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by Mike Adams
extracted from Grocery
Warning
from
Scribd Website
One of the dangers of
eating everyday foods and groceries is turning to products that
contain artificial chemical sweeteners.
Sweeteners like
aspartame, acesulfame, and sucralose are all made of artificial
chemicals and are suspected of promoting serious health disorders,
primarily neurological ones.
Aspartame
Of all the chemical sweeteners that are still legal (cyclamates were
banned years ago),
aspartame by far has the worst
record.
It is my opinion,
after reviewing an enormous amount of medical and research
literature, that monosodium glutamate, aspartame, and other
excitotoxin dietary additives pose an enormous hazard to our
health and to the development and normal functioning of the
brain.
To continue to add
enormous amounts of excitotoxins to our food is unconscionable
and will lead to suffering and ruined lives for generations to
come. The civilized world, especially the United States, has
become the largest experimental laboratory in history.
- Russell
Blaylock, M.D., Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills
Aspartame is used as an
artificial sweetener in a wide variety of foods and beverages. It’s
usually proudly proclaimed right on the label as "Nutrasweet."
To truly understand the story of aspartame, however, you have to
look behind the label and examine the history of this sweet-tasting
chemical.
Aspartame was accidentally discovered in 1969 by James Schlatter,
a biochemist trying to find a cure for stomach ulcers. He just
happened to lick his thumb, the story goes, and was impressed by the
sweetness of the chemical.
Russell Blaylock,
author of Excitotoxins, goes on to explain what happened next:
From this
serendipitous discovery was born a business that would reap $736
million in sales for the NutraSweet® Company in 1988 alone. By
1989, G.D. Searle & Company, the manufacturer of NutraSweet®,
had reached a profitability that put it ninth on the Fortune 500
list.
Despite concerns
over the safety of this new sweetener, including brain tumor
induction in experimental animals, seizures, precipitation of
headaches, and an adverse effect on the developing brain, the
FDA approved its use as an artificial sweetener. Sales began to
grow immediately. The NutraSweet® company spent over $60 million
on advertising alone during its first three years.
NutraSweet® hit the market at just the right time. Americans had
become weight conscious and were looking for a sugar substitute,
and it replaced the recently outlawed cyclamate. Soon, it
surpassed saccharin in sales. In fact, NutraSweet® played a
large role in making the soft drink business one of the fastest
growing businesses in what had been a stagnant enterprise.
Americans were
guzzling diet colas under the mistaken belief that sugar
consumption was the primary cause of obesity. But they were
unaware of the serious health effects of excess aspartate
consumption.
Early testing shows
aspartame to cause brain tumors
The fact that the FDA eventually approved aspartame seems to be due
more to political pressure (and the FDA’s collusion with private
industry) than from any serious scientific study of the safety of
aspartame. In fact, no long-term human safety trials were ever
conducted.
Of the tests that were
conducted, some rather frightful results appeared:
The first
experiments done to test the safety of aspartame before its
final approval in 1981 disclosed a high incidence of brain
tumors in the animals fed NutraSweet®. In fact, this study was
done by the manufacturer of NutraSweet®, G.D. Searle. In this
study, 320 rats were fed aspartame and 120 rats were fed a
normal diet and used as controls.
At the end of the
study, 12 4of the aspartame fed rats had developed brain tumors,
while none of the control rats had. This represented a 3.75
percent incidence of brain tumors in the rats fed aspartame,
which was twenty-five times higher than the incidence of
spontaneous brain tumors developing in rats (0.15 percent)
When Dr. John Olney pointed out these findings to the FDA
"Aspartame Board of Inquiry" he was told that the high incidence
of tumors was the result of spontaneous development of brain
tumors in rats. That is, that some rats develop brain tumors
naturally, just as humans do.
Dr. Olney reviewed
the incidence of spontaneously occurring brain tumors in rats
and found that out of seven studies using a total of 59,000
rats, only 0.08 percent developed brain tumors - the aspartame
fed rats had a forty-seven fold higher incidence.
It became obvious that the G.D. Searle company was trying
desperately to protect their potential billion dollar plus money
maker. They claimed that more brain tumors were found because
they searched the pathological slides so diligently. But, they
searched just as diligently in the control rats and found none.
Besides,
neuropathologists examining the slides later stated that the
tumors were large enough to be seen with the naked eye.
- Russell
Blaylock, M.D., Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills
Had the FDA done its job
and actually demanded sufficient testing of aspartame, it would have
almost certainly considered it too dangerous to approve for
long-term human consumption.
"Had it not been for
some fancy footwork by those in power in the FDA," explains
Blaylock, "...it never would have [been approved]. Early
experiments using low, medium and high doses with aspartame all
found dramatic tumor increases in test animals.
These included
brain, pancreas, and breast tumors, and tumors of the testes,
thyroid and prostate. Experiments also demonstrated a direct
correlation between intake quantity and tumor incidence."
Aspartame begins to generate
medical complaints
Regardless of the reasons for its approval, aspartame quickly became
the world’s most popular artificial chemical sweetener and founds
its way into widespread use.
Although this certainly
generated enormous profits for its manufacturer, it also had the
effect of raising red flags in the minds of some rather observant
doctors who began to notice patterns in their patients:
Dr. H. J. Roberts of
West Palm Beach, Florida, is a dedicated medical doctor who has
done much research on the adverse effects of aspartame. He has
identified a number of what he calls "aspartame diseases." In
his June 2002 article in the Journal of Townsend Letter for
Doctors and Patients, Dr. Roberts lists a number of neurological
problems produced by aspartame.
Of 1,200 patients,
43 percent had headaches; 31 percent had dizziness and
unsteadiness; 31 percent had confusion and memory loss; 13
percent had drowsiness and sleepiness; 11 percent had major
epileptic convulsions; 3 percent had minor epileptic attacks and
"absences of the mind"; 10 percent had severe slurring of
speech; 8 percent had tremors; 6 percent had severe "hyperactivity" and
"restless legs"; 6 percent had atypical
facial pains.
He reports that
after cutting out the sweetener from the diet of these people,
they improved; some were freed of their symptoms.
