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Diet Soda and other nutrition related stuff

Hey check it out, the other one doesn't say anything about Searle or Nutrasweet either... weird!

Neuropsychological and biochemical investigations in heterozygotes for phenylketonuria during ingestion of high dose aspartame (a sweetener containing phenylalanine).

Trefz F, de Sonneville L, Matthis P, Benninger C, Lanz-Englert B, Bickel H.

Kreiskrankenhaus Reutlingen, Kinderklinik, Universitat Tubingen, Germany.
 
Many studies used in approval or deinal of new drugs are done on lab rats, because they clinically often react similarly to humans.

The cumulative effects derived from the incorporation of label in the chronic administration model suggests that regular intake of aspartame may result in the progressive accumulation of formaldehyde adducts. It may be further speculated that the formation of adducts can help to explain the chronic effects aspartame consumption may induce on sensitive tissues such as brain (6,9,19,50). In any case, the possible negative effects that the accumulation of formaldehyde adducts can induce is, obviously, long-term. The alteration of protein integrity and function may needs some time to induce substantial effects. The damage to nucleic acids, mainly to DNA may eventually induce cell death and/or mutations. The results presented suggest that the conversion of aspartame methanol into formaldehyde adducts in significant amounts in vivo should to be taken into account because of the widespread utilization of this sweetener. Further epidemiological and long-term studies are needed to determine the extent of the hazard that aspartame consumption poses for humans.

This study, while done on rats, is disturbing because humans are more sensitive than rats to formaldehyde. The study on epileptics is poignant because it shows that brainwaves are effected in humans, inducing seizures in persons subject to them. As it effects brain activity, who knows what effects it may have that would go unnoticed by persons uneffected by epilepsy? The first study I posted, on effects on depression, would seem to support this conclusion. Excessive chemical brain activity can lead to neuron toxicity.

I posted a link to these two sources so you can evaluate what I'm saying by study.
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As you can see, 100% of the industry funded studies found no danger in aspartame yet 92% of the non-industry funded studies found problems, ranging from mild to severe, with aspartame ingestion, particularly long-term. Funny, isn't it?
 
Hey check it out, the other one doesn't say anything about Searle or Nutrasweet either... weird!
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Funny, both of those are listed on the page marked "industry funded" the 1989 study by Leon AS funded by Searle and the 1994 study by Trefz funded by NutraSweet. They don't have to reveal their funding sources in the abstract.
 
Please, those websites are made up in away to make aspartame look bad.

First of all, on the non-industry funded study page, thats not even somewhat close, to how many non-industry funded studies there actually have been on aspartame's safety.

If I wanted I could find hundreds of non-industry funded studies that support the safety of aspartame, and 3-4 that don't support it, and make a biased looking website also.

I'm just not that stubborn.
 
Heh, this reminds me of the PETA guys who go on bodybuilding boards and try to get people not to drink milk by talking about all the "puss" and such that it contains, and saying that people can not digest it (which is true if you're lactose intolerant). And according to those PETA dicks, any study that shows that there is some health benefit to dairy products is funded by the dairy industry...
 
If I wanted I could find hundreds of non-industry funded studies that support the safety of aspartame, and 3-4 that don't support it
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I really doubt that. Look, I'm not telling anyone how to live. That's what Congress and the FDA do when they restrict supplements such as prohormones, and I think a majority of people here disagree with those actions. All I was saying is that other drugs which actually are approved, such as aspartame, are often pushed through by lobbying and big money.

This was the case with aspartame. It was banned for years and the National Soft Drink Association attempted to stop its eventual approval. It was only approved when Reagan was elected and, through the pressuring of his friend Donald Rumsfeld removed the FDA commissioner, who refused to approve aspartame. A new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, was appointed who would approve aspartame. He later went to work as a spokesman for the aspartame comany. The Federal investigators who were assigned to determine if there was inappropriate activity in approving aspartame dropped the case, and later went to work as legal counsel for- you guessed it- Searle. Nothing to see here? You decide. But it's funny how since the introduction of aspartame to the human diet in mass quantities that neurological disorders have skyrocketed. All that diet soda isn't making less fat people, either.

