed throughout the body including brain, muscle, fat and nervous tissue. It is then metabolized to FORMALDEHYDE which enters the cells and binds to the proteins and DNA (the genetic material).

Cytogenetic effects (changes in DNA) have been shown to result from FORMALDEHYDE exposure and DNA damage occurs from FORMALDEHYDE. The nature of the injury generally involves breaking and then creation of cross linking within the genetic material which alters the cells.

This finding has been confirmed numerous times and the DNA-protein-cross-links are believed to cause cancers in experimental animals. Changes in the genetic material is associated with cancer production in humans. The ability of Aspartame to cause cellular mutations has been shown through studies by Shephard, et al. There are increases in malignant brain tumors suggested to be associated with aspartame use. FORMALDEHYDE is a known stimulant for cancer and genetic damage in the cell.

THE FDA has admitted that only approximately 1% of people know how to, or do, file complaints with them. Under a recent Freedom of Information order the FDA admitted that aspartame accounted for over 75% of complaints filed. They claimed that over 8000 were filed, but they keep changing their bookkeeping to keep the numbers low. The fact that 8000 reports were received indicates that there must have been over 800,000 people adversely affected at the very least.

An average person's daily intake of methyl alcohol from natural sources averages less than 10 mg (1). Aspartame beverages contain 55 mg methanol per liter, and nearly double as much in some carbonated orange sodas. Persons ingesting 5 liters/day can therefore consume over 400 mg methanol. These facts are pertinent:

• Methyl alcohol is probably the first component of aspartame released within the small intestine, and is rapidly absorbed. Blood and methanol concentrations correlate with aspartame intake. "Abuse doses" (100 mg/kg or more) ingested by normal subjects significantly elevate blood methanol concentrations, remaining detectable for 8 or more hours (2).

• Humans are more vulnerable to the toxic effects of methanol than animals because several enzymes required for its metabolism have been lost during evolution and are not present in humans.

• The toxicity of methanol is enhanced by its slow rate of oxidation — only 1/7 that of ethyl alcohol — occurring mainly in the liver and kidneys. Even though the half life in human volunteers ingesting small amounts (1-5 ml) is about 3 hours, complete oxidation to carbon dioxide usually requires several days.

• The body attempts to detoxify methyl alcohol by oxidizing it to formaldehyde (a deadly neurotoxin and Class A carcinogen), and then to formate or formic acid within minutes. Formate and formaldehyde each may contribute to toxicity and nervous system/immune dysfunction through various mechanisms. One is the conjugation of formaldehyde with human serum albumin (F-HSA) to form a new antigenic determinant. Patients with multiple health complaints who had been exposed chronically to formaldehyde develop anti F-HSA antibodies and elevated Tal cells (antigen memory cells), consistent with sustained antigenic stimulation of the immune system (3).

Is Aspartame causing some of your health problems?

There is a very simple way to ascertain whether or not this poisonous drug is causing your problem(s). Stop ALL intake of Aspartame (anything with Monsanto's NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Benevia, NutraTaste) in it. READ LABELS. Have your pharmacist check all your medications, Aspartame is in many drugs. This poison is in over 9000 items including most Children's Vitamins, Children's Tylenol, Alka Seltzer, Toothpastes (my favorite source for quality toothpaste products which don't contain harmful ingredients can be found here), Metamucil etc.. Often it is only mentioned on the paper inside the carton.

Aspartame contains METHANOL, a serious metabolic poison. Your body converts it to formaldehyde (embalming fluid) and formic acid (ant sting poison) both of which attack your central nervous system and every organ of your body.

http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/aspartame.htm

[Oresai]

Eek, I use artificial sweetener all the time...mind you, I`m also sure formaldehyde is in commercial bread too, at least in Britain....and seem to remember also reading somewhere that corpses are preserved naturally for longer now, taking much longer to decay naturally, because of food additives throughout our lifetime.
Gives new meaning to the phrase, die young, leave a good looking corpse. For longer, apparently. ;)

[Æmeric]

As I'm reading this I'm sipping on a soft drink sweeten with Splenda (http://www.splenda.com/index.jhtml), an alternative to aspartame. The sugar industry has a beef with Splenda (http://www.truthaboutsplenda.com/), but they should be more worried about HFCS which is the most common alternative to sugar from cane & sugar beets.

THe FDA has just approved the natural extract Stevia (http://www.stevia.com/) as a sweetener in the US.

