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154 Comments
- MikeWeller, on 10/12/2007, -6/+69This news is interesting considering the many previous studies on humans that have concluded aspartame to be a serious threat to health: notable Camfield (1992), Elsas (1988), Gulya (1992), Koehler (1988), Kulczycki (1995), Spiers (1988), Van Den Eeden (1994), Walton (1993).
And an interesting statistic: out of 90 independently-funded studies, 83 of them found one or more
problems caused by aspartame.
Even more interesting is that the FDA has been caught removing negative data from studies done on aspartame (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prwebxml228424.php)
Do you really trust a US government report? - beasty_dave_Mk2, on 10/12/2007, -6/+42Naw, I'll pass on the 'tane, tyvm.
There's too many red flags for me..The bad info just snowballs on google about how bad this ***** is;
"Aspartame, an L aspartyl L-phenylalanine methyl ester, is composed of two amino acids, aspartate and phenylalanine, linked by methanol. Inside the gastrointestinal tract, especially in the stomach, it's broken down into its constituent components. In some instance the dipeptide is lysed within the cells of the gut. As a consequence the methanol is rapidly absorbed and distributed throughout the tissues of the body. Within the tissues, substantial amounts of methanol's two metabolic breakdown products (formaldehyde and formic acid) have been shown to accumulate in many tissues."
I'd rather drink water - mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -5/+30..beer?
- Dradis, on 10/12/2007, -5/+30Sugar is not the culprit, the lifestyle of excess that many people to choose to live is. If you drink a significant amount of soda, you're going to be drinking a significant amount of sugar, and thus calories.
People have been eating sugar and sugar derived products for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, and it's just not a big deal if you eat it in moderation.
When 'problems' come along in people's lives, such as cancer, diabetes, etc. Often people try to find some exterior source for the problem, "It's not me, it's that damn evil sugar!" Yeah, but in fact YOU are the person who chooses to drink 10 cans of pepsi a day. I hope I don't sound cold towards people with health problems, I just think that if people were responsible and exercised a certain amount of temperance, they would lead longer, healthier, and happier lives. - kevinrose, on 10/12/2007, -9/+32aspartame gives me headaches .. I'll stick to tea/juice/water
- ksgant, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Actually, I can't even drink any sugared soda anymore. I've drank diet soda for the past 20 years now. No way could I ever go back. Despite that, I still developed type 2 diabetes....because I'm a lard-ass and have no one to blame but myself for that.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12@ silverstrike
"Yes, because your sample of one subject completely overrules the study with 500,000 participants"
1. This study focused on cancer.
2. It was based on surveys, which means even if all 500,00 were honest, they would have to know about all the aspartame they are intaking.
3. If you saw your own mom degrade to somebody that doesn't recognize words, and falls down randomly, would you take somebody's word for it?
FTFA:
"...Michael Jacobson, head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest..." who is that? ... http://www.cspiscam.com/
I found some articles too:
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/8711/abstract.html (this is a study on Cancer in mice from 2005) NOTE: APM==Aspartame
"The results of this mega-experiment indicate that APM is a multipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg body weight, much less than the current acceptable daily intake. On the basis of these results, a reevaluation of the present guidelines on the use and consumption of APM is urgent and cannot be delayed."
QUICK PEOPLE SUBMIT MORE ARTICLE TO GET THIS ***** OFF THE FRONT PAGE - cavanaughphoto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I found an interesting article on the Alzheimer's Association's website about Aspartame.
http://www.alz.org/AboutAD/Myths.asp - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -16/+26DO NOT EAT ASPARTAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A quick story/history...
My family DOES NOT have a history of Alzheimer's. In fact, my Great Grandma (RIP) and Grandma are both "quicker on the pickup" then nearly ALL of their grandchildren.
However, my mom for about 7-10 years had a problem, she was addicted to dieting and to a lesser extent Aspartame. She ate it on everything, from corn flakes to salad (FSCKING SALAD?!?!). Said it made things taste better. I thought it was nasty.