Some of these sites may be biased because they have something to sell, but there are hundreds, if not thousands, which don't. They're just ordinary people with no business interest in seeing aspartame removed from the market. I live with one, who has Fibromyalgia, which is similar in ways to Parkinson's and Multiple Sclerosis. She was a heavy diet soda drinker. I saw her go through bottles of Advil in days because of the pain and migraine headaches this degenerative disorder causes. Since we removed MSG and aspartame from her diet, she has improved to where her headaches are infrequent and the confusion, tingling and numbness on the brain she felt everyday have subsided. She still has Fibromyalgia pain, but to say there is not a world of difference is absurd. She didn't want to believe it either, but it was proved numerous times when she would attempt to drink a Diet Mountain Dew that she would shortly later have extreme muscle tightness and soreness, migraine headache nonresponsive to ibuprofen, and a tingling "burning" sensation on the brain accompanied with confusion and depression. These effects are not mild and would take days to fade out completely. It's been suggested by several neurologists that excitotoxins like MSG and aspartame may be responsible for many degenerative conditions, including those mentioned above. I myself never really drank diet soda but I did chew gum like Orbit often. I used to notice that I was more prone to headaches and shortly following chewing gum, I seemed to feel more tired, out of breath quicker, even a little confused. I ditched the gum and haven't looked back. So if I state that, perhaps, aspartame has negative health effects on a long-term basis, it's because I've researched it and lived with it. Believing that the FDA has your back is like believing the cigarette companies care about you. The real question is not, "Is aspartame as harmful as it's suggested?" it's "Do you really want to wait and find out?"
 
You can pretty much find a site for anything in the world that tells you it is bad.

Milk, meat, soy, multivitamins, aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, eggs, carbs, carbonated beverages, steroids, sugar, margarine, butter, the list goes on and on.

For every food, hobby, lifestyle choice, or job in the world, there is someone who thinks that it is the worst thing in the world for you.

/karp
 
For every food, hobby, lifestyle choice, or job in the world, there is someone who thinks that it is the worst thing in the world for you.
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I absolutely agree. However, milk, meat, soy, eggs, carbs, sugar and butter are all natural substances unless modified by modern science. Aspartame is a concentrated form of a methanol derivative. It's the difference between saying, "Too much soy in your diet might be bad for you" and "Drano might be bad for you".
 
Trying to tell a bodybuilder that aspartame or sucralose is bad for them is like trying to tell Asian person that MSG is bad for them. They just love it so much that they can't stand to let it go. I remember this one Asian girl getting mad at me because I said MSG is detrimental. Hilarious stuff.

Personally, I would trust aspartame over sucralose. I think the problems with aspartame come about as a result of phenylalanine imbalance which is an excitatory amino acid, can cause excito-toxicity in those people who don't eat enough complete protein sources. Sucralose on the other hand has very few studies for it, has actually been shown to get fully absorbed in some people (thus making it caloric) and to me it smells like fucking chlorine.

But I don't care cause I can't stand pop for long anyways. If I have more than one cola, the acid starts to cause a sore throat and heart burn.
 
exnihilo said:
Heh, this reminds me of the PETA guys who go on bodybuilding boards and try to get people not to drink milk by talking about all the "puss" and such that it contains, and saying that people can not digest it (which is true if you're lactose intolerant). And according to those PETA dicks, any study that shows that there is some health benefit to dairy products is funded by the dairy industry...
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They're right about most dairy being pretty contaminated. That's why you get your own cow (or better yet a goat) and drink that milk fresh and raw. If you could get fresh raw milk and fresh raw honey you'd be in bodybuilders heaven, those two things are so full of nutrients. Like it says in the Bible, "the land of milk and honey".

PETA pisses me off but I think they're a necessary annoyance... similar to the ACLU. I'd like to punch the ACLU presdent in the face because everythign about him is mind-rakingly annoying.
 
jrkarp said:
You can pretty much find a site for anything in the world that tells you it is bad.

Milk, meat, soy, multivitamins, aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, eggs, carbs, carbonated beverages, steroids, sugar, margarine, butter, the list goes on and on.

For every food, hobby, lifestyle choice, or job in the world, there is someone who thinks that it is the worst thing in the world for you.