[Grumpy Cat]

As I'm reading this I'm sipping on a soft drink sweeten with Splenda (http://www.splenda.com/index.jhtml), an alternative to aspartame. The sugar industry has a beef with Splenda (http://www.truthaboutsplenda.com/), but they should be more worried about HFCS which is the most common alternative to sugar from cane & sugar beets.

THe FDA has just approved the natural extract Stevia (http://www.stevia.com/) as a sweetener in the US.

You have to be careful with Splenda, though, because it is made from a form of sugar that the human body is incapable of digesting. Eating too much of it can cause severe diarrhea. They actually have a warning about that on the packages of candy sweetened with Splenda here.

If I eat sugar, it's real sugar. It's probably the best for you, when consumed in moderation.

[Æmeric]

I prefer sugar also, problem is most sweets in the US are sweeten with HFCS.

[Grumpy Cat]

I prefer sugar also, problem is most sweets in the US are sweeten with HFCS.

If you look around you can still find stuff sweetened with sugar. You might pay a little bit more, though.

Jones Soda is good, that's sweetened with real cane sugar.

[anonymaus]

A quick google search (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy) for properly sourced and meticulously researched articles, wherein scary words aren't capitalized to instill fear, would greatly reduce everybody's anxiety over aspartame.

[Tabiti]

I'm used not to sweeten my coffee and tea, but use honey and Stevia when needed. Unfortunately, Stevia is banned in the EU (artificial sweeteners companies aren't going to leave the bone!), so I must search for US products on higher prices. Fructose, sorbitol, xylitol and real brown sugar aren't so bad decisions, too, because they are natural products as well.
Well, sometimes I do drink Coca - Cola Light or candies with Aspartame, but small quallities won't harm me, especially when I don't use any artificial substances.

[Brynhild]

Rarely do I drink soft drink, and I like raw sugar or honey in my coffee and tea. I occasionally drink juice, I should look at the labels on them more closely.

[Frigga]

This is an article from the Weston Price Foundation's website:


Aspartame: Diet-astrous Results
By Rebecca Ephraim, RD, CCN

As a nutritionist who straddles conventional and complementary therapies, I attend numerous lectures, workshops, and conferences in both realms. I can generally tell you whether a gathering is one of conventional practitioners or complementary practitioners simply by seeing who’s drinking what!

Where conventional practitioners such as registered dietitians, nurses, and medical doctors are meeting, the familiar, brightly colored cans of diet soda, sweetened with the artificial sweetener aspartame, prominently dot the meeting-room landscape. Not so in a gathering of complementary practitioners such as naturopaths, "alternative" nutritionists and chiropractors. Bottled or filtered water is the rule here.

It’s an apt example of the conventional medical mindset butting heads with the philosophy of the health providers who are natural-living advocates. Aspartame, which goes by names such as Equal, NutraSweet, and Spoonful, is and has been the giant among artificial sweeteners for the twenty years it has been around. Almost any "diet" food out there, in addition to the diet sodas, will surely have aspartame in its ingredient list. Holistic practitioners tell their clients and patients to never use the stuff—that it’s literally poison. Conventional practitioners usually encourage its use. Many, perhaps most, of my dietician colleagues, for instance, consider aspartame, with zero calories, pivotal in weight-control programs. Their perspective is that it’s a safe replacement for high-calorie sugary foods that sabotage dieters’ best intentions.

"No, no, no!" shout an escalating number of health practitioners, professionals and laypeople. They point to ugly and debilitating side effects from the use of aspartame, including headaches, memory loss, slurred speech and vision problems. For years these aspartame opponents were but small voices muffled by the incredibly loud sounds of money talking. Under the ownership of the giant international chemical company Monsanto, aspartame thoroughly trounced its competition by using an unstoppable combination of marketing brilliance and limitless spending—along with tactics characterized as morally and ethically corrupt.

One critic, David Rietz, denounces Monsanto for plying "agency [e.g. Food and Drug Administration, FDA] officials with gratuities and/or very favorable future employment, politicians with campaign funds/PAC money, non-profit foundations with endowments, scientists with research grants, and the media with lots of advertising dollars" all for the sake of defending its safety and, hence, its ironclad hold on the artificial sweetener market. Monsanto sold its aspartame ingredient business last year to a number of buyers (including, by the way, MSD Capital, which is computer king Michael Dell’s investment firm).

The voices of dissent have grown louder with the advent of the internet. Rietz, for example, is the owner and master of one of thousands of "anti-aspartame" internet websites (www.dorway.com). Like so many other "anti-aspartame" crusaders, Rietz founded his website after years of battling debilitating health problems and finally regaining his health after discontinuing his use of the artificial sweetener. Examining why so many attest to aspartame’s role in scores of severe adverse reactions is beyond the scope of this article. But one thing is certain, despite what appears to be a concerted effort on the part of aspartame’s makers to negate the allegations of health problems, adverse reactions from aspartame are real.