As you might know,
methyl alcohol and formaldehyde damage to the brain cells and
the optic nerve is irreversible.
-
Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, M.D., Water for Health, for Healing,
for Life
Before long, the FDA was
flooded with health complaints from aspartame. More than 7,000
complaints of adverse reactions to aspartame have been filed with
the FDA. This accounts for around 75 percent of all reactions to
food substances received by the FDA.
It’s astounding: a
single ingredient accounts for 3/4 of all the complaints received by
the agency, and yet Americans continue to consume aspartame in
alarming quantities: more than 17 pounds per person per year at
present.
Of the thousands of
adverse reactions [to aspartame] reported to the FDA, most
concerned abnormal brain function, i.e., depression, fatigue,
irritability, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, anxiety
attacks, slurred speech, loss of the sense of taste, tinnitus,
vertigo, and memory loss.
Also included were a
number of chronic illnesses, including brain tumors, multiple
sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, Parkinson’s
disease, Alzheimer’s, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth
defects, fibromyalgia, and diabetes.
-Carol
Simontacchi, The Crazy Makers
Aspartame byproducts -
chemicals so toxic they threaten the environment
But why does aspartame potentially cause these brain cancers and
other neurological disorders?
The answer rests in the
byproducts of aspartame consumption. During the process of digestion
in the human body, aspartame breaks down into methanol (an alcohol)
and aspartic acid.
The methanol, in turn,
poses a severe health risk to humans:
Methyl alcohol is a
powerful toxin that is carefully regulated by the EPA. Recent
studies have found that even low doses can be quite harmful to
cells, especially to DNA. When methyl alcohol is consumed it is
converted in the cells to formaldehyde and formic acid, both
potent toxins.
Formic acid is the
poison used by the fire ant that causes such intense pain.
Formaldehyde is used as a preservative, and in the past, as an
embalming fluid. It is also a known carcinogen.
-Russell
Blaylock, M.D., Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your
Life
Formaldehyde, you may
remember from high school science classes, is the pungent liquid in
which laboratory specimens are preserved. No person in their right
mind would drink formaldehyde, and yet people who drink soft drinks
containing aspartame are indirectly doing exactly that.
And the consequences can
be quite severe:
One of the breakdown
products of aspartame, an excitotoxin, is formaldehyde. Using a
radioactive tracer method, it has been clearly demonstrated that
the formaldehyde formed from aspartame accumulates near the DNA
in cells, resulting in numerous deletions and strand breaks in
the nuclear material.
Even more
frightening is the finding that the damage is accumulative, so
that even drinking one diet cola a day can produce significant
genetic damage. There are also several reports of severe
aspartame addiction, characterized by the daily consumption of a
gallon or more of aspartame-sweetened beverages.
-Russell
Blaylock, M.D., Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your
Life
Making matters worse,
soft drink companies put their liquid products containing aspartame
in containers made of aluminum.
When this aluminum - a
known neurotoxin - is combined with aspartame, the results are
multiplied:
In the case of diet
drinks in aluminum cans, the very brain-toxic aluminum fluoride
compound co-exists with multiple toxins found in aspartame, thus
creating the most powerful government-approved toxic soup
imaginable. With the strong association between aluminum,
excitotoxins, aluminum fluoride complexes and Alzheimer’s
disease, it would be completely irresponsible to encourage
people to consume this toxic mixture.
Yet, this is done
literally billions of times every year in advertising. It is
important to remember that the aluminum can has been around for
only about three decades, and most toxin-related diseases take
years of accumulation to produce the full clinical expression of
the disorder.
-Russell
Blaylock, M.D., Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your
Life
Aspartame implicated in
neurological disorders and diseases
The vast majority of conditions and side effects resulting from
aspartame are neurological ones. That’s no surprise, since methanol
is toxic to nerve cells.
The primary conditions
now being blamed on aspartame are:
-
Brain tumors
-
Dizziness,
confusion
-
Seizures and
convulsions
-
Headaches and
migraines
-
Blindness
Doctors, authors and
researchers who have studied this issue regularly warn their
patients to avoid aspartame.
In Reversing Diabetes,
Dr. Julian Whitaker states:
What about
artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame? I recommend that you
avoid this chemical additive like the plague. It is broken down
in the body into harmful components, including formaldehyde (a
known toxin and carcinogen), formic acid (the poison in ant
stings), and methanol (a nervous system toxin also known as free
methyl alcohol).
High intake of
aspartame has been linked with a number of adverse effects,
including headache, vision loss, seizures, mood disorders, and
other nervous system problems.
The idea that aspartame
can induce blindness in humans is especially intriguing, given the
high incidence of retinal damage (nerve damage in the eyes)
experienced by many diabetics.
Perhaps not so
coincidentally, diabetics also tend to consume enormous amounts of
aspartame in their quest to avoid the refined sugars that would only
worsen their diabetes.
But in avoiding sugar,
they may actually be accelerating their own blindness:
Diabetics who drink
large amounts of aspartame-sweetened drinks are more likely to
go blind. Aspartame is composed of the excitotoxin, aspartic
acid, as well as methanol (also a known eye toxin) and the amino
acid, phenylalanine. Given this evidence, why, then, do the
American Diabetes Association and thousands of doctors encourage
their diabetic patients to use aspartame?
At least where the
American Diabetes Association is concerned, it may have
something to do with the fact that the organization has received
large monetary contributions from Monsanto - maker of
NutraSweet®!
-Russell
Blaylock, M.D., Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your
Life
That last sentence is
notable.
The ADA does, indeed,
have a close financial relationship with the makers of Nutrasweet.
It’s no surprise to learn that the ADA heavily promotes the use of
aspartame and works to suppress information critical of aspartame
while also stalling the approval of safer alternatives such as
stevia (an herbal sweetener that will be discussed in detail later).
Flying blind with aspartame:
pilots can’t see their instrument panels
One group of
professionals who are quite aware of the dangers of aspartame (and
its potential to alter nerve system function) are pilots.
"A number of
individuals had their driver or pilot licenses revoked or
suspended because of aspartame-associated impaired vision,
convulsions, or confusion - depriving them of employment," says
Dr. J.H. Roberts in Aspartame - Is It Safe?