/karp
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But you will never find a site that claims oranges are bad for you because oranges kick ass. And by the way, sacharrin is bad for you, that's why anything that comes with it must carry a cancer warning. And yet the FDA still allows it to be marketed in food. Makes one wonder about the other sweeteners...
 
Personally, I would trust aspartame over sucralose. I think the problems with aspartame come about as a result of phenylalanine imbalance which is an excitatory amino acid, can cause excito-toxicity in those people who don't eat enough complete protein sources. Sucralose on the other hand has very few studies for it, has actually been shown to get fully absorbed in some people (thus making it caloric) and to me it smells like fucking chlorine.
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See, I was trying to avoid the sucralose issue. The fact is that the only sweetener proven "safe" thus far has been stevia, and the FDA doesn't allow it to be marketed as a sweetener because big business can't patent it. Sucralose is chlorinated sucrose. The sugar molecule is radically altered by exchanging three chlorine atoms for three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule, resulting in a substance 600 times sweeter than sucrose. So it's like they did to your sugar what you do to your pool. That's where the controversy comes in. Acesulfame K is worse than Splenda. However, I still believe aspartame is more dangerous. The fact that it may affect protein-deficient persons more is not the issue. It affects me, and I am not protein deficient.

The issue is that it contains substances like formaldehyde. This has never been argued. The argument has been, "How MUCH formaldehyde/methanol/formic acid/DKP is consumed by the typical aspartame user?" How much? Wouldn't you agree that ANY embalming fluid might be a bit too much for your daily diet?
 
Brooklyn said:
So it's like they did to your sugar what you do to your pool.
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This statement is so ignorant and oversimplified that it defies comprehension and either indicates an extreme ignorance of chemistry (as well as biology) or is a result of you being a troll. Chlorine is also found in table salt. Maybe we should avoid that too. Oh, wait, salt is essential to life.

I'm not saying that sucralose is great for you, because I don't know enough about it, but that comment is one of the stupidest statements I have ever read. And given what I've seen on internet message boards, that's saying a lot.

/karp
 
This statement is so ignorant and oversimplified that it defies comprehension and either indicates an extreme ignorance of chemistry (as well as biology) or is a result of you being a troll. Chlorine is also found in table salt. Maybe we should avoid that too. Oh, wait, salt is essential to life.
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The statement is simplified in the way that saying chlorine bleach is bad for you, not table salt, which is a naturally occuring molecule. Again, you're talking about digestibility issues. Sucralose, in pre-approval studies, was shown to shrink the thymus gland by up to 40% and have possible immunosuppressive efefcts due to its chlorination. Similar molecular structures to sucralose, i.e. chlorine-replacement molecules can be found in pesticides like DDT. That doesn't seem much like table salt, does it?

The fact is that people have grown to accept processed foods which have dozens of ingredients as opposed to simplified natural foods and as a result they are fatter, dumber and sicker. Cancer, heart disease and neurological disorder rates have skyrocketed. What do you blame it on? Cell phones? It's the food. You can't just chemically extract all kinds of natural substances and expect that the human body will be able to digest them properly. This should be basic biology. Humans are not made to digest industrial chemicals. Hell, half the people out there can't digest lactose, what makes you think they can take modified food starch, autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed wheat gluten, aspartame, monosodium glutamate (Wait- it's got sodium in it - that stuff's in salt, must be safe, right?) or any of the other man-made chemicals produced without a true working knowledge of what will happen when digested. Am I a molecular biologist? No, and I don't need to be. It's common sense. Calling me a troll won't change that. Go watch "Super Size Me" a few times for the extremely simplified version and get back to me.
 
I never said that a lot of the food that we eat isn't bad. But your original statement was the equivalent of "Chlorine is bad, mmmkay?"

/karp
 
You may not be a troll, but you are a zealot. And again, a lot of what you say is greatly oversimplified. The mere fact that a component of food is artificial does not make it necessarily harmful. Neither does its possible other uses or similarities it has to other chemicals.

A lot of the rhetoric you spout makes me wonder if you are from some kind of advocacy group and this whole thing is a project of yours.