This was eloquently borne out in 1996, when Ralph G. Walton, MD, professor and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Northeastern Ohio University’s College of Medicine, conducted an analysis of all the medical studies—164 of them at the time—dealing with human safety as it relates to the use of aspartame. The studies were separated into two categories: 74 of the studies were sponsored by the aspartame industry and 90 of them were non-industry-sponsored studies. Dr. Walton found that of the 74 studies sponsored by the aspartame industry, 100 percent of them claimed there were no health problems associated with aspartame use. Of the 90 studies that had no connections to industry, all but seven of them identified one or more problems with aspartame use. Interestingly, of the seven studies that did not find problems, the FDA had conducted six. Critics suggest that since a number of FDA officials eventually went to work for the aspartame industry, these six studies should be considered industry-sponsored research as well.

Knowing all this, if a person desperately wanted to lose weight and was prepared to risk the safety problems associated with aspartame, would it make sense to use this sugar substitute as an easy and effective tool for weight control?

Hardly! Dr. Walton, who has also studied the effects of aspartame, is emphatic when he tells me, "Probably one major contributor to obesity is the widespread use of diet products!" A chorus of non-conventional health professionals echoes his statement, which can just as well be read as a warning. The reasons are not simple; they involve complex biochemical reactions linked to hormones and brain chemicals.

Aspartame itself doesn’t have any calories, but basically, one of its ingredients, the amino acid phenylalanine, blocks production of serotonin, a nerve chemical that, among other activities, controls food cravings. As you might well imagine, a shortage of serotonin will make your brain and body scream for the foods that create more of this brain chemical—and those are the high-calorie, carbohydrate-rich snacks that can sabotage a dieter. Obviously, the more aspartame one ingests, the more heightened the effects. Simply put, aspartame appears to muddle the brain chemistry.

Nutritionist Susan Allen, RD, CCN, at Chicago’s Northwestern Center for Integrative Medicine, suspects that something additional is going on in many of her patients who have been using aspartame and other artificial sweeteners. Allen believes that when they consume them, the sweet taste of no-calorie sweeteners triggers their bodies to release insulin, even though there is no food to feed the cells. Normally, when we eat, the sugar in that food, which is derived from carbohydrates, is broken down into simple sugars, like glucose, which then enter the blood stream (we call it "blood sugar").

We depend on insulin (secreted by the pancreas) to usher that blood sugar into our cells to supply energy and maintain normal blood sugar levels. The problem Allen sees is that an "insulin-sensitive" person who uses artificial sweeteners teases his or her body into thinking food is on its way, so insulin is released. But when the body discovers it was cheated out of food, it revolts by throwing a food-craving tantrum that can only be quelled by eating blood sugar food that will more than likely be high-calorie sugary snacks. "I point out to them how it doesn’t make sense. . . they’re trying to save themselves sugar but then they eat more foods that are going to raise their blood sugar anyway."

Yet, the unabashed public acceptance of artificial sweeteners, namely aspartame, is fueled by the approval of a host of scientific and professional organizations, including the American Dietetic Association, American Heart Association, American Medical Association and the National Cancer Institute. Is it any wonder that some 200 million Americans use this ubiquitous product?

About the Author:
Rebecca Ephraim, RD, CCN is a Registered Dietitian and Certified Clinical Nutritionist with seventeen years in media and mass communications. She currently serves as anchor/producer for the Chicago National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate. Ms. Ephraim is a columnist and writer for Conscious Choice magazine in Chicago and is the Chairperson of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) specialty group on Nutrition and Complementary Care. See her website or email her at rebecca@consciouschoice.com.

© Rebecca Ephraim. All rights reserved.

[Birka]

The original article is not a scientific publication. Just saying. Lots of claims are made, very little documentation. It finishes one sentence saying it was published in Shepard et al. But then there is not a footnote of which Shepard et. al. publication they are referencing. Not scientific.

[Manifest Destiny]

Aspartame upsets my stomach. :(

[Bloodeagle]

Let's not forget maltose. My favorite recipe for maltose being fermented and flavored with hops.
Totally natural yet it marbles the flesh!

[Piparskeggr]

I don't consume much in the way of artificially sweetened foods or beverages, plus all the ethanol I do drink easily displaces the methanol. ;-)