He goes on to report the
following:
A young Air Force
pilot told the Senate hearing held on November 3, 1987 that he
suffered a grand mal seizure while consuming up to one gallon of
an aspartame beverage daily. There had been no recurrence over
the ensuing two years of abstinence. Nevertheless, he was
permanently grounded because of the diagnosis of an "idiopathic
partial seizure disorder."
That account just
scratches the surface, however:
One group of
professionals most concerned about aspartame usage is airline
pilots. In 1988, the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network installed
a private hot line to receive inquiries from pilots who are in
jeopardy of losing their flying licenses because of seizure
episodes from the use of aspartame. Since 1988, more than six
hundred calls have been made to the confidential hot line.
One caller noted
that "after just two cups of NutraSweetened hot chocolate, a
pilot experienced blurred vision so severe he was unable to read
instruments on his panel and very narrowly avoided a tragic
landing. Safely on the ground, he related his story to the
coworkers in his office. Two of them recounted similar symptoms
experienced after brief exposure to aspartame."
-Carol
Simontacchi, The Crazy Makers
Aspartame and
Alzheimer’s disease
There is considerable discussion that aspartame may also induce or
accelerate Alzheimer’s disease, which is a nerve disorder
characterized by confusion, loss of memory, and other symptoms that
sound quite similar to the symptoms currently being blamed on
aspartame.
High levels of
excitotoxins within the brain appear to play a major role in
Alzheimer’s disease. It is essential that individuals with a
strong family history of Alzheimer’s disease and those having
had a stroke or high blood pressure avoid excitotoxin food
additives.
The simplest way to
do this is to restrict foods from your diet that contain
excitotoxin taste enhancers such as MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable
protein, and aspartame.
- Russell
Blaylock, M.D., Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills
Aspartame and heat
Aspartame is
also known to break down more quickly when exposed to heat.
According to some accounts, as little as 86 degrees (F) will cause
aspartame to break down into free methyl alcohol (methanol).
Note that the
temperature of the human body is higher than 86 degrees which means
that, according to this, aspartame always breaks down into methanol
when consumed by any living, breathing human being:
As aspartame passes
through the digestive tract, it is digested into methanol or
wood alcohol, which happens most readily when aspartame is
heated (as when it is part of a "food product" or is improperly
stored at high temperatures, as often happens in warehouses in
hot climates). When heated above eighty-six degrees, free
methanol is produced and is rapidly absorbed into the
bloodstream.
One liter of an
aspartame-sweetened beverage can produce about fifty-six
milligrams of methanol. When several of these beverages are
consumed in a short period of time (one day, perhaps), as much
as two hundred fifty milligrams of methanol are dumped into the
bloodstream, or thirty-two times the EPA limit.
Symptoms of methanol poisoning include headaches, ear buzzing,
dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal disturbances, weakness,
vertigo, chills, memory lapses, numbness and shooting pains in
the extremities, behavioral disturbances, and neuritis
(inflammation of the nerves).
According to the
Aspartame Consumer Safety Network information, "The most well
known problems from methanol poisoning are vision problems
including misty vision, progressive contraction of visual
fields, blurring of vision, obscuration of vision, retinal
damage, and blindness."
-Carol
Simontacchi, The Crazy Makers
In this way, a human
being who consumes a six-pack of diet soft drinks made with
aspartame is actually a walking EPA violation. That person
technically carries enough methanol in their own body to qualify as
toxic waste and be subjected to federal environmental laws.
(I find it fascinating
that it’s illegal to dump methanol into rivers and streams, but it’s
perfectly legal to dump it into the bodies of consumers.)
Aspartame and cancer
Aside from all the seizures, brain tumors, blindness and other
nervous system disorders associated with aspartame consumption,
there is additional evidence that aspartame may promote cancer.
In one study published
in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology in 1993
(Mutagenic activity of peptides and the artificial sweetener
aspartame after nitrosation), researchers found that aspartame shows
strong mutagenicity (cancer potential) when nitrosated in the
stomach with the help of the digestive acids secreted by the
stomach.
The primary conclusion of the study is as follows:
The time-course
study of Trp-Trp nitrosation showed the production of at least
two mutagens: a potent but unstable mutagenicity was seen at
very short nitrosation times and a more stable but weaker effect
was obtained after more than 60 min of nitrosation.
Not only the
absolute specific mutagenicity but also the nitrite dependence
of the nitrosation reaction and the stability of the nitroso
product must be taken into account in determining the risk posed
by endogenous nitrosation of foods in the human stomach.
Protein power authors
change stance on aspartame
Two of the best known authors on health, Michael R. Eades and
Mary Dan Eades, authors of The Protein Power Lifeplan
and other nutrition books, used to actually recommend aspartame to
their readers.
Their position changed,
however, upon reviewing the scientific evidence.
Now they stand squarely against aspartame and strongly caution their
readers to avoid it. As they explain it:
First were claims
that because the body breaks down the dipeptide molecule (a
linkage of two amino acids) into methanol (wood alcohol), a
known toxin that can cause blindness, and formaldehyde, a known
cancer-causing agent, the product posed significant safety risks
to the public.
Subsequent to the
publication of Protein Power, however, scientific papers came to
our attention ... that caused us to review and ultimately to
reverse our stance on this sweetener. We now feel that aspartame
may pose significant hazards to the brain and nervous system and
we no longer recommend its use. Here’s why we no longer
recommend this sweetener and, furthermore, actively discourage
its use.
Aspartame differs from other types of artificial sweeteners in
that it is a dipeptide, a molecule made by joining two amino
acids together; in other words, it’s a tiny protein fragment. It
can enter the bloodstream intact and find its way through the
circulation to a vulnerable area of the brain called the bare
area, where it can gain entry to the brain.
Why is that a
problem?
The brain is quite
picky about what it lets in and what it keeps out. Surrounding
virtually the entire brain, a structure called the blood-brain
barrier shields the brain from direct bloodstream access,
allowing only certain ions and nutrients to pass. In the bare
area, however, the barrier skips a spot, and here the brain can
be vulnerable to entry of unwanted substances that once inside
may stimulate the brain abnormally, an effect called
excitotoxicity.