/karp
 
I never said that a lot of the food that we eat isn't bad. But your original statement was the equivalent of "Chlorine is bad, mmmkay?"
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It's just perhaps my confidence in the intelligence (not brotelligence) of persons on this board that they would take that statement "with a grain of salt" (har har) and research it themselves before coming to a conclusion. I did. I hate having to watch what I eat. If I could, I'd eat junk all day, because it's convenient, sweet and that's what I was fed growing up. But I can't, in good conscience, do that while knowing what I have learned about nutrition. Being as this is a "Nutrition and Diet" section of a forum with guys who it seems are generally very keen on maintaining a proper diet, I thought some stimulation of thought into nutrition of diet foods might be a good idea. Some people might read it and blow it off, and maybe somebody will say, "Hey, maybe the headaches and weird symptoms I've been having might have something to do with the aspartame and stuff I take in?" and they'll stop using it and feel better. That would be the goal, not to troll around.
 
You may not be a troll, but you are a zealot. And again, a lot of what you say is greatly oversimplified. The mere fact that a component of food is artificial does not make it necessarily harmful. Neither does its possible other uses or similarities it has to other chemicals.

A lot of the rhetoric you spout makes me wonder if you are from some kind of advocacy group and this whole thing is a project of yours.
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I'm no more a zealot than Morgan Spurlock in "Super Size Me". He didn't provide science any more detailed than mine, yet watching McDonalds fries stay exactly the same for 8 weeks with no visible degradation says enough on its own. People that complain about advocacy groups are usually in the Republican fold... but isn't the backbone of the Republican Party supposed to be red meat and decisive action? You can't worry about everything you eat, however, if there are 100 studies which show that an additive chemical sweetener contains formaldehyde, and the argument is whether it's too much for human consumption, I'm sorry, I'm a little concerned.

Overcomplicating things is the problem here. Formaldehyde, methanol, formic acid, DKP = bad. Aspartame contains formaldehyde, methanol, formic acid, DKP. Pretty simple to figure out whether you would like the stuff or not. When we allow excessive complication we end up with cigarette companies claiming their product does not cause cancer. Monsanto, the GMO producer which owned NutraSweet, is no more ethical than Philip Morris. They still claim that Agent Orange is not toxic.

The National Soft Drink Association, of which Coke is a member, wanted to keep aspartame out of soda. They stated in a protest letter prior to it's unbanning, "aspartame is uniquely unstable in aqueous media." If Coke says aspartame is unstable, why do you have such a problem taking my word for it?
 
You know its one thing to put your opinions up and your reasons behind them, and let the people decide.

It's another to constantly reiterate the same exact points and redundantly shove them down peoples throats.

This is why your being called a Troll. :type:

You've said what you wanted to say and you've said it the same exact way many times over and over again.

How about we either let this never-ending argument die now, or we go back to arguing on why it shouldn't be called Pop.
 
You know its one thing to put your opinions up and your reasons behind them, and let the people decide.

It's another to constantly reiterate the same exact points and redundantly shove them down peoples throats.
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Didn't I say, way back here...
I don't want to be disruptive on the board, so I'd like to end it there. You don't believe me, ok. But I'm not making this stuff up.
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Then somebody had to keep posting studies, stating that I was speaking "rhetoric" and "jumping on a bandwagon" etc etc. I felt like I was target of the night on Bill O'Reilly lol. So I backed up my points with solid research and facts, and what do you say?

You've said what you wanted to say and you've said it the same exact way many times over and over again.
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No, I said it once, you questioned it, and I explained. You debated, and I expounded in great detail. I could say that you've repeatedly shoved "aspartame is safe" down people's throats in this thread. So once again, believe what you like. Even Coke has stated differently in the past. Oh, and it's soda. :lol:
 
Brooklyn said:
See, I was trying to avoid the sucralose issue. The fact is that the only sweetener proven "safe" thus far has been stevia, and the FDA doesn't allow it to be marketed as a sweetener because big business can't patent it. Sucralose is chlorinated sucrose. The sugar molecule is radically altered by exchanging three chlorine atoms for three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule, resulting in a substance 600 times sweeter than sucrose. So it's like they did to your sugar what you do to your pool. That's where the controversy comes in. Acesulfame K is worse than Splenda. However, I still believe aspartame is more dangerous. The fact that it may affect protein-deficient persons more is not the issue. It affects me, and I am not protein deficient.

