Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners?

I don't really know why, but I've always had an instinctive mistrust of artificial sweeteners. I've always preferred to use moderate amounts of sugar/honey/fruit to sweeten my foods.

There's tons of info on the net referring to the perils of artificial sweeteners. Much of it may seem a little outlandish and conspiratorial, but where there's money to be made, there's usually no shortage of skullduggery.

Does anyone have any info or opinions on some of the claims made, in relation to aspartame and artificial sweeteners in general?

http://dorway.com/dorwblog/?page_id=46

If only MT had a Diet & Nutrition forum.....
There's a lot of info out there on the internet. Some of it is excellent, some of it is total bollox and there are a million shades of grey in-between. How does one distinguish excellence from total bollox? Therein lies the problem.

Fact: Aspartame is the methyl ester of phenylalanine & glutamic acid.
Fact: Aspartame hydrolyses into methanol, phenylalanine & glutamic acid.
Fact: Aspartame is ~180 times sweeter than sugar so 1 tsp of sugar (~4g) is equivalent to ~22mg of aspartame.

Is anything in the linked article relevant? As Kenneth Williams put it..."Infamy! infamy! They've all got in in for me!"

If aspartame gives you a headache, stop using it. I prefer sucralose as it doesn't hydrolyse anywhere near as much as aspartame so you can cook with it.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the conspiracies.

Donald Rumsfeld had a hand in its entrance to the market.  He is satan.  Nuff said.

Sucralose, that's Splenda isn't it?

Does anyone give any credence to these claims?

http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/sucralose.html

Eat, drink and do everything in moderation and you will be fine.

Just don't what ever you do, kiss with tongues!

I've seen that Mercola page before. Someone has a skin reaction to something they eat and the only ingredient not recognised is sucralose. Therefore that's what must have caused it. Very scientific. If the skin reaction was caused by sucralose, it's not exactly life-threatening.

Reactions to peanuts is often fatal. Have peanuts been banned because of this?

Fact: Sucralose is a sucrose molecule with 3 of the OH groups replaced by Cl.
Fact: Sucralose hydrolyses very slowly.
Fact: Sucralose is ~600 times sweeter than sugar so 1 tsp of sugar (~4g) is equivalent to ~6mg of sucralose.

Typical quantities of sucralose ingested are very small....3 times smaller than aspartame. I don't get a reaction to sucralose so I'm happy to continue using it.

See http://www.kon.org/urc/frank.html

Aspartame breaks down into formaldehyde in your liver, slows liver function, and one packet can take upto 18 months to process...

Splenda or Sweet and Low cant remember which, contains calcium silicate this is the stuff you find in shoe boxes to stop moisture build up... what does it say on those packets??? DO NOT EAT!!!!!

Chlorine is also used in the manufacture of some of these sweeteners, chlorine has the pleasurable effect of scarring your arteries, causing them to fur up (atherosclerosis)..

My opinion your best off with natural sugars like you've been doing, i personally advise clients not to use them..   

LOL @ your rational.  Just because one of the thing that it contains is found in a stubstance that is toxic a lower doses doesn't make that single chemical bad.

The process of digesting aspartame goes something like this. Phenylalanine is broken down into methanol. Methanol is broken down into formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is turned to formic acid. Ultimately the formic acid is turned into water and carbon dioxide.

Ah you cry, but aren't methanol (also known as wood alcohol) and formaldehyde (commonly used as an organic preservative, embalming fluid, for example) highly toxic substances? Yes, they are. But it's important to remember that the human body is a happy little chemical factory built to handle the conversion of methanol and formaldehyde into water and carbon dioxide.

Get your facts right

GT_PT
Aspartame breaks down into formaldehyde in your liver, slows liver function, and one packet can take upto 18 months to process...

18 months for the liver to metabolise formaldehyde? I don't fink so! Got any scientific evidence to support this?