Such is the case for
aspartame; this sweetener --along with other similar molecules,
most notably MSG (monosodium glutamate), the food additive and
flavor enhancer so pervasive in processed foods - behaves as a
brain excitotoxin. Its chemical structure allows it to fit into
a receptor within the brain called the NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate)
receptor, triggering such overstimulation in the nerve cell that
it dies. In other words, the brain cell literally becomes
excited to death.
Certainly we use
only a small percentage of our brain in thinking and
functioning, but shouldn’t we want to keep all of it that we
can? And besides, certain areas of the brain, such as the
hippocampal area, which is involved in memory, are quite
sensitive to these kinds of toxic insults.
Reports in the medical literature suggest that in susceptible
people, consuming aspartame may result in such symptoms as mood
disturbances, sleep disturbances, headaches, dizziness,
short-term memory loss, fuzzy thinking, and inability to
concentrate. And what’s more ...is that the excitotoxic effect
may permanently damage the brain and nervous system.
The possible risks
to your brain simply aren’t worth it. Our advice - if you must
have more sweetness than a tiny amount of honey, use the natural
sweetener stevia.
Outraged at the FDA
With all of this in mind, there seems to be plenty of justification
for outrage at the FDA for allowing this nerve toxin to continue to
be sold and consumed in tremendous quantities.
Blaylock says it best:
As a neurosurgeon I
see the devastating effects a brain tumor has, not only on its
victim, but on the victim’s family as well. To think that there
is even a reasonable doubt that aspartame can induce brain
tumors in the American population is frightening. And to think
that the FDA has lulled them into a false sense of security is a
monumental crime.
And yet the FDA says
there is a "safe" level of aspartame consumption that won’t harm
people.
But at the same time, it
enforces absolutely no requirement that food and beverage
manufacturers list the amount of aspartame used in their products,
thereby making it impossible for even the most determined consumers
to add up their aspartame consumption for any given day.
As a result, people are consuming aspartame in quantities that far
exceed even the FDA’s fictional "limit."
Because aspartame is
found in so many products, it is very easy to overdose without
realizing it. A child meets the FDA maximum safety limit by
drinking only 5 cans of diet soda per day; a 150-pound adult
would exceed the limit by drinking 16 cans.
This sounds
ridiculous (how many people drink 16 cans of diet soda each
day?), but when you take a vitamin pill with aspartame, eat your
breakfast cereal and hot cocoa with aspartame, have some
aspartame-sweetened gelatin and a soft drink for lunch,
chocolate pudding with aspartame for dinner dessert, and maybe
another soda, it adds up very quickly.
Part of the problem
with the current labeling for aspartame is that the actual
amounts used do not have to be listed, so you really have no
idea how much aspartame you are consuming.
- Debra
Lynn Dadd, Home Safe Home
If you know anything
about the FDA, you’re probably not surprised with all this. That
agency is primarily concerned with protecting the profits of
corporate giants and pharmaceutical companies, not in protecting
consumers.
It’s no surprise, then,
that the "official" position of both the FDA and the American
Medical Association is perhaps the epitome of medical
misinformation:
"The American
Medical Association has agreed with the FDA and many other
regulatory agencies around the world that NutraSweet is safe for
consumption by people of all ages, including children and
pregnant women."
It’s just like the title
of the book, "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!" Really, that’s the
title of a book about the public relations tactics of food and
medicine companies. With all of this evidence available, to suppose
that aspartame is safe for human consumption is ludicrous.
To stand behind its
promotion to pregnant women and young children is nothing less than
criminal.
It goes without
saying that the breast-feeding mother needs to avoid aspartame,
monosodium glutamate, and other chemicals known to induce brain
damage. Just as these substances cross the placental barrier,
they cross into the breast milk and the blood-brain barrier,
passing directly into your baby’s brain to inflict its subtle
damage.
-Carol
Simontacchi, The Crazy Makers
Spinning the truth
about aspartame
With all of the brain tumors, blindness, nerve damage, and other
disorders apparently being caused by aspartame, the chemical’s
manufacturer was facing a growing public relations challenge.
After a considerable
search, I was able to get my hands on a fascinating account of the
thinking that was going on behind the scenes at
Monsanto (which then owned the
Nutrasweet brand) from none other than one of Monsanto’s public
relations managers.
I located this in the
book, Trust Us We’re Experts, which details how the PR
industry engages in lies and distortions to protect their corporate
clients from accountability.
The account:
Speaking at a
November 1996 PR trade conference, Farrell described his
experience managing the image of chemical giant Monsanto’s
artificial sweetener, aspartame (trade name Nutrasweet).
The product was
having a hard time winning public acceptance, he said, because
of "emotional and seemingly illogical responses" from the
public.
"This was
important to our company because we were seeking to grow our
franchise outside the accepted context of diet," he
explained.
In order to
understand the public’s resistance, Monsanto hired a
psychologist.
For years, Farrell said, the company had described Nutrasweet as
"an artificial sweetener." But the word "artificial," it
realized, "conjures up cancer, headaches, rat studies,
laboratories, dueling scientists, allergies, epilepsy, you name
it, none of which are very appetizing."
Referring to
Nutrasweet as a "sugar substitute" was also a mistake.
"People don’t
like it when you claim to be like sugar," Farrell said,
because "memories of sugar take them back to their
childhood, a simpler time when there was less to worry about
and sugar was a sweet treat, a reward... Our own words were
defining our product in a manner that created thoughts of
being unnatural, unsafe, unsweet and led people to conclude
that we believed Nutrasweet was better than the most beloved
food product in history."
The psychologist
also advised them that,
"the American
public admires and takes great pride in discoveries and
innovations gained through hard work."
Armed with this
knowledge, Nutrasweet created "sweetspeak."
According to
Farrell,
"Words such as
‘substitute,’ ‘artificial,’ ‘chemical,’ ‘laboratory,’
‘scientist’ were removed forever from our lexicon and
replaced with words such as ‘discovered,’ ‘choice,’
‘variety,’ ‘unique, ‘different,’ ‘new taste.’"
