Aspartame - Calorie-free Pleasure, Or Dangerous Substitute?

We know that eating sugar contributes to our expanding waist lines and manufacturers have hit on artificial sweeteners like aspartame as a means for us to have our cake and eat it too. Artificial sweeteners hardly add to our calorie intake, and allow us to indulge our sweet tooth without guilt or consequence, right?

Given the explosion of diet drinks and hundreds of other 'sugar free' products on the market advertisers seem to have convinced millions of us that this is true.
But is it?

Aspartame is present in 6,000 or so products and the consumption of diet drinks alone has become almost epidemic especially among young teens in the west.
With industry expanding into China the number around the globe is set to explode globally.

Since its approval by the FDA in 1981 the inclusion of this artificial sweetner in foodstuffs has become a multi billion dollar business.

Government agencies would have us believe that this sweetner is safe. However some medical physicians and many researchers and consumer groups disagree.

Questionable Research?

Many studies into the safety of Aspartame conducted during the approval process for the substance were industry funded. These studies all returned results showing it to be safe, whereas the vast majority of the independent studies that were conducted, found it to be unsafe.

This particular sweetner was the most heavily contested substance for FDA approval ever.

After a prolonged period (about ten years) the various studies showing this artificial sweetner to be safe came under fire for the manner in which they were conducted. Despite this, the FDA head at the time overruled the conclusions of several members of the FDA board and approved it for inclusion in food stuffs.

Toxicity Effects On The Body

Independent studies continue to question the rightness of the FDA's decision and have shown this sweetner to be toxic to many body systems:

• In a large 11-year study conducted at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston results indicated that those who drank two or more artificially-sweetened diet drinks per day experienced a two-fold increase risk of kidney function decline.
• This artificial sweetner has been shown to particularly affect the nervous system. It has been shown to be a neuro toxin that depletes serotonin levels. Serotonin, dubbed the happy brain chemical, helps keep our emotions on an even keel. So anyone prone to depressive or other mood disorders may do well to avoid aspartame as it can aggravate depressive mood.
• In studies on rats it has been shown to cause brain tumours.
• Many including doctors at Washington school, of Medicine contend that there is sufficient evidence linking Aspartame to brain cancer to reassess its safety.

I personally couldn't say for certain, and every individual would need to research this for themselves, but I believe that there is enough damning evidence against this sweetner for me to ever want to put it in my mouth or those of my loved ones.

In my view natural sweeteners such as maple, even unheated honey, although they are sugars are safer, as are sugar alcohols such as xylitol, and natural sweeteners like stevia - if you don't mind the taste.

Best of all would be to train our taste buds away from concentrated sugars and enjoy more the more the taste of naturally sweet foods such as fruit, and root vegetables.

Happy eating, and drinking and when someone suggests you increase your intake of fluids, think water not diet coke!