At 45(!!!!) she is now a walking vegetable, she wears a helmet and hippads for god sakes, why does my little brother (16) have to deal with this *****. The doctors say it's just an advanced Alzheimer's. Her onset took less then a year. Needless to say everybody in the family learned from her and nobody eats it...
the *****... is just that... don't eat it - crosswick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11The fact that Donald Rumsfeld was the guy responsible for pushing it onto the market is reason enough for me to stay away from Aspartame.
- SteaminTmann, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@JohnboiWaltune
Yeah Man, type II diabetes is HILARIOUS.
how would you like the chance to go blind, lose a foot, or die, just to name a few? And in order to prevent that, you have to give yourself daily sugar tests (involves pricking your finger with a needle) and if it gets worse, you have to take insulin shots every day, along with that.
It makes me sick how many jokes there are out there about diabetes, especially in print and on TV.Too many of them illustrate a lack of understanding to the disease. - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14Grammer? Pot, meet kettle.
- kev26, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Just to chime in on this aspartame issue with a personal link. A friend of mine does testing in a lab on food products like this.
One of the projects she had was testing aspartame on mice.
She couldn't believe the increased amount of cancer that resulted in the mice that got fed aspartame. She won't go near any product that has it as an ingredient and just laughs at articles like this that says it's safe.
It's downright freaking scary that they publish stuff saying it is safe like this. - chiefcrazytalk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I hope its true, but they didn't interview me for their study - I used to guzzle NutraSweet since the day it came out (up to 6 cans of pop a day) and 3 years ago was diagnosed with a brain tumor (no, I'm not kidding). connection? Who knows, but I stopped drinking diet pop for that day forward.
- surfdork, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Aspartame IS poision and it's also linked to Gulf War Syndrome.
Guess what happens to the aspartame in diet sodas when they sit in the desert for days exposed to 140 temparatures?
It breaks down into FORMALDELHYDE.
Ever wonder why you don't cook with aspartame? - Ryosen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Aspartame is a poison, plain and simple. Just because the FDA, which relies on payments from corporations in the form of fees to exist, says it's OK, doesn't make it safe.
I can personally attest to the dangers of aspartame having been affected by it. And I consumed it (diet soda) in moderation (2 cans a day).
Read on it. Make your own conclusions. But stop taking other peoples' word as the shortcut for your own thinking.
Oh, and cancer is the least of your concerns regarding aspartame.
http://www.wnho.net/aspartamenews.htm
http://www.dorway.com/indexnew.htm - elvis314, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I don't consume artificial sweeteners because I get headaches. plain and simple. I know a lot of people assert they get a headache because of aspartame (me being one) and people argue that studies have been done to invalidate those assertions. Basically if you get one from drinking a diet coke and not from drinking a regular coke (etc.., etc...) you probably have a reaction to aspartame.
Look a bit deeper into the funding behind the studies before assuming they are accurate. It is interesting how study patients are picked and the study is administered. This goes both for studies showing the positive and negative effects.
I still can't figure out why 90% of products sold have sweeteners added to them? Removing sweeteners from our everyday products would eliminate the need for so many sweeteners and solve a lot of the health problems Americans face. - ArmchairAthlete, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Just dump soda and diet soda altogether and go for water.
Then you won't be getting boatloads of suger & calories, no funky chemicals in artificial sweeteners, and will be getting what your body actually needs... H2O!
That's what I did and I haven't looked back. I rarely drink a soda anymore. - Wiggles2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Great link hypeiv. I found the following excerpt fascinating:
In 1991, at the request of an anonymous complainant, the United States Food and Drug Administration labelled stevia as an "unsafe food additive", and restricted its import. The FDA's stated reason was "toxicological information on stevia is inadequate to demonstrate its safety" [4]. This ruling was controversial, as stevia proponents pointed out this designation goes against the FDA's guidelines, under which any natural substance used prior to 1958 with no reported adverse effects should be recognized as safe. After stevia was banned, several members of the FDA board left their jobs. They were all hired at the Nutrasweet Company (a Monsanto subsidiary) in higher pay jobs, according to National (government) records. This has been criticized as a legal bribe by Nutrasweet to the FDA, to ban Stevia (then Nutrasweet's main competitor) in the U.S.