Using sweetspeak,
Farrell gave an example of how Nutrasweet now responds to the
question: How do you know aspartame is safe?
The answer:
"Aspartame was
discovered nearly 30 years ago. Since that time, hundreds of
people in our company and elsewhere around the world -
people with families like yours and mine - have devoted
themselves to making sure consumers can be confident of
their choice when they choose the taste of Nutrasweet.
People have
looked at our ingredient in every which way possible, and we
encourage that because we want consumers to be comfortable
when they choose Nutrasweet. That has been our commitment
for nearly three decades, and it will always be our
commitment. You can feel confident choosing products that
contain our ingredient, but if you don’t, you have other
choices."
Now if that’s not
serious spin, nothing is.
Additional supporting quotes about the health consequences of
aspartame For your continued exploration on this topic, here are
some additional quotes on aspartame from the books I’ve mentioned
here.
Additional resources are
offered below.
Finally, the
artificial sweetener, aspartame contains multiple breakdown
products and primary components (phenylalanine, aspartic acid
and methanol) that have been shown to increase free-radical
production. For example, formaldehyde and formic acid formed
from the breakdown of methanol, have been shown to severely
damage DNA, most likely by such a mechanism.
Another component,
aspartic acid, is an
excitotoxin that increases
free-radical generation within the brain, especially the parts
related to memory and fine coordinated movements. ...In
addition, the metabolic breakdown of aspartame yields about a
dozen toxic compounds, some of which have been associated with
cancer induction and alteration of brain function.
-Russell
Blaylock, M.D., Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your
Life
Scientific testing to establish aspartame’s safety prior to FDA
approval resulted in brain tumors and grand mal seizures in rat
studies, and depression, menstrual irregularities, constipation,
headaches, tiredness, and general swelling in human test groups.
Furthermore, during human evaluations, two of the subjects
underwent cancer operations.
- Debra
Lynn Dadd, Home Safe Home
Before it is absorbed, aspartame also produces formaldehyde and
methyl alcohol in the intestines. The quantity depends on the
amount of sweetener taken in sodas or in cooked food.
Formaldehyde and methyl alcohol have been cited as producing
eye-nerve damage - to the point of even causing blindness.
-
Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, M.D., Water for Health and Healing
Other side effects of Nutrasweet include headaches, depression,
bladder irritation and feeling as if there is a continual need
to urinate. The latter symptoms are often thought to be involved
with a urinary tract infection. Visual symptoms appear to be
more common with aspartame than MSG and some cases of blindness
have been reported. The relationship of these visual symptoms
with the methanol content of Nutrasweet has been suggested as a
cause.
- George
R. Schwartz, M.D., In Bad Taste: The MSG Symptom Complex
We are now aware of enough credible scientific research
detailing the dangers to memory, sleep, and mood, and much more
that may be suffered by some people using this sweetener that we
discourage its use.
-Michael
Eades, M.D., and Mary Dan Eades, M.D., The Protein Power
Lifeplan
The problem with aspartame lies in over-consumption and the fact
that phenylalanine alone (without its companion amino acids) is
not a normal part of the diet. Large doses of phenylalanine are
toxic to the brain and can cause mental retardation and seizures
in people with phenylketonuria (PKU), a genetic disorder.
For others, the
sweetener may cause chemical changes in the brain that could
contribute to headaches, depression, mood swings, high blood
pressure, insomnia, and behavior problems. In addition, it could
cause your appetite-control center to malfunction, so your diet
drinks could be causing more harm than good. Aspartame may also
cause birth defects and is not recommended for use by pregnant
women.
- Debra
Lynn Dadd, Home Safe Home
Where to learn more
about aspartame
To learn more about not only aspartame, but also the hazardous
health effects of other excitotoxins that people may be ingesting in
dangerously high quantities, I highly recommend the books I’ve
mentioned here:
-
Aspartame: Is It
Safe?
-
In Bad Taste
-
Excitotoxins
-
The Crazy Makers
-
Home Safe Home
Acesulfame-K, yet
another artificial chemical sweetener
Another popular chemical sweetener is
acesulfame potassium, also called acesulfame-K.
Here’s a brief
definition and history of this artificial sweetener:
ACESULFAME K
Acesulfame
Potassium. In a petition filed in September 1982, the American
Hoechst Corporation asked for approval to make this nonnutritive
sweetener, which is two hundred times sweeter than table sugar,
for use in chewing gum, dry beverage mixes, confections, canned
fruit, gelatins, puddings, custards, and as a tabletop
sweetener. The petition, including fifteen volumes of research
studies, said the sweetener is not metabolized and would not add
calories to the diet.
The FDA approved
acesulfame K on July 27, 1988, for use in dry food products and
for sale in powder form or tablets that can be applied directly
by the consumer. It has about the same sweetening power as
aspartame, but unlike aspartame, has no calories. Hoechst
obtained approval to use acesulfame K as an ingredient in
liquids, baked goods and candies.
The sweetener had
previously been approved for use in twenty countries including
France and Britain. Pepsi and Coca-Cola use it in Europe and
Canada in their diet drinks.
- Ruth
Winter, M.S., Food Additives
While acesulfame-K
generates nowhere near the number of health complaints as aspartame,
it was nonetheless shown to produce tumors in animal testing.
As described by Dr.
H. J. Roberts in Aspartame: Is It Safe?:
Several potential
problems associated with the use of acesulfame have been raised.
They are based largely on animal studies since testing on humans
remains limited.
-
It stimulates
insulin secretion in a dose-dependent fashion, thereby
possibly aggravating reactive hypoglycemia ("low blood sugar
attacks").
-
It apparently
produced lung tumors, breast tumors, rare types of tumors in
other organs (such as the thymus gland), several forms of
leukemia, and chronic respiratory disease in several rodent
studies, even when less-than-maximum doses were given.
The FDA says the tumors are
perfectly "normal"
The FDA, which no
reasonably informed person would really trust on matters like this
in the first place, says that the increase in tumors during the
acesulfame-K testing was "normal." That is, those tumors would have
appeared anyway.
