Aspartame: The Sweetest Killer
Brent Jessop || May 15, 2007
Related - Free Aspartame Documentary
When ingested Aspartame is hydrolysed into three chemicals, aspartic acid (40%), phenylalanine (50%) and methanol (10%). A great deal of research has been carried out to determine behaviour of these amino acids in the body when in free form, i.e. unbound to proteins.
It is claimed that when aspartic acid is ingested the blood plasma levels of aspartate and glutamate rise significantly. Both aspartate and glutamate act as neurotransmitters in the brain, carrying information from neuron to neuron. When there is an excess of neurotransmitter, certain neurons may be killed by allowing too much calcium into the cells. The neural cell damage that may be caused by excessive aspartate and glutamate is the reason they are referred to as ‘excitotoxins’: they ‘excite’ or stimulate the neural cells to death.
Phenylalanine is another amino acid and is found normally in the brain. It is advised that people with the genetic disorder, phenylketonuria (PKU) do not consume aspartame as they are unable to metabolize the phenylalanine that is produced on its hydrolysis. A high level of phenyalanine in the brain is extremely harmful and sometimes fatal.
Methanol is another highly toxic by-product of aspartame metabolism. It is found in higher quantities in many other foods. But in other foods it is accompanied by larger quantities of ethanol which counterbalances the toxicity of methanol. Methanol is broken down into formaldehyde when digested. If aspartame is heated beyond 30°C formaldehyde is produced and is much more toxic if digested directly.
Aspartame has been promoted particularly as a diet aid and as a sugar substitute for diabetics. Some dispute the accuracy of such claims. It has been shown to actually increase appetite in some users, and can sometimes result in overall weight gain. When something sweet hits the tongue, a message goes to the hypothalamus, and the brain prepares the body to receive sugar by telling the pancreas to release insulin. When that sweetness is aspartame, no sugar arrives, so the insulin lowers the body’s blood sugar. Insulin inhibits the breakdown of fat reserves. When it does not combine with sugar, it may also cause cravings for carbohydrates.
For more information about aspartame please visit David Rietz's DORway or The World Natural Health Organization. To read about how aspartame took over a decade to get FDA approval and was only approved because of political pressure including Donald Rumsfeld's personal influence click here.
Below are recent articles surrounding the aspartame issue. Bookmark this page it is regularly updated.
2007 01 05 - NM Aspartame Law Destruction Reflects Lethal Corp Greed
When you witness first hand what a travesty and shambles of Democracy results when corporate lobbyists continue to be allowed to manipulate the legislative processes, at the state level, especially if you are concerned about rudimentary efforts to improve consumer protection in New Mexico, it is almost horrifying.
The "good" people are alienated to a large extent from the political process, preferring to dismiss all of it as corrupt and/or impossible; that perception drives them into a feeling of powerlessness and further alienation, and this is exactly what the corporations want, so they can continue their control and manipulation through lobbyists' pressures on particular committees.
This was ghastly last year in terms of the Aspartame bill to ban Aspartame/Methanol/Formaldehyde/Diketopiperazine, sponsored by Senator Ortiz y Pino. The Japanese manufacturer of Aspartame and another neurotoxic food additive, Monosodium Glutamate, Ajinomoto, in fact the largest in the world, hired a lobbying firm, Butch Maki and Associates, for indiscernible amounts of money. They hired a lobbyist, Richard Minzner, former Majority Leader in the House, to put the screws to the bill in the place it was most vulnerable, its first committee hearing in Senate Public Affairs.
Despite two excellent physicians being there to testify for banning Aspartame, Pediatric Cardiologist, Grant La Farge, and Pediatrician Ken Stoller, and despite massive amounts of articles and letters from Aspartame poisoning victims, the corporations won with a vote of 5-2 to table the bill, killing it for 2006. Minzner told the Committee it was irresponsible and illegal to even think about challenging an FDA approved chemical. Antonio Anaya, Vice President of Coca Cola New Mexico told the Committee a monstrous lie, that Coca Cola would lose 600 jobs in New Mexico if aspartame were banned. No one on the committee even challenged the specious illogic of such a perfidious statement. Several members continued to guzzle their Diet Sodas and eat their ham sandwiches while the testimony continued. (Perhaps it is absurd to even try to entrust decisions about the effects of formaldehyde on New Mexico's children to people who can't even recognize that harm they are doing to themselves).