Forget health effects, that enough is reason not to buy anything with Nutrasweet (aspartame) in it. - JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You people need to look into stevia. It's not an artificial sweetner, it's a natural plant extract that is much sweeter than sugar. Since it is a simple plant extract, and nobody owns the patent on it, a few dollars will get you a year's supply. The FDA banned it in the U.S. due to pressure from the corporations who make artificial sweeteners -- can't cut into the corporate profits.
However, it's the most common sweetener in places like Japan, and it's been used all over South America for hundreds of years. It's been studied extensively, and there has never been any negative effects reported. It also has no effect on diabetics. You can only get it in health food stores in the U.S. It is sold as a dietary aid, because it can't be legally sold as a sweetener. - 8ight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
i rank these bastards number 2 on ***** companies in the US (that i've ever read about)
i will never ingest aspartame and i am very watchful of that
it's in everything! soda, gum, yogurt, ice cream, cough medicine, childrens vitamins. you guys that are just commenting on this should really read into the events that lead up to FDA approval. and read about why natural sweeteners are not getting FDA approval. - mark1372, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Drinks with aspartame are also full of dihydrogen monoxide, the silent killer. What's worse is that it's a colorless and odorless chemical compound that is often found in our own homes, the exposure to which is often swept under the rug, even in our nation's science classes!
- hypeiv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Switch to stevia... its all natural and has been used in japan for like 30 years w/o any known health problems. I think the aspartame in diet cokes gives me headaches so I pretty much gave up soda's all together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia - cavanaughphoto, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Short term memory loss? I'm not suffering from . . . um? What were we talking about?
- jermm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I don't like arifical sweetener because it tastes like crap
- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Ok everyone, start drinking your diet sodas while they're healthy. In two weeks another aspartame article will be released which makes them unhealthy again.
- OneZeroZeroOne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5What jadhl said.
Human evolution has created these things known as taste buds. Trust them.
Where do you think the phrase "tastes like *****" comes from? You're not supposed to eat *****, and your body knows it. That's why ***** tastes bad to us. Diet anything tastes like *****...don't eat it. Eat less of the stuff you're supposed to eat and GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GO FOR A WALK! - ciphex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5umm this is a correlational study not a causational study. it proves nothing and certainly doesn't clear the cancer link. there is plenty of info to say otherwise.
Dugg for the fact that it is a news story i'm interested to hear about. - MrGeneric, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6But drinking fresh fruit and or vegetable juice will lower your risk of getting cancer, and it will not make you fat.
- sadsac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Cool... I go through about 40 packets of aspartame each day. I can't remember my last name. I'm glad the aspartame isn't the cause.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@cavanaughphoto
"Aspartame was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1996 for use in all foods and beverages. The sweetener, marketed as Nutrasweet® and Equal®, is made by joining two protein components, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, with 10 percent methanol. Methanol is widely found in fruits, vegetables and other plant foods."
and the FDA has never made any mistakes before? - T0PS3O, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Add to that the difference between bad fats and good fats. Naturally occuring fats can be broken down and used for good a lot easier than the crap used to make up chicken. "Chicken breast, made of 46% chicken." Rest is crap.
Same with nature made fruit and veg drink vs man made soda *****. - jbus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is BS... There will be another study tomorrow that proves this wrong.
If you don't want a sweetener that will harm you, then use raw sugar or other natural sweeteners like stevia or oligo fructose. - jamesbenet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Aspartame gives me headaches, and in hi quantities like a hard candy it can cause a seizure on me. Ive been to the hospital once already on that crap. I hope it fades away.