GT_PT
Splenda or Sweet and Low cant remember which, contains calcium silicate this is the stuff you find in shoe boxes to stop moisture build up... what does it say on those packets??? DO NOT EAT!!!!!

Calcium silicate is non-toxic. It might clog your oesophagus if you swallowed a packet, however.

GT_PT
Chlorine is also used in the manufacture of some of these sweeteners, chlorine has the pleasurable effect of scarring your arteries, causing them to fur up (atherosclerosis)..

Swimming pool water is loaded with chlorine and can make your eyes sore & red. Is swimming in chlorinated water banned? Table salt is ~50% chlorine and forms chloride ions when eaten. Stomach acid is hydrochloric acid. Do you see where this is going?

GT_PT
My opinion your best off with natural sugars like you've been doing, i personally advise clients not to use them..

Natural sugars in their natural form (i.e. within plants & whole fruits) are fine. Large amounts of refined sucrose or glucose-fructose syrup in soft drinks aren't.

On sugars then if brown suger better than white, less refined basically?

man i love sucralose

As Nige

go to underground wellness on youtube an you will see what he says about Aspartame, stay well away 4rm it the stuff is poison ,when it was 1st interduced brain tumers started to rise alot ,i started taking it a while bck an started to get real bad headaches then found out wat it does 2 u so i fukd it out an no more headaches .

dublin guy


go to underground wellness on youtube an you will see what he says about Aspartame, stay well away 4rm it the stuff is poison ,when it was 1st interduced brain tumers started to rise alot ,i started taking it a while bck an started to get real bad headaches then found out wat it does 2 u so i fukd it out an no more headaches .

There you have it - solid proof.  Someone on the internet say's it's poison so it must be

dublin guy


go to underground wellness on youtube an you will see what he says about Aspartame, stay well away 4rm it the stuff is poison ,when it was 1st interduced brain tumers started to rise alot ,i started taking it a while bck an started to get real bad headaches then found out wat it does 2 u so i fukd it out an no more headaches .

See my post above before spouting rubbish that you don't understand out that you 'read on the internet' so it 'must be true'.  Mate, if you are getting headaches, I don't think its from brain tumours you fool that go away if you stop drinking a drink containing Aspartame LOL.

I'm personally happy to discuss it with people with rational arguements about it being terribly toxic but your sourcing of data is somewhat flawed!

Regarding quality of evidence on the internet:-

At the bottom of the pile is inexpert opinion. Basically, anyone can say anything but that doesn't make it true! This includes anything that I say, which is why I try to back up what I say with evidence from higher up the pile.
Next up is anecdotal data/testimonials.
Further up the pile is expert opinion. Even "experts" with lots of letters after their name have personal bias, hence the controversy over MMR, HIV/AIDS, lipid hypothesis etc.
Further up the pile is epidemiological data. A being associated with B doesn't mean that A causes B, as the association may be due to random chance or due to both being caused by C, D, E.....etc.
Further up the pile is case study data.
Further up the pile is data from small/non-randomised/unblinded trials.
At the top of the pile is data from large, randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover trials.

However, even at the top of the pile, an outcome can be manipulated by tweaking the methodology (e.g. using pre-trial screening) so if a trial is funded by a large company, the methods used need to be examined. In addition, the abstract can mis-represent the full study.

Oy!

Really good post Nige - and this applies to everything in nutrition.

Though I do think there's one more level right at the very top:
Meta-analysis studies, where a number of different unrelated studies are looked at together to minimise any bias

I've seen some meta-studies where results from trials with significantly different methodologies were cobbled together so even these aren't perfect.

I left some words out of my previous post....will edit.

nice list nige - would you say the more maths involved the more likely the evidence is to be accurate?
i think almost everybody comes to their opinion first and then searches around for a bit of evidence to tack on afterwards. so even if a person cant back their opinion up, it still has some weight.

I still don't trust aspartame. 

And there are a few medical doctors who have raised concerns.