Mar 1, 2008
Organic NZ magazine - March/April 2008.‘Aspartame is the most controversial and complained-about additive in history.’
By Alison White of the Safe Food Campaign.
The Safe Food Campaign believes that the widespread exposure to the artifi cial sweetener aspartame (951) – an addictive, carcinogenic neurotoxin – is causing a public health epidemic rivalling that of tobacco.
Aspartame is an artifi cial sweetener used in more than 6000 products worldwide. It is found particularly in sugarfree and diet products, chewing gum, and sports drinks. Brand-names include Equal and Nutrasweet. It might be labelled 951 or as containing phenylalanine.
It is also in some dietary supplements and medications, but might not be labelled as such because there is no requirement to do so in New Zealand.
Aspartame (L-Aspartyl-LPhenylalanine Methyl Ester) is made up of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, and bound together with methanol. These break down to formaldehyde (used for embalming and known to cause cancer), formic acid (a venom in ant stings) and DKP (known to cause brain tumours). While aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol occur naturally in various foods, aspartic acid and phenylalanine are usually bound up with other amino acids, and methanol is counter-balanced with ethanol.
In aspartame, these compounds are not bound up (isolated phenylalanine is a neurotoxin), and the influx is readily absorbed into the brain, causing an excess of free radicals and overstimulating brain cells. Ultimately, holes are made in the brain.
The most common aspartame symptoms include headaches, dizziness, poor balance, vomiting or nausea, abdominal pain or cramps, change in vision, diarrhoea, memory loss, fatigue and other neurological symptoms.
The 50 per cent phenylalanine in aspartame lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin, and can trigger bipolar or manic depression, mood swings, paranoia, hallucination and suicidal tendencies.
Aspartame is a multipotential carcinogen, can trigger male sexual dysfunction and birth defects, and is particularly dangerous for the foetus in the womb.
Aspartame exposure can mimic and precipitate multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and lupus. It can make epilepsy worse and can cause chemical hypersensitivity.
A report by the United States Food and Drug Administration acknowledged 92 symptoms from aspartame, including death. There are more, however, in the book Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, by Dr HJ Roberts, who has said that every doctor probably encounters aspartame disease in his or herpractice.
Dr Roberts, a diabetic specialist with more 50 years of experience, says that aspartame can precipitate diabetes, simulate and aggravate diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, destroy the optic nerve, cause diabetics to go into convulsions, and can interact with insulin.
His patients notice a dramatic improvement in their condition when they avoid aspartame.
There is no research which proves that use of aspartame in place of sugar helps with weight loss; there is, however, some research that shows that it induces carbohydrate craving, which results in weight gain.
Safer alternative sweeteners include stevia, xylitol (which may act as a laxative in large doses) and Just Like Sugar.
Dr Roberts says that aspartame interacts with drugs like Coumadin, Dilantin, antidepressants, other psychotropic agents, and all cardiac medications.
He attributes this to various reasons, including alteration of the blood proteins to which drugs attach, interference with drug action by amino acids and protein, and metabolic abnormalities in the elderly that are known to enhance their vulnerability to drug reactions.
Dr. James Bowen has described another process by which aspartame interacts with all drugs and some additives, including vaccines, MSG (621), and other artificial sweeteners such as sucralose (955) and neotame (961).
Aspartame was approved for use as an additive in the United States in 1981, even after the FDA refused for more than eight years to approve it because it caused seizures and brain tumours in laboratory animals.
At the time, Donald Rumsfeld (who was later the US secretary of defence) was the chief executive of Searle, which manufactures aspartame, and used his infl uence to get it on to the market. This happened after Ronald
Reagan came to power and a new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, was appointed. Arthur Hayes later became a consultant for Searle and Monsanto.
But why hasn’t aspartame been removed from the market place? For the same reason as tobacco – addiction, profi t and greed. Aspartame has an effect on the dopamine system in the brain, creating a high and resulting in addiction.
People addicted to aspartame will notice withdrawal symptoms if they go without, however, many symptoms should lessen after some days. Former addicts can become hypersensitive to even small amounts.
In 2002, the European Union reviewed the use of aspartame and concluded that there was no reason to change any regulations.
Intense scrutiny was applied to a few studies that showed adverse effects of aspartame, but the same scrutiny was not applied to a number of studies – funded by the industry – which did not show adverse effects. A large number of human studies and clinical reports showing adverse effects were ignored.
Several members of the European Commission Scientifi c Committee on Food had ethical and financial conflicts of- interest with the food industry that should have disqualifi ed them from participation on the committee.
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* The Soil & Health Association has been actively campaigning for more than 10 years to have aspartame removed from our food. Soil & Health and The Safe Food Campaign encourage readers to call for education and restrictions on the use of aspartame.
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References and other reading
- Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, HJ Roberts, MD, 1000-page medical text, Sunshine Sentinel Press (the Safe Food Campaign has a limited supply).
- Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, Russell L. Blaylock, MD. http://www.mpwhi.com/fda_92_symptoms_on_aspartame.htm for the FDA list of aspartame symptoms.
- http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_interacts.htm
- http://www.dorway.com/badnews.html
- The Ecologist, Sept 2005, http://www.mpwhi.com/ecologist_september_2005.doc
- Dying for a diet soda? Chris Wheeler, Investigate magazine, Sept 07.
- Sweet Misery a Poisoned World – see this fi lm for free at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-566922170441334340
- “The Truth About Aspartame” and “Nutrition and Behavior”, lectures by Russell Blaylock, MD.
- Nutrition and Behavior, Russell Blaylock MD
- www.holisticmed.com/aspartame for scientific papers on aspartame
- www.safefood.org.nz for more information and a copy of our petition calling for education
