The aftertaste from art sweetners is usually due to the molecular size-the molecules are small enough to briefly get lodged in your taste buds-hence the bitter aftertaste.
Not peer reviewed, but a 2008 report from Duke University on Splenda (so far from anecdotal either):
Here is one real study for you (can't post links yet; haven't posted 50 threads yet-I guess I better think of 42 threads to quickly post so I can finally post links. Sorry mods, I think this policy sucks-it keeps out spammers, but not everyone is a postaholic or even has time to post much-esp if they are following forum etiquette and doing more reading than writing like myself):
Chairman of Citizens for Health Declares FDA Should Review Approval of Splenda
New Study of Splenda and Sucralose Reveals Shocking New Information About Potential Harmful Effect on Humans
MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 22, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- James Turner, chairman of the national consumer education group Citizens for Health expressed shock and outrage after reading a new report from scientists at Duke University. "The report makes it clear that the artificial sweetener Splenda and its key component sucralose pose a threat to the people who consume the product. Hundreds of consumers have complained to us about side effects from using Splenda and this study, published this past week in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Part A, confirms that the chemicals in the little yellow package should carry a big red warning label," said Turner.
Among the results in the study by Drs. Mohamed B. Abou-Donia, Eman M. El-Masry, Ali A. Abdel-Rahman, Roger E. McLendon and Susan S. Schiffman is evidence that, in the animals studied, Splenda reduces the amount of good bacteria in the intestines by 50%, increases the pH level in the intestines, contributes to increases in body weight and affects the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) in the body in such a way that crucial health-related drugs could be rejected. Turner noted that the P-gp effect "could result in crucial medications used in chemotherapy for cancer patients, AIDS treatment and drugs for heart conditions being shunted back into the intestines rather than being absorbed by the body as intended."
The study was conducted using male rats over a period of twelve weeks. The manufacturers of Splenda also used a rat study when they applied for and received approval to market the product from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. At the time, the findings from their rat studies were extrapolated as to possible effects on humans. This is standard FDA practice and this study is consistent with that practice.
Turner said, "This report followed accepted policies and procedures and the results make clear the potential for disturbing side effects from the ingestion of Splenda. It is like putting a pesticide in your body. And this is at levels of intake erroneously approved by the Food and Drug Administration. A person eating two slices of cake and drinking two cups of coffee containing Splenda would ingest enough sucralose to affect the P-glycoprotein, while consuming just seven little Splenda packages reduces good bacteria." Although the effect of consuming Splenda does not result from a one time use, the side effects do occur after accumulated use. Turner also noted unmistakable evidence that Splenda is absorbed by fat, contrary to the claims of Johnson & Johnson.
Turner announced, "We are calling today on the FDA to immediately accept our petition filed over a year ago and initiate a review of its approval of sucralose and to require a warning label on Splenda packaging cautioning that people who take medications and/or have gastrointestinal problems avoid using Splenda. The new study makes it clear that Splenda can cause you to gain weight and lose the benefits of medications designed to improve and protect your health. The FDA should not continue to turn a blind eye to this health threat."
Citizens for Health will testify in Sacramento, CA, on October 3, 2008, before the California Assembly Committee on Health which is examining the use of deceptive advertising to promote sales of potentially unhealthy food additives, particularly artificial sweeteners.
About Citizens for Health
Citizens for Health is an international non-profit consumer advocacy group working to broaden healthcare options, create an integrative health system based on wellness, and advance the freedom to make health choices. The group promotes the fundamental policies needed to improve health choices and information in the U.S. and internationally. The group works with grassroots and education organizations and partners to ensure consumer access to dietary supplements, safe foods, a healthy environment and a wide range of healing therapies. Citizens for Health fosters active citizen leadership and organizes natural health consumers to create political and legislative solutions that support those rights.
Something else to consider is just how new Splenda is (less than 10 years on the market). So naturally you aren't going to find dozens of academic studies on the harmful effects of it. What should set off alarms is how long it took before aspartame chronic toxicity reports began to appear (it is a 30 yr old product) and look at how many thousands of people have been complaining about splenda toxicity in the short time it has been on the market. Aside from research, you can be skeptical all you want-for anyone who has experienced splenda toxicity knows that it is no joke and the fact that it goes away after a few weeks of stopping use makes cause and effect pretty clear for those afflicted. If you aren't affected by it in your lifetime, more power to you.
More articles/sources:
Another page where I can't post the the link-if anybody actually gives a damn about splenda toxicity, they can take .5 minutes to Google it themselves. If not, then save your .5 minutes. It will take me about 6 months to get enough posts to be able to post links, and I am not here to evangelize the world of artificial sweeteners. I don't care if someone likes to drink H2SO4 18 molar for breakfast-it is their business and not mine. I am just posting opinions and info (to reiterate). Just don't make concentrated sulfuric acid a standard ingredient in liquid protein shakes in case some of us want to live past breakfast (to use an extreme and absurd example). Give me the option to choose say dilute phosphoric acid (as in Coca Cola) if I prefer that.
Read Splenda Horror Stories
We have more people on our site that have reported adverse reaction to Splenda than were formally studied in the research submitted for FDA approval. It would seem this collection of data is in some ways superior to the data submitted to the FDA for Splenda approval."
[As of the year 2000 (when the above and below excerpts were written-sorry I can't post the link)]:
"There have only been six human trials to date
The longest trial lasted three months
Food additives don't have to go through a very rigorous process to be FDA approved versus drugs OTOH. And of course they screwed up royally with the more rigorous drug approvals for Vioxx and Bextra. Incompetence and conflicts of interest abound. My Mom was taking the latter drug before it was taken off the market voluntarily by the manufacturer and she started to develop Stevens-Johnsons Syndrome (a potentially fatal skin disorder), had erythemia multiformae (similar), and had her tongue was 2 different shades of color (half-red, half-pink).
