Aspartame was first approved by the FDA in 1981 as a tabletop sweetener, and for use in gum, breakfast cereal, and other dry products. The sugar like taste of aspartame was discovered accidentally by James Schlatter, an American drug researcher.
Aspartame is the technical name for the brand names, NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, and Equal-Measure. It is an artificial sweetener composed of two amino acids: Aspartic acid and Phenylalanine. Aspartame is commonly used in sugar-free soft drinks, gum, and candy. It is synthetic, genetically engineered sweetener,that is now found in everything from Coke and Pepsi diet drinks, sugarless chewing gum and products to common drugs and dietary supplements available at your local pharmacy and “health food” shop.
Aspartame used in thousands of diet food and drinks has been linked to more than 90 adverse reactions. It has been one of the most widely investigated food poisons in the past 50 years.
Aspartame has been documented as causing headaches, numbness, fatigue, blurred vision and blindness, heart palpitations, brain lesions and tumors, memory loss, dizziness, muscle spasms, miscarriages, sexual dysfunction, irritability, anxiety attacks, vertigo, epileptic seizures, rashes, tachycardia, tinnitus, joint pain, nausea, mood alterations and depression, hearing loss, slurred speech, loss of taste, and insomnia, as well as eroding intelligence and short-term memory.
Some aspartame critics, particularly those in weight loss communities, claim that aspartame contributes to weight gain and obesity due to purported spikes in the insulin level. The argument holds that aspartame causes the body to secrete excess insulin even though aspartame is non-caloric. However, recent studies have shown that aspartame does not increase glucose nor insulin blood levels and cannot be directly linked to insulin resistance or diabetes
The sources and claims of many alleged aspartame dangers and conspiracies have been the subject of critical examination. A 2007 safety evaluation found that the weight of existing scientific evidence indicates that aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption as a non-nutritive sweetener. The researchers then computed daily consumption of aspartame, taking into account aspartame content, portion size, and consumption frequency of each beverage. A 12 ounce can of diet soda contains 180 mg of aspartame, and one liter of aspartame-sweetened soda contains 600 mg aspartame. For a 75 kilograms (165 lb) adult, it takes approximately 21 cans of diet soda to consume the 3,750 mg of aspartame that would surpass the FDA’s 50 mg/kg ADI of aspartame.
In the Philippines, the small political party Alliance for Rural Concerns introduced House Bill 4747 in 2008 with the aim of having aspartame banned from the food supply. The US state of New Mexico introduced a bill to ban aspartame in 2007, and in the UK supermarket chains Sainsbury’s and Wal-Mart subsidiary announced that they would no longer use aspartame in their own label products.
Considering possible connections between aspartame and diseases such as brain tumors, brain lesions and lymphoma, and taking into account alleged conflicts of interest during the approval process, you owe it to yourself to learn the facts, not just what the lobbyists and manufacturer want you to know. If you see someone with a diet drink, ask if they have had any of the typical aspartame side effects. If the claim of a general population effect is true, and that the effect is cumulative (builds up over time), then aspartame would affect older people more than younger people.
There are other users of aspartame who appear not to be suffering immediate reactions to aspartame. If you are using Aspartame and you suffer from “Fibromyalgia” symptoms such as spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss, you probably do not have “Fibromyalgia”, you very likely have Aspartame Poisoning. Unfortunately, many diabetics who have used Aspartame have died. They said that diabetic patients who used Aspartame presented memory loss, confusion, and severe vision loss”. If you drink aspartame and have experienced health problems, then cease your consumption of it (and its cousin MSG) for 60 days and see if your symptoms disappear.
Please contact your doctor with any questions or concerns about using or consuming Aspartame. In addition, foods that contain aspartame must be labelled with a warning ‘contains a source of phenylalanine’.
