Aspartame back in the news - serious side effects

This topic came up in another thread where it was agreed that a new thread just on Aspartame was justified.
(see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=64971&start=105#p611853 )

There are some news reports appearing around the world about recent studies showing that diet sweeteners often contribute to obesity far more than they reduce it. The various reports explain some of the research results. I took up drinking Diet Coke (av 1 can/day) thinking it would help me keep my own weight in check. When one looks into the alleged side effects of Aspartame, it becomes apparent that we SDB folk may find aspects of our condition worsen. As with all such research, read it carefully & evaluate it in the light of your own experiences.

These links are typical of the current news items....

27th May 2011 - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... light.html - Daily Mail UK
29th June 2011 - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162- ... 91704.html - CBS News
30th June 2011 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/2 ... 86409.html - Huffington Post


Then there are the 'scare' links that go as far as calling Asparmate a deadly neurotoxin etc: ...

- http://current.com/community/92589671_t ... llions.htm
- http://www.innvista.com/health/nutritio ... aspart.htm - (this article is a very sobering read )


These links are deeply into the 'scare' category ...

- http://www.lightparty.com/Health/DietCokeAspartame.html
- http://www.mcmanweb.com/diet_coke.html

There seem to be a lot of such links out there ...

DSM

#2 - fixed 2 typos

I have been on a No Carb diet for over three months now and have lost over 50lbs. Its amazing to me to see the amount of un necessary sugar intake in this country. I have not had any type of sugar than what comes from a few vegetables. I have drank water for the entire 3 months, and while the taste of Dr. Pepper is something i still desire, the water has done just fine by me.

I agree with the sugar free sweetners being an issue. Your brain still does think sweet, and therevore you have the side effects that go with it.

Didn't read the links, but no surprise there. The point of artificial sweeteners is to fool your body into thinking it's getting sugar when it's getting some non-caloric chemical that's kinda sorta like sugar. I think it's obviously a bad idea to try to confuse your body. If you crave excessive sweets, your body is already confused. Playing tricks on it will confuse it even more. Hence it seems to me that artificially sweetened "diet" foods are a blind alley with a bunch of overfull dumpsters at the other end.

Yes don't need artificial sweeteners - just reduce the sugar intake.
I have a lot of recipe books. Madame Benoit recipe from the late 50's uses 2 tablespoons of sugar in a muffin recipe, modern book calls for 3/4 cup.

Learn to read the labels - anything with glucose, sucrose in it is sugar these should NOT be the leading ingredients.

Isaacrn wrote:I have been on a No Carb diet for over three months now and have lost over 50lbs. Its amazing to me to see the amount of un necessary sugar intake in this country. I have not had any type of sugar than what comes from a few vegetables.

Whew. When I read "no carb" I was worried. I hope you're eating enough veggies and not too much of that 50 lbs was muscle.

And you will go blind reading labels when you try to avoid it. It's in everything!

I have been sensititive to aspartame for many years, therefore I stay away from ANY artificial sweeteners.
It was not funny how I found out I was sensititive to it. The guy that distributed milk products to our office would bring me a chocolate milk (with aspartame) when he came once a week. The NOT funny part was that I was in the biffy most of that that night with the trots . Took me about 3 or 4 weeks to correlate what was going on....have not used anything with artificial sweeteners since.

I can taste it on the back of my tongue - yucky bitter off taste that over powers all the flavours.

I never you use aspartame or splenda. They taste awful to me. I Don't really care for HFCS either.
I only use stevia (a non-caloric natural sweetener) and cane sugar, very sparingly.
Stevia is also marketed under the Truvia brand, by Coke, but so far only in the form of sugar-like packets, and bulk pkgs.

Wallyworld sells a soda ( I think it's their own brand) that's sweetened with stevia.

there isn't any aspartame in this house and any that enters is immediately trashed

I get hell of headaches from it -worse than I get from HFCS and they are nasty too.

aspartame is hidden in meds - beware

splenda can enter the house but not sure anyone would use it here - I rarely imbibe in it any more

I stick with sugar that is naturally in veggies and fruits - I do overdo the fruit juices and use them for a base in "sodas" I drink - my grain consumption is very minimal these days but I do eat some still

If I wasn't continuing to lose weight I would scrap some of the fruit juices but last time I was weighed officially I was 1 pound away from having lost half my max weight (and if I deducted a couple pounds for clothes / shoes - I probably would have reached that goal).

I have kept away from aspertame since a friend of mine mysteriously started having grand mall seizures. The only thing that had changed was she was dieting and using lots of aspertame - making pitchers of Kool-Aid with it! She quit using it and never had another seizure. That was enough for me.

If you must have Sweets, don't forget Honey, the best kind is unprocessed fresh. WARNING< Bee stings hurt, so do mad Bears. Jim

Two points:

1. It's misleading to lump together "artificial sweeteners," that are completely different molecules, some synthetic and some of natural origin.

-saccharin, in use since the 1930's
-cyclamate, banned in the US but still approved in many countries.
-aspartame, the subject of this thread
-acesulfame
-sucralose, xylotol, tagatose, stevia, erythritol, which originate in plants, but require industrial processes to attain their commercial form.

2. When encountering claims that are loaded with emotion, in this case, fear, it pays to check around before signing on.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy

M.D.Hosehead wrote:Two points:

1. It's misleading to lump together "artificial sweeteners," that are completely different molecules, some synthetic and some of natural origin.

-saccharin, in use since the 1930's
-cyclamate, banned in the US but still approved in many countries.
-aspartame, the subject of this thread
-acesulfame
-sucralose, xylotol, tagatose, stevia, erythritol, which originate in plants, but require industrial processes to attain their commercial form.

2. When encountering claims that are loaded with emotion, in this case, fear, it pays to check around before signing on.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy

Fair point ! - but for me, I still won't be drinking any more diet coke.
Also the Wiki link that appears to be saying there is an internet conspiracy against Aspartame, seems questionable in itself ?.

Cheers

DSM

I got around to reading the links. There is some interesting stuff there, thanks.

http://www.innvista.com/health/nutrition/diet/saspart.htm wrote:For instance, the amount of wood alcohol in one litre of diet soda is equal to 4/5th of an alcoholic beverage.

It seems extremely unlikely to me that there is 4/5 of an ounce of methanol in a liter of diet Coke. It may be true that of methanol in a liter of coke is slightly less than the amount of methanol in a an alcoholic beverage, but unless that beverage is a shot of bathtub gin, it won't contain very much methanol.

I found this pubmed link for a study indicating that aspartame reduces serotonin levels in mice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2442082

If it can do that, then it may be a significant factor in depression. It seems to me that soft drinks, diet or otherwise, are to our society as lead was to the Roman empire.