- non4prophet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I'll go ahead and not eat something called the "ass part of me". Also, the whole "natural" thing is a ridiculous argument. Everything is chemistry. Somethings are good, somethings are bad. Go rub some poison ivy in your eyes and see how "natural" that feels.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Don't worry about the Aspertame, the benzene will kill you first. http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/03/15/HardTimesSoftDrinks/
- uncleWalrus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Another (perhaps bigger) issue with phenylalanine is a number of people cannot process it and it causes mental retardation--hence the cryptic warning to phenylketonurics on the back of products containing aspartame.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disease/Phenylketo.html - T0PS3O, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Some bottled water is crap as well, indeed. Tap water pushed through RO/DI filters gives you purity to medical standards. The fewer impurities the quicker the body will take up the H2O. The more added *****, the more effort to do something with that water. What goes in got to come out... Or not and that's when things start to go wrong.
Anyway, why eat artifical stuff like man made chemicals whilst there is fresh, natural produce which not only tastes better but is actually *improving* your health, rather than 'not-damaging'.
Tropicana over coke any time of the day! - elvis314, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4why is it that all fat people drink diet drinks and eat "low fat" foods? hmmm.....all of those drinks and food are littered with "sweeteners" yet they don't lose weight
- bkaraff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4more Rumsfeld linkage
http://www.rense.com/general33/legal.htm
"The FDA had actually banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld (currently the Secretary of Defense) vow to "call in his markers," to get it approved." - T0PS3O, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's a shame we pay tax to pay your medical bills. You'll be singing a different tune when you are passing your first kidney stone. "Oh, wish I had actually been drinking water all that time...." Hopefully you'll remember to STFU and not whinge about it when they fire beams of radiation through your skull in an ill-fated bid to get rid of those tumors.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5My last note on this:
FTFA:
"Over the next five years, 2,106 developed blood-related cancers such as lymphoma or leukemia, and 376 developed brain tumors. No link was found to aspartame consumption for these cancers in general or for specific types, said Unhee Lim, who reported the study's findings."
Five years only, and they only looked at two kinds of cancers?
Makes me think - a7bat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I'll just stick to stevia and/or Xylitol as they provide better benefits.
- ski309, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It'd be a lot easier if people just stopped drinking soda altogether, diet or otherwise.
- sirshannon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I don't think you can put much weight behind a study that "measured" the amount of aspartame intake by giving people a survey. Sure, you can get slightly less scientific than that, but not by much.
- Wiggles2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I can't get over how silly you sound saying, "I can't get over how silly Americans sound saying 'pop' and 'soda'.".
- brownb2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Mod parent up. Reputable link from the UK Guardian newpaper stating about Donald Rumsfeld's involvement http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1667771,00.html
- volz0r, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Yeah, but they give the mice the equivalent dose a human consumes in their lifetime all at once.
I have a feeling that just about anything you ingest such large amounts of, with maybe the exception
of water could cause severe health problems. I'm not saying aspartame is safe, I'm saying those
studies where they give 500mg to a tiny mouse is not a reliable indicator. - T0PS3O, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Perhaps no cancer but it still makes your brain go numb... As suggested above, drink water instead. Ideally not from the tap.
- ShawnMilo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Okay, maybe this is superstitious nonsense. But I'm an atheist and don't believe in luck, karma, or any of that.
So my thing is, if you try to get something for nothing (money for free or sweetness without calories), there has to be a catch. Maybe we just haven't found it yet, but one is a scam and the other may be unhealthy.
Maybe artificial sweeteners multiply your chances for certain cancers if you're genetically predisposed to get them. I don't think they have a way to test that yet.
In any event, I avoid "diet," "low-fat," or "sugar-free" food and drink. If I get diabetes it's from lack of exercise or poor diet. I don't need to increase my chances for a terminal illness by ingesting more chemicals than I have to. -
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