The issue is that it contains substances like formaldehyde. This has never been argued. The argument has been, "How MUCH formaldehyde/methanol/formic acid/DKP is consumed by the typical aspartame user?" How much? Wouldn't you agree that ANY embalming fluid might be a bit too much for your daily diet?
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I know what you're saying about the sucralose issue. But speaking of formaldehyde, how much of that do you think you breathe from hot water vapors when you shower? How much chlorine vapor? I'm just going off on a tangent.

Stevia is the ****, it tastes the best too. That's why my favorite protein is NOW Foods Whey Protein Isolate. $16 for 2 lbs of WPI and it is all natural.
 
Brooklyn said:
I'm no more a zealot than Morgan Spurlock in "Super Size Me". He didn't provide science any more detailed than mine, yet watching McDonalds fries stay exactly the same for 8 weeks with no visible degradation says enough on its own. People that complain about advocacy groups are usually in the Republican fold... but isn't the backbone of the Republican Party supposed to be red meat and decisive action? You can't worry about everything you eat, however, if there are 100 studies which show that an additive chemical sweetener contains formaldehyde, and the argument is whether it's too much for human consumption, I'm sorry, I'm a little concerned.

Overcomplicating things is the problem here. Formaldehyde, methanol, formic acid, DKP = bad. Aspartame contains formaldehyde, methanol, formic acid, DKP. Pretty simple to figure out whether you would like the stuff or not. When we allow excessive complication we end up with cigarette companies claiming their product does not cause cancer. Monsanto, the GMO producer which owned NutraSweet, is no more ethical than Philip Morris. They still claim that Agent Orange is not toxic.

The National Soft Drink Association, of which Coke is a member, wanted to keep aspartame out of soda. They stated in a protest letter prior to it's unbanning, "aspartame is uniquely unstable in aqueous media." If Coke says aspartame is unstable, why do you have such a problem taking my word for it?
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Part of the reason with the fries is the amount of fat. Oils can slow degredation. Put a vegatable in a jar of water and another in a jar of oil and tell me which one rots first. The fact that they didn't degrade, of course, speaks volumes about how much fat is in them.

The manner in which you post, particularly the quickness with which you respond and the length of your answers, suggests that you have this kind of information and examples ready to go, especially in the form of arguments and counterarguments (it almost seems like you have a list of talking points to use). Someone as well prepared as you are for a discussion like this (and that is a compliment) is, in my estimation, someone with an agenda, likely someone from an advocacy group.

/karp
 
Rhetoric.. jumping on a bandwagon, and now "talking points." Yep, I'm on Bill O'Reilly's show. I'm quick to respond because my brain isn't weighed down by all that MSG, aspartame and trans fat :lol: The McFries were placed in a jar next to a jar with fries made at a local NYC diner. Guess what? The fresh, actual potato fries from the diner turned moldy within a day. The McDonalds fries literally looked the same as purchase after 8 weeks. It was scary. It took a Big Mac almost 2 weeks to break down and get moldy, as compared to a day for a burger from said diner. He would have run the experiment longer but some disgusted intern threw the fries out. Obviously you haven't seen the DVD, probably not the film either.

No one prepares me but myself. I'm sorry that good debate skills are at a premium today. I grew up around people who like it told as it is, not as the government or big business says it is. So I'm opinionated. That's what most news is nowadays, opinion. Just ask Mr. O'Reilly.
 
Yes it's always a conspiracy. Big business. Government. Maybe a military industrial complex.

The fries thing doesn't surprise me. McD's fries are so thin that they probably were soaked to the core with the grease, while fresh cut fries were probably thicker and less exposed to the oil. I haven't seen the movie yet, so that's an interesting point that I didn't see anywhere.

If you are just that well informed and prepared because this is an issue about which you care greatly, then kudos to you. There are a couple subjects about which I could respond just as quickly and completely and with just as much vigor, and I'm not a member of any advocacy groups. However, I just graduated from law school, so I recognize a well prepared adversary when I see one, and I tend to get suspicious when someone is so well prepared in this sort of context (that is, an internet forum).

You are entitled to your opinion, as am I. There are studies that support your point of view, and there are studies that support mine. People will get suspicious of you, however, if every time someone points to something that contradicts your views, you claim that it is biased or influenced by "big business."