But many in the scientific community strongly disagree. In fact,
the FDA has been the subject of
harsh criticism from a long list of researchers, doctors and
scientists who rightly claim that acesulfame-K simply has never been
subjected to stringent safety testing. The testing that has been
conducted so far is not only insufficient, these experts say, but
downright flawed.
Here’s a collection of quotes from several cancer experts commenting
on the safety testing of acesulfame-K testing.
These quotes are
reprinted from the Center for Science in the Public Interest
(CSPI) website:
Sample quotes from cancer
experts’ letters on acesulfame-K testing
"These data do
not permit an assessment that use of this compound would
provide a reasonable certainty of no harm. In fact, there
are indications that it might be carcinogenic.
I would
strongly suggest that a properly designed long term study in
both mice and rats be conducted before Acesulfame K be
considered for approval."
David Rall,
M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Surgeon General, United States Public
Health Service (retired). Former director, United States
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS/NIH).
Former director, United States National Toxicology Program (NTP).
"There are several serious flaws in the design and conduct
of the tests.... The only conclusion one can draw from
looking at the available results is that acesulfame should
be tested in a proper way before an evaluation of its
carcinogenicity can be made."
-- Lorenzo
Tomatis, M.D. Former director, International Agency for
Research on Cancer (IARC), a World Health Organization
agency.
"These studies are inadequate to assess the carcinogenic
potential of the compound. In the face of inadequate study
design and conduct, which would tend to obscure a
carcinogenic effect if it were there, nevertheless there was
at least equivocal evidence for carcinogenic activity in
several studies."
Franklin E.
Mirer, Ph.D. Director, Health and Safety Department, United
Automobile Workers. Member of the Board of Scientific
Counselors of the National Toxicology Program (NTP).
"I find the actual studies and the data analysis seriously
flawed. New tests, properly designed, executed, and analyzed
are needed. The usual consequence of poor tests is to make
it harder to find any effects.
Despite the low
quality of the studies reported to you, I find that there is
evidence of carcinogenicity."
Marvin
Schneiderman, Ph.D. Former Associate Director of Field
Studies and Statistics at the National Cancer Institute.
"...(T)he available data on this compound is at best
incomplete.... Because of the widespread consumption of
‘diet’ colas in the U.S., I concur with your position that
FDA should require comprehensive testing prior to granting
this additional use.
The data on
carcinogenicity are not negative.... (T)he findings are
consistent with potential carcinogenicity."
Ellen K. Silbergeld, Ph.D.
Professor of
Epidemiology and Toxicology, University of Maryland at
Baltimore. Former member, Board of Scientific Counselors of
the National Toxicology Program (NTP).
"...(I)t is clear that questions arising in earlier
--extremely inadequate --studies about the additive’s
cancer-causing properties have not been resolved....
Given the
likelihood that millions of Americans would be exposed to
acesulfame were the additive to be approved for beverage
use, the questions about its carcinogenicity must be
resolved before a scientifically supportable regulatory
decision can be made."
Sidney M.
Wolfe,
M.D. Director, Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.
Former member of the NCI Carcinogenicity Clearinghouse.
In summary, although
acesulfame-K might be less dangerous to you than aspartame, it
remains a substance that should only be used sparingly.
I agree with Eades’
advice on this chemical sweetener:
In the same general
chemical family as saccharin, acesulfame potassium (or, as it’s
usually called, acesulfame K) is potentially fraught with the
same problems relative to cancer causation and the stimulation
of insulin release.
Thus far no human data has emerged (just as
in the case of saccharin) to indict the sweetener as
carcinogenic.
Like saccharin, it’s
noncaloric and stable in liquids and in cooking. Is it safe to
use? In small amounts infrequently, probably so. But once again,
our advice to Protein Power LifePlan Dilettantes and Hedonists
who might choose to use acesulfame K is to use it sparingly!
-Michael
Eades, M.D., and Mary Dan Eades, M.D., The Protein Power
Lifeplan
As it turns out, the
real test of acesulfame’s safety is being conducted right now - on
the entire population.
It will take years,
perhaps decades, for the true long-term results of acesulfame
consumption to become apparent. In the meantime, my advice is to
avoid acesulfame and stick to more natural sweeteners as discussed
below.
The Sucralose
question
The chemical sweetener now rapidly gaining market share is sucralose.
Sucralose is sold under the brand
name
Splenda. Its use is accelerating
rapidly around the world, but is it safe?
Approved for use by the FDA in 1998, sucralose doesn’t have the
track record to prove either its safety or potential dangers to
human health. Of the artificial chemical sweeteners discussed here,
sucralose has the least number of critics, and it hasn’t produced
the avalanche of complaints caused by aspartame.
Once again, Eades’ takes a conservative approach to sucralose:
Sucralose remains
stable, withstands heat in cooking, measures like sugar, to most
people tastes remarkably like sugar with no detectable
aftertaste, and contains no absorbable calories - so it looks
perfect.
But is it? It’s tempting to say so, but based on the
track record of its forerunners, we’d have to say let’s wait and
see.
To date, it looks
like the most promising sugar substitute yet formulated, and
it’s the one we currently use ourselves when we occasionally
need an extra bit of sweetness (which is actually a pretty rare
occurrence for us).
Michael
Eades, M.D., and Mary Dan Eades, M.D., The Protein Power
Lifeplan
Like aspartame,
sucralose was approved by the FDA after minimal testing on human
beings. Although sucralose is made from real sugar, it is
manufactured by altering the chemical structure of sugar molecules
to include chlorine atoms. Chlorine is not a chemical substance that
belongs in the human body.
Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of The No-Grain Diet and
Mercola.com, states the following about sucralose safety:
Few human studies of
safety have been published on sucralose. One small study of
diabetic patients using the sweetener showed a statistically
significant increase in glycosylated hemoglobin (Hba1C),
which is a marker of long-term blood glucose levels and is used
to assess glycemic control in diabetic patients.