Related - 2006 02 06 - NM Ban Aspartame Bill Advances In State Senate
Related - 2005 12 10 - Pushback against aspartame ban
2006 11 17 - Legacy Of Donald Rumsfeld, Aspartame & Diane Fleming
At age 29, Princeton educated wrestling champion, navy pilot and presidential aid Republican Donald Rumsfeld was elected by Illinois to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962. Rummy began accumulating political contacts-and power-for the next 14 years. After leaving the House, he held several high-level executive posts during the Nixon era and became the youngest defense secretary in U.S. history under Gerald Ford. When Ford lost the White House to Jimmy Carter in 1976, Rummy was unemployed in D.C. for the first time since 1962. In 1978 Rummy's career as a public poisoner-for-profit began when he became CEO of G.D. Searle, a small pharmaceutical company. When Rummy took the helm, Searle was being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for attempting to defraud the FDA into approving artificial aspartame as a safe artificial sweetener when lab tests proved it was a neurotoxic, carcinogenic drug. He was able to pull political strings to get Searle out of legal trouble and influenced
President Reagan's appointment of Arthur Hull Hayes as FDA Commissioner to politically approve the sale of aspartame in 1981--over the objections of FDA scientists, independent researchers and consumer safety advocates.
Monsanto bought Searle for $2.7 billion in 1985, and the Searle family walked away with about $1 billion. Rumsfeld's take was about $12 million.
2006 05 10 - EU Panel: Aspartame Poses No Cancer Risk
An Italian study last year wrongly concluded the sugar substitute led to higher rates of lymphoma and leukemia in rats, said the experts who advise the European Food Safety Authority.
The Italian researchers who conducted the rat study insisted that their initial findings were correct and pledged to continue studying the subject.
Dr. Morando Soffritti, who led the study for the Bologna-based European Ramazzini Foundation, also assailed the U.S. study, saying that it was an example of how "some researchers are ready to put themselves at the disposal of the industry" that produces sweeteners. He contended the U.S. research didn't distinguish between aspartame and other sweetener use and did not measure lifetime sweetener use.
History is full of examples where animal studies showed benefit or harm from a substance that later proved not true of people. But Soffritti insists that animal studies are better when it comes to aspartame because it's nearly impossible to find a comparison group of people who don't use the sweetener at all.
"How do you do a study on humans when aspartame is used in 6,000 products? How do you find a population that has never used it?" he asked.
Related - 2006 04 07 - Government Says Aspartame Is Good For You
2006 04 27 - Australian Government Forces Aspartame on School Kids
SUGAR-FILLED soft drinks will be banned from school canteens in Victoria next year.
Victorian Education Minister Lynne Kosky announced yesterday that schools would have the rest of this year to phase out high-kilojoule fizzy drinks and some sugar-added fruit drinks, but artificially sweetened soft drinks such as Coca-Cola Zero would be allowed.
Related - 2006 05 23 - U.S. schools to become pop-free
2005 12 10 - Soft Drinks Linked to Health Problems: Report
The U.S. ranks No. 1 in the world in the consumption of soft drinks, with the average American drinking 150 quarts a year – but experts say these beverages can pose serious health risks.
One recent study found that women who drink one or more sugar-sweetened soft drink a day are twice as likely to develop diabetes as women who drink fewer than one per month.
Even when such factors as weight, diet and lifestyle are considered, women drinking sugary soda are still 1.3 times as likely to develop the disease.
Related - 2007 05 15 - Coca-Cola reaches settlement in lawsuits over benzene claims
Related - 2006 10 10 - Drinking cola may increase risk to women's bones
Related - 2006 08 28 - Two U.S. soft drink companies agree to settlement over benzene content
Related - 2006 08 07 - Several states ban Coke and Pepsi
Related - 2006 05 31 - Benzene found in some soft drinks, FDA says
Related - 2006 03 08 - Cancer chemical found in drinks
2005 11 26 - Aspartame Causes Cancer in Rats at Levels Currently Approved for Humans
A statistically significant increase in the incidence of malignant tumors, lymphomas and leukemias in rats exposed to varying doses of aspartame appears to link the artificial sweetener to a high carcinogenicity rate, according to a study accepted for publication today by the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP). The authors of the study, the first to demonstrate multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered to rats in feed, called for an "urgent reevaluation" of the current guidelines for the use and consumption of this compound.
"Our study has shown that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic compound whose carcinogenic effects are also evident at a daily dose of 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg), notably less than the current acceptable daily intake for humans," the authors write. Currently, the acceptable daily intake for humans is set at 50 mg/kg in the United States and 40 mg/kg in Europe.
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