Sweet Poison How the World's Popular Artificial Sweeteners Are Killing Us
The food and beverage industry is increasingly replacing sugar or corn syrup with artificial sweeteners in a range of products traditionally containing sugar. Sold commercially under names like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal-Measure and Canderel, aspartame can be found in more than 6,000 products. "Aspartame (NutraSweet) appears to cause slow, silent damage in those unfortunate enough to not have immediate reactions and a reason to avoid it. It may take one year, five years, 10 years, or 40 years, but it seems to cause some reversible and some irreversible changes in health over long-term use. "Aspartame has a profound effect on mood and cognition....depressed mood, anxiety, dizziness, panic attacks, nausea, irritability, impairment of memory and concentration."
Aspartame is the one substance that receives the most complaints to the FDA and yet it remains on the market. The FDA stopped tabulating complaints on aspartame in 1992 after the tally had reached over 10,000 complaints. According to Dr. Janet Hull, one of the top researchers on the dangers of aspartame, the FDA began to categorize the complaints regarding aspartame into generic categories not related to aspartame, "such as death", for example. "If the death by seizure was reported as a reaction to aspartame, the death was recorded as seizure only and not as an 'aspartame' seizure." says Dr. Hull. Before 1992, when complaints were accepted as directly related to aspartame consumption, between 78% and 85% of all FDA complaints were about aspartame.
What Contains Aspartame and Other Artificial Sweeteners?
There are approximately 9,000 products on the market that contain artificial sweeteners such as Aspartame and Splenda Some of them include:
diet sodas
hot chocolate mix
lemonade mix
children's vitamins
puddings
yogurt
chewing gum
flavored water
frozen desserts
gelatins
"sugar free" items
"no sugar added" items
"___% less sugar" items
The FDA seems unwilling, despite ever mounting evidence that this toxic substance is affecting people daily, to reconsider their position regarding its approval. Our own state law makers seem unable or unwilling to protect us further by shelving bills, legislation, and petitions that could potentially save lives by outlawing aspartame. Even some doctors seem more concerned that a ban on aspartame might actually affect the economy adversely, although it seems to be perfectly capable of crashing without the help of a ban on aspartame, than sound science and saving human lives. We can only protect ourselves. For the sake of your and your family's health, check the labels on every item that you put into your grocery cart from vitamins to water to chewing gum.
The last thing you want, is to end up as another ignored complaint on the FDA's website, another ignored name on a petition to law makers, a misdiagnosed complaint in your doctor's office, or another name added to the "unfortunate reaction" list of deaths to this toxic substance.
KEY TO HEALTH - Low Sugar, NOT "Sugar-Free"
Millions of Americans still have no idea that many of the beverages and foods they eat on a regular basis are contaminated with a neurotoxin posing as a sugar substitute. So to help raise awareness about the pervasive presence of toxic aspartame in the American food supply, the Health Ranger, has released a helpful infographic that identifies the top ten worst sources of aspartame.
The infographic highlights the use of aspartame in chewing gums, tabletop sweeteners, flavored water products, sugar-free foods and beverages, diet sodas, drink flavoring products, cooking sauces, children’s medicines, yogurts, and cereals. And while these are not the only sources of aspartame in the food supply, they are among the most common.
“At every point in the fertility process aspartame destroys, beginning with the gleam in Mom and Pop’s eyes: it ruins female sexual response and induces male sexual dysfunction,” wrote Dr. James Bowen, a neurologist and chemist. “Beyond this, aspartame disrupts fetal development by aborting it or inducing defects. And if a live child is born aspartame may have heinously damaged the DNA of the baby, cursing future generations.”
This is just one of the many side effects of consuming aspartame, of course, but it is one of the most serious. Millions of people think that using aspartame instead of sugar will help them safely lose weight, when in fact aspartame is far more harmful than even processed sugars like high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
“Both amino acids in aspartame freely enter the arcuate nucleus (at low dose), cause inappropriate release of hormones, and at high dose actually destroy these regulatory neurons,” says Dr. Madelon Price, another aspartame expert. “This is why sexual dysfunction is associated with aspartame.”
Contrary to the claims made by theU.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and others that aspartame is safe, a wealth of independent research has verified that aspartame is linked to causing autism spectrum disorders, neurological problems, birth defects, and gastrointestinal problems, among other things.
If you think you are making a healthier option because you chose to have diet soda over a regular soda drink, its time to think again. Crafty advertising may have given the term “sugar free” an impression of healthy alternative, but the truth of the matter is that chemical sweeteners are far from healthy.
Despite the dismissive stand of aspartame producers that aspartame is safe for human consumption, various studies over the years have shown that aspartame is actually linked to headaches, migraines, dizziness, tumors and even cancer. The U.S. FDA made public 92 symptoms attributed to aspartame from submitted complaints. Despite its questionable effect, aspartame was approved for use in 1981 and still continues to be so today. Ironically, aspartame was never tested in humans before its approval. Its use in over 6,000 products and by 250 million people has made the public its unwitting guinea pig in a grand experiment 40 years in the making.
Stocking up on diet foods is the best way to gain weight. Latest research on aspartame has revealed that it actually increases the risk of weight gain. Being 200 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame appears to be the perfect answer to dieting since it contains only a few calories while still having the sweet taste of sugar. Unfortunately, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, major components of aspartame, trigger the release of insulin and leptins. The latter are hormones that stimulate storage of body fat.
Moreover, large doses of phenylalanine lower serotonin levels and lead to food cravings. Since both real and artificial sweeteners stimulate the taste buds, they affect the same taste and pleasure pathways in the brain. Artificial sweeteners, however, merely activate but do not satiate the pleasure-related region of the brain, proving to be an inferior system in preventing sugar cravings. In the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, researcher Qing Yang – a faculty at the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology- published findings that revealed artificial sweeteners more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss.
This is over and above the fact that aspartame is also highly addictive. The phenylalanine and methanol components increase the dopamine levels in the brain and cause a certain high. This further creates an addiction that is only made worse by the release of methyl alcohol or methanol, which is considered a narcotic.
Keeping this in mind, it’s time we reconsider the “health benefits” aspartame is supposed to give.