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(from the above link): "Although a 330 ml can of aspartame-sweetened soft drink will yield about 20 mg methanol, an equivalent volume of fruit juice produces 40 mg methanol, and an alcoholic beverage about 60-100 mg. The yield of phenylalanine is about 100 mg for a can of diet soft drink, compared with 300 mg for an egg, 500 mg for a glass of milk, and 900 mg for a large hamburger (1)... Clinical studies have shown no evidence of toxic effects and no increase in plasma concentrations of methanol, formic acid, or phenylalanine with daily consumption of 50 mg/kg aspartame (equivalent to 17 cans of diet soft drink daily for a 70 kg adult) (1, 2)."

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I know you're not going to say that methanol from fruit juice is ok but methanol from diet soda is not.

/karp
 
jrkarp said:
Although a 330 ml can of aspartame-sweetened soft drink will yield about 20 mg methanol, an equivalent volume of fruit juice produces 40 mg methanol

The yield of phenylalanine is about 100 mg for a can of diet soft drink, compared with 300 mg for an egg, 500 mg for a glass of milk
/karp
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Now that is classic.
 
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Hmm weird formaldehyde is naturally occuring in fresh bread and shrimp. Guess we can stop eating those along with the methanol infested fruit juice, since these foods harbor the similiar "so called" dangers of aspartame.

Oh and lets not forget Eggs and Milk have MUCH more phenylalinine than a glass of diet soda.

So if you drink a glass of fruit juice, 2 whole eggs and a glass of milk your getting

40mg Methanol and 1.1gram of phenylalinine.

Which is double the amount of methanol in a can of Diet Soda and 11 times as much phenylalinine.

Eggs and Milk are the staple of many an extremely healthy persons diet. So I guess it is pretty safe to say methanol and phenylalinine consumption have no adverse effects in a normal person. Atleast in amounts much higher than that in diet soda.

But wait a minute, a terribly large amount of people consume a very large amount of shrimp and bread on a daily basis, in many different parts of the world. And you rarely hear of the adverse health effects of shrimp and bread.

Is it safe to say that formaldehyde produces no adverse effects in a persons diet either?
 
Just say no: Artificial sweeteners a health hazard

Dr. Rodney Shoemaker
Special to the Bonanza
May 6, 2005

Aspartame was accidentally discovered in the 70s while researchers were formulating an ulcer drug. It is a chemical food additive, not a food. In 1983, Aspartame was introduce to the U.S. population in soda pop. Brain tumor incidence rose 10 percent, while other cancers stayed the same, the same year. In 1988, 80 percent of food related complaints to the FDA were Aspartame related. It also goes by the brand names Equal and NutriSweet. Crystal Light and sugar-free Kool Aid, diet sodas and sugarless gum are also products that use Aspartame as an artificial sweetener.

Aspartame breaks down into three chemicals inside your body, aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. Aspartic acid over-stimulates the brain and nervous system. Some nerves over stimulate to the point of exhaustion and die. Phenylalanine disrupts the balance of natural chemical messengers in the brain. This change in ratios creates mood swings, seizures and brain tumors. The poisonous effects of the last chemical, methanol, wood alcohol, are well known. Methanol toxicity mimics multiple sclerosis symptoms and can cause hearing and visual problems. Methanol also turns into formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is an embalming fluid and is 5,000 times more poisonous than the type of alcohol that we drink. Formaldehyde stores in the fat cells around the hips and thighs.

Aspartame disrupts protein production, DNA production, nerve communication and chemical messenger balance. It lowers the seizure and depression threshold and causes behavior and brain chemistry changes, making people who are already vulnerable more at risk. Common symptoms mimic multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus and fibromyalgia.

Everyone reacts differently, which makes diagnosis very difficult. Common symptoms include cloudy or foggy thinking. Even if you don't consciously feel the effects, you will have mild effects at a sub-clinical level. It's not a coincidence that many people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus are heavy diet soda drinkers. Children are especially at risk and should not be given any Aspartame products.

Aspartame was approved for consumption through political manipulation, not safety standards. The makers of Aspartame fund the American Diabetic Association and the American Dietetic Association. People think that they are being health conscious when they consume diet related products. For some people, their symptoms improve with elimination. For others it does not. Why put yourself and family at risk? Say no to artificial sweeteners.