The FDA isn't good at much except banning PHs/DSs, and they kind of suck at doing that (not a bad thing necessarily)-they have to get a (notice the word/letter "a") report that some 17 yr old kid has toxic hepatitis b/c he took pheraplex for 6 weeks and then its on the upcoming ban list. Oh and athletes were using it undetected and we all know how much Congress hates it when pro athletes use steroids-reference the MLB hearings-"I love baseball" "I don't love baseball, baseball is a PASSION to me"-SO WHAT!-baseball would have died if not for steroids and McGwire breaking the HR record and rekindling interest in a boring, dying sport where the players were always going on strike because their 250 million/10 year deals weren't good enough-F em and F baseball anyway-just my opinion of that silly sport. Some isolated report of kidney issues-"oh, time to ban x-tren/trenadrol/19-nor-estra, etc". "Oh there are more? We better ban those next year when Congress is back in session. Time to go to my mansion and get blown by a hooker before the wife gets home. What a busy day. I worked 4 hours-I'm beat."
Of course, when you get thousands of reports and lawsuits and several letters written to the FDA requesting that Splenda come with a warning label or be taken off the market, well, nothing happens. It takes a sample size of 0-1 for a PH/DS to get banned, but an equally unofficial sample size of thousands can't get a single artificial sweetener banned or at least include a warning label (or better yet, encourage companies to make more powdered supps that don't have sucralose in them-let the consumer choose-and put Stevia on the menu as an FDA approved, safe, natural sweetener.
Avoiding splenda packets is easy enough-don't buy them! But they put it in damn near everything nowadays so that you have to read the label and look for sucralose (if you are like me and sensitive to it and I am not alone) so you can avoid it. That is the irritating part-some great new supplement comes out-oh, it has sucralose in it, too bad.
And why is the FDA afraid of all natural splenda? Because it works and some people like it and being natural, you can't patent it, make conflicting interest agreements with multi-billion dollar supp companies, and use crappy research methods to approve the food additive. I also remember reading something to the effect that something like 40 of Coca Cola in Japan uses Stevia. That would hurt the sugar industry and the AS industry and they are already at war with each other (sugar comps have lawsuits because of all the splenda-"just like sugar" comparisons which isn't true, especially since Splenda is a chlorinated carbohydrate more similar in structure to DDT instead of sugar). And one of its metabolites has been demonstrated to be a carcinogen in lab rats (1,6 sucralose I think)-liver tumors specifically.
I guess my main point is that the FDA hampers the ability of the consumer to choose what sweetener they want to use by continuing to not allow Stevia to be marketed as a sweetener (and the supp companies could add it in instead of sucralose if they wanted to but they don't-just call it another supp ingredient and it's good to go-but why, everyone likes Splenda?). The FDA also throws caution to the wind due to vested interests and then the pleas of those affected are ignored. That is truly irritating and hypocritical. Only pharmaceutical companies/mfgs should have any interest in whether an unpatentable natural sweetner ever comes on the scene in mass (and they do)-NOT the FDA. But they do, so it is clear that our health is low priority in their eyes in this particular area as well as some others (like the COX-2 inhibitors).
Regarding Pepsi-what-the-hell-ever, aspartame isn't any better than splenda. People have literally died from the neurotoxic effects of excessive aspartame consumption over a long period of time. And no, I don't have the autopsy results.
Aspartame Structure
The structure of aspartame seems simple, but what a complicated structure aspartame really is. Two isolated amino acids in aspartame are fused together by its third component, deadly methanol. In this structure, methanol bonds the two amino acids together, but when released at a mere 86 degrees Fahrenheit, the methanol becomes a poisonous free radical.
Methanol breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde, embalming fluid. Methanol is a dangerous neurotoxin, a known carcinogen, causes retinal damage in the eye, interferes with DNA replication, and causes birth defects.
Aspartic acid makes up forty percent of the structure of aspartame. Under excess conditions, the structure of aspartic acid can cause endocrine (hormone) disorders and vision problems. Aspartic acid is a neuroexicter, which means its structure affects the central nervous system. Hyperactivity is stimulated by aspartic acid, so this structure is not good for ADD/ADHD conditions and should be avoided during pregnancy.
Adverse reactions to aspartic acid are: headaches/migraines, nausea, abdominal pain, fatigue, sleep disorders, vision problems, anxiety attacks, depression, and asthma/chest tightness. The second isolated amino acid in aspartame's chemical structure is phenylalanine, fifty percent of aspartame's 3-D structure. Too much phenylalanine causes seizures, elevated blood plasma, is dangerous for pregnancy causing retardation, PMS caused by phenylalanine's blockage of serotonin, insomnia, and severe mood swings.
I guess Acesulfame K gets a pass:
As with aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, and other sweeteners stronger than common sugars, there is concern over the safety of acesulfame potassium. Although studies of these sweeteners show varying and controversial degrees of dietary safety, the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) has approved their general use. Critics say acesulfame potassium has not been studied adequately and may be carcinogenic, although these claims have been dismissed by the US FDA[5] and by equivalent authorities in the European Union.[6]
Some potential problems associated with acesulfame have appeared in animal studies, since testing on humans remains limited. Acesulfame K has been shown to stimulate dose-dependent insulin secretion in rats, which might aggravate reactive hypoglycemia ("low blood sugar attacks").[7]
Rodent studies have shown no increased incidence of tumors in response to administration of acesulfame K. [8]