Research in animals
has shown that sucralose can cause many problems in rats, mice,
and rabbits, such as:
-
Shrunken thymus
glands (up to 40 percent shrinkage)
-
Enlarged liver
and kidneys
-
Atrophy of lymph
follicles in the spleen and thymus
-
Increased cecal
weight
-
Reduced growth
rate
-
Decreased red
blood cell count
-
Hyperplasia of
the pelvis
-
Extension of the
pregnancy period
-
Aborted
pregnancy
-
Decreased fetal
body weights and placental weights
-
Diarrhea
The sucralose
manufacturer spins the study results
Interestingly, in a fairly typical "Eat toxic sludge!" response by
the manufacturer regarding the shrunken thymus glands experienced by
the test animals eating sucralose, they claimed that the taste of
sucralose was unpleasant to the animals and they simply stopped
eating.
The shrunken thymus
glands were due to starvation, if you can believe that! (Adapted
from the Sucralose Toxicity Information Center).
The fact is, the jury is still out on sucralose. This substance has
in no way been proven safe, and the fact that it uses chlorine atoms
makes it highly suspect in the first place.
This lack of evidence of safety for sucralose is especially
troublesome for people trying to avoid added sugars, since so many
of the available sugar-free now contain sucralose as their
sweetener. So it may not be easy to digest, so to speak, when I
suggest that sucralose is yet another chemical sweetener that should
be avoided by those wishing to protect their health.
The available evidence
doesn’t necessarily prove that sucralose is harmful to health, but
neither has it been proven safe for long-term human consumption, and
until this product is sufficiently tested for widespread human
consumption, I don’t think it’s wise to volunteer as a human guinea
pig to field test a chemical substance that’s manufactured with
chlorine atoms.
Additional resources
for learning more about sucralose
Sucralose Toxicity
Information Center:
http://www.holisticmed.com/splenda
Dr. Joseph Mercola’s site on sucralose:
http://www.mercola.com/2000/dec/3/sucralose_dangers.htm
The inside
story on the FDA and the politics of saccharin
I won’t say much about saccharine, since few manufacturers use this
ingredient anymore. It has been clearly shown to promote cancer and
its use by food manufacturers has dropped to almost nothing.
Informed consumers
already know that saccharin is to be completely avoided, even though
the FDA mysteriously decided in
2000 that saccharin no longer posed a cancer risk and eliminated the
cancer warning label requirement on products containing it.
Saccharin has been
extensively tested for carcinogenicity in rodents over the last
three decades.
Approximately a dozen conventional feeding tests,
one dating back to 1948, have shown that saccharin is
carcinogenic in both rats and mice. While each of these
individual studies may be criticized on some grounds or other,
taken together the weight of evidence proving the
carcinogenicity of saccharin is overwhelming.
In addition to
cancer of the urinary bladder in rats, the predominant tumor
induced in these tests, saccharin also induced cancers in female
reproductive organs, and lymphomas or leukemias in both mice and
rats.
-Samuel S.
Epstein, M.D., The Politics of Cancer
Interestingly, the FDA
actually tried to ban saccharin, which is unusual for the agency.
In this case, it were
thwarted by political pressure from the Calorie Control Council,
an industry group made up of saccharin manufacturers and food
manufacturers using saccharin.
There were profits to
protect, after all!
The FDA proposed
restricting saccharin to fifteen milligrams per day for each
kilogram of body weight or one gram a day for a 150-pound
person.
Then, on March 9, 1977, the FDA announced the use of
saccharin in foods and beverages would be banned because the
artificial sweetener had been found to cause malignant bladder
tumors in laboratory animals.
The ban was based on
the findings of a study sponsored by the Canadian government
that found that seven out of thirty-eight animals developed
tumors, three of them malignant. In addition, one hundred
offspring were fed saccharin, and fourteen of them developed
bladder tumors. In contrast, one hundred control rats were not
fed saccharin and only two developed tumors.
At the time of the
FDA’s announcement, five million pounds of saccharin were being
consumed per year, 74 percent of it in diet soda, 14 percent in
dietetic food, and 12 percent as a tabletop replacement for
sugar. There was an immediate outcry, led vociferously by the
Calorie Control Council. The FDA, urged by Congress, then
delayed the ban.
The moratorium on
prohibiting the use of saccharin has been extended indefinitely.
Ruth
Winter, M.S., Food Additives
In the year 2000, the
FDA, under even more pressure from industry, dropped saccharin from
its official list of substances that may cause cancer. Now, food
products using saccharin don’t have to print the cancer warning.
By simply "redefining"
saccharin, the FDA, which once sought to ban this chemical, has
essentially proclaimed the ingredient to be perfectly safe!
Avoid all
chemical sweeteners and use stevia instead
Looking at all of these chemical sweeteners, you may think I’m just
the bringer of bad news.
It turns out none of
these chemical sweeteners have been proven safe for widespread,
long-term human consumption. And most have been sufficiently
researched to raise important, serious questions about whether they
actually contribute to health disorders.
But I want to tell you there is good news yet to come.
The single best
alternative sweetener is one not yet approved for use in
foods by the FDA: stevia.
Stevia is derived from a plant and
has been used for decades throughout the world as a non-calorie
alternative sweetener. It contains no chemicals or artificial
substances, has virtually no calories, adds nothing to your
carbohydrate count, and does not alter blood sugar levels or cause
the pancreas to produce insulin.
I’ve been using stevia
for years and recommending it to people since 1998. It is the single
best alternative sweetener I’ve seen yet and is becoming
increasingly available in nutritional supplements and even as
standalone products in health food stores.
If stevia is so safe and such a perfect alternative sweetener, then
why hasn’t it been approved for human consumption by the FDA? The
answer is politics. If you know anything about the FDA, you know
that the agency’s demonstrated purpose is to protect the profits of
private industry. Approving stevia as a safe ingredient would
destroy the profits of the manufacturers of aspartame and sucralose.
Some believe, with good
reason, that the FDA has been pressured to avoid approving stevia in
order to protect the profits of these chemical companies.
Regardless of politics, as an informed consumer you can use stevia
in any way you like. And thankfully, many food manufacturing
companies are adding stevia to their products despite the status of
the herb held by the FDA.
I’ll talk more about stevia later, but for now I want to bring you
back to the main point of this section:
that too many
consumers frequently turn to products sweetened with chemical
sweeteners, and as a result, they are turning themselves into
human guinea pigs and consuming chemicals that have never been
proven safe for long-term consumption.