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"Although a 330 ml can of aspartame-sweetened soft drink will yield about 20 mg methanol, an equivalent volume of fruit juice produces 40 mg methanol, and an alcoholic beverage about 60-100 mg. The yield of phenylalanine is about 100 mg for a can of diet soft drink, compared with 300 mg for an egg, 500 mg for a glass of milk, and 900 mg for a large hamburger (1)... Clinical studies have shown no evidence of toxic effects and no increase in plasma concentrations of methanol, formic acid, or phenylalanine with daily consumption of 50 mg/kg aspartame (equivalent to 17 cans of diet soft drink daily for a 70 kg adult) (1, 2)."
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Talk about pulling the wool over... Methanol is naturally occurring, yes. I stated that. It's present in many fruits, etc. The point is that, in all natural sources, it is counterbalanced by ethanol, which negates its harmful effects. If you take table salt, break it up into its two components, it becomes Sodium, an unstable solid which explodes in water and Chlorine, a poisonous greenish gas. Get the idea? Methanol without ethanol is toxic, and there is no ethanol in aspartame. The sources you're listing all base their evidence on studies funded by the aspartame industry.

Are you aware that may drugs, like Zoloft, for instance are approved because the company in question "ghost-writes" the statements purporting its safety, then pays a few doctors to sign their name to the papers? You would think that people on a bodybuilding forum would be less inclined to take what the FDA and pharmaceutical companies say at face value. Perhaps it's just the stubbornness of not wanting to concur that there may be a health hazard.

Why have people's health degenerated so rapidly over the last 50 years? Why do so many people need antidepressants now? Were they all depressed before and didn't know it? Why is medical science so much more advanced and yet we have more sick people than ever? More cancer than ever? More neurological disorders than ever? More obesity than ever? It's not overhead power lines and tainted tap water, gentlemen. It's the diet of the average person. It's been proven that as Americanized foods spread across the world, the rest of the world is getting fatter and sicker, whereas they used to laugh at the U.S. for these same reasons. If you wish to believe that this is all in people's heads, feel free to. Aspartame is a legal substance, and you can eat Hot Pockets or Campbell's Soup all day if you like. But don't say you didn't know.
 
There are not more depressed people now (by a percentage, since there must be by numbers due to the increase in population). There are not more much more cancer. There are not more neurological disorders. There are not more sick people.

Why are they more prevalent now, then? Because we have more doctors now. Because we have better diagnostic tools now. Because we know what to look for now and we have tests to discover more problems now. Because there is more access to health care now. Because mental health care is far more prevalent. Because people live longer, and many ailments are more likely to occur as the aging process advances.

50 years ago there were no MRIs, no CAT scans, no PET scans. Antibiotics and x-rays were state of the art. The US and most of the developed world were just coming out of a rural lifestyle where yearly doctor visits were uncommon. Many deaths back then that were attributed to natural causes were likely the result of ailments that could not be detected due to the crude nature of medicine at the time.

Please provide some documentation as to your allegations about Zoloft from a neutral, non-biased source.

I agree about how our food is making the world fatter, and I find lawsuits against fast food chains asinine. I do believe that our high sugar, high fat lifestyle is causing a lot of our health problems.

However, you seem to think that the information relating to aspartame's dangers comes from altruistic sources that care only for people's well being, while anything that says that aspartame is safe comes from shills for the sweetener industry. I find this to be untenable. If the science behind these dangers was so solid and the evidence was uncontrovertable, the media would surely run some kind of expose during sweeps to expose all of this. While I think that the media are a bunch of whores, they certainly know how to get ratings, and a major health threat on the order of magnatude that you suggest would certainly get ratings.

Oh wait. It must be a conspiracy. Everything's a conspiracy with you people.

/karp
 
There is one side that proves it's terrible for you, then there is another proving the opposite. Even if one is Big Government (the indiscriminant eating machine that's out to destroy everything, or so they say ;)) the same argument for bias can be made for both sides. The fact is, anything overconsumed is not good for you in some form. I happen to think that a little aspartame every now and again isn't going to burn a hole in my brain, but if you want to avoid it like the plague more power to you. Even if it does eat my brain, after 30 seconds in heaven it don't think I'm going to care about that.
Romans 14:5
One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
 
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