As a person who used to
eat refined carbohydrates and who now avoids them, I certainly
understand sweet tooth cravings.
I can also tell you that
the way to eliminate those cravings, or at least bring them back
under control, is to engage in aggressive nutritional
supplementation. In my experience and that of many others, sweet
tooth cravings are primarily caused by nutritional deficiencies. A
lack of certain minerals, including trace minerals, promotes these
cravings.
When you do have cravings for carbohydrates, it’s best to turn to
foods and drinks that are sweetened with natural sweeteners. Stevia
is my favorite, as I mentioned, but there are many others available
as well (barley malt extract, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, etc).
You can read my articles on stevia, which will include
recommendations on sources, at:
http://www.newstarget.com/stevia.html
Sugar alcohols
When it comes to ingredients that replace the sweetness of sugar,
food manufacturers frequently turn to a class of sweeteners known as
sugar alcohols.
These sugar alcohols include ingredients like maltitol, glycerin,
mannitol and xylitol. There are some annoying side effects
associated with these sugar alcohols, and at least some slight
indications of possible health risks from their heavy consumption.
From Food Additives:
MALTITOL and MALTITOL SYRUP
Obtained by the
hydrogenate from maltose (see). A candidate for a sugar
substitute, it has 90 percent the sweetness of sugar and does
contain calories.
It has the potential
for use in confections and candy coatings. In a cancer study in
rats, changes were observed in the adrenal gland, which included
increased incidence of both benign and malignant tumors of the
adrenal glands in both sexes and a "slight increase" in breast
cancer in female rats.
The FAO-WHO Expert
Committee on Food Additives did not consider these cancers to be
related to treatment. The Committee, however, recommended that
the information database on adrenal overgrowth and tumors
associated with polyols and other poorly absorbed carbohydrates
(see both) be reviewed that the mechanisms of appearance of
these lesions and their toxicological significance be assessed
at a future meeting.
XYLITOL
Formerly made from
birch wood, but now made from waste products from the pulp
industry. Xylitol has been reported to have diuretic effect but
this has not been substantiated. It is used in chewing gum and
as an artificial sweetener. It has been reported to sharply
reduce cavities in teeth but costs more than sugar.
The reason is that,
unlike sugar, it doesn’t ferment in the mouth. Therefore, it is
sold for foods that stay in the mouth for some time, such as
gum, toffee, and mints. FDA preliminary reports cited it as a
possible cancer-causing agent. Xylitol is now used in eleven
European countries and the United States and Canada.
It is also used in
large amounts in the Soviet Union as a diabetic sweetener.
Xylitol was evaluated by the FAO-WHO Expert Committee on Food
Additives in Geneva, April 11-20, 1983. On the basis of
submitted data, the committee accepted that the adverse effects
observed in British studies, in which cancer-prone rats were fed
large doses of xylitol, were species-specific and could not be
extrapolated to humans.
Therefore, no limit
on daily intake was set and no additional toxicological studies
were recommended. It can cause stomach upsets when taken in
large amounts.
It may be of benefit
to diabetics since xylitol metabolization does not involve
insulin.
These ingredients come
from natural sources (yes, even "wood pulp" is a natural source),
but they have a chemical structure that delays digestion and
conversion into blood sugar in the human body. In other words, they
they won’t raise your blood sugar in the way that refined
carbohydrates do.
They do have another side effect, however: in some people, they can
contribute strongly to diarrhea or flatulence.
This occurs because even
though these sugar alcohols are not converted to carbohydrates, they
do pass through your large intestine where your intestinal flora can
consume the sugar alcohols and emits various gases as a byproduct of
their own metabolism. The results can be extraordinary in terms of
the volume of gas coming out of your own body, a phenomenon that has
given rise to the phrase "riding the low-carb rocketship."
In my experience, xylitol is especially potent as rocket fuel, which
is a shame because I think xylitol is a wonderful alternative
sweetener that offers protection against dental cavities as a
positive side effect.
Out of these sugar alcohols, xylitol is also
the most expensive, which is one reason why you rarely see it used
in food products like food bars.
Whether these sugar alcohol sweeteners create a flatulence effect in
your own body is something that you may wish to experiment with,
preferably over a weekend when you’re not planning any social
engagements. When you eat sugar alcohols, these side effects don’t
appear until half a day later, and when you stop eating sugar
alcohols, you have a one-day lag time before your system returns to
normal.
So proceed carefully when consuming these ingredients.
Aside from these rather annoying side effects, sugar alcohols don’t
seem to impose any additional health risks to your system. From the
research I’ve conducted, that makes them far healthier than any of
the artificial chemical sweeteners we’ve previously discussed.
If you find that your
system is somehow immune to the gaseous effects of sugar alcohol,
these natural sweeteners would be an excellent dietary choice. And
even though I still believe that stevia is the best alternative
sweetener of all (with none of the rocketship affects of sugar
alcohols, by the way) sugar alcohols like xylitol have a far better
taste, according to most people.
Xylitol tastes just like
sugar, and it has a similar consistency as well.
Summing up the
good and the bad of sugar alcohols like xylitol
Let’s review
the upside of sugar alcohols:
The downside of sugar
alcohols:
The word of wisdom on
sugar alcohols, according to Eades, is once again "caution!"
Here’s the scoop:
Sugar Alcohols.
These products, such as xylitol, sorbitol, and maltitol, retain
the sweet-taste-bud stimulating properties of sugars, but their
altered structure prevents their absorption from the intestinal
tract. As a consequence, eating them won’t make your blood sugar
rise or spur a release of insulin.
Their lack of effect
on the blood sugar and insulin metabolism has placed them in the
forefront as sweeteners for "diabetic" products, such as candies
and chewing gum. In small doses, they appear to be harmless.
As is our usual
recommendation with artificial sweetening agents, the bywords
are small doses and used occasionally, and for very practical
reasons: since they’re not absorbed and pass through with the
intestinal contents, they can cause what’s termed an osmotic
diarrhea if consumed in large quantities.
Use sparingly!
-Michael
Eades, M.D., and Mary Dan Eades, M.D., The Protein Power
Lifeplan
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