You might want to "rethink" your Aspartame intake(splenda,diet mtn dew) you might escape diabete, but you wont escape the neuroligical effects... Alziemers, dimentia, ect....
Buy Your Poison - Aspartame, Diet Soda, Splenda
Sent from my Teddy Ruxspin
Spenda contains no aspartame. The site [noparse]www.truthaboutsplenda.com[/noparse] is a site financed and operated by the sugar industry. The whole scary, scary, scary wood alcohol to formaldehyde thing with aspartame, and that aspartame has been proved responsible for an epidemic of cancer, brain tumors, and multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's is pure urban legend. Not a single credible scientific study, in the world, has shown aspartame to have any of the effects so widely espoused on the various and sundry fear-mongering Web sites. Not one study, not even out of Europe, where they are anal about this sort of thing.
The oft-repeated statement that "when the temperature of the artificial sweetener Aspartame exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in it converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which causes metabolic acidosis," is in part true, but it's highly misleading, not to mention scary (which is the intent). Aspartame ingestion does indeed result in the production of methanol, formaldehyde and formate. In the gastrointestinal tract aspartame is hydrolyzed to one of its component materials, methanol (the infamous wood alcohol), as well as the two amino acids, phenylalanine (one of the nine essential amino acids) and aspartic acid (one of the other 20 proteinogeneic amino acids used in the building blocks of protein). This methanol is taken up by the cells of the body and metabolized first to formaldehyde and then to formate.
The key information that is missing in the scary description of what aspartame does is that the levels of ingestion are very modest, very modest indeed. The fact is, there are other foods that we ingest regularly which supply at least as much and oftentimes even more methanol than aspartame does. Citrus fruits and juices, and tomatoes or tomato juice (one orange or one grapefruit or one tomato) provide hundreds of times more methanol than a two-liter bottle of aspartame sweetened soft drink provides. There are even higher quantities of methanol ingested when ethanol is consumed, you know, like a beer. In the final analysis the aspartame methanol is exactly the same as from other sources and in the quantities consumed from aspartame, it is readily and naturally metabolized via the one-carbon biochemical cycle to entirely innocuous and natural body components.
The Web sites that go on and on about the dangers of artificial sweeteners read like they were written by someone who is borderline hysterical. They also read the same as most conspiracy theory sites, as they have much in common, i.e., lots of "makes sense to me" sounding stuff, not much on hard evidence, lots of made up or anecdotal evidence, and completely ignores or dismisses refuting evidence of their claims. But like most conspiracy theories such as 9/11 was an inside job, FEMA death camps are currently in operation, and the Learned Elders of Zion is real, the crown jewel, the pièce de résistance of "aspartame disease" is, Ta-Da!, the blatant yet secret collusion between aspartame's and Spenda's manufacturers, the medical establishment, and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. It's hilarious, considering every other health agency in the world and every independent research and testing lab who have done studies on this would also have to be included in this conspiratorial collusion.
This all started back in 1995 when a crackpot named Betty Martini began posting anti-aspartame message on Usenet. She is not now nor ever was a physician, but claimed to have worked in the medical profession, a claim that to this day has never been verified beyond her working as a receptionist and a correspondence clerk for a few doctors and hospitals. Ever since then, she has waged a single-minded battle against what she calls "the propaganda put out by industry and the FDA" regarding aspartame. To that end, she founded an organization called "Mission Possible International," represented on several Web sites run by her and her recruited gullible cohorts, which houses a vast archive of anti-aspartame literature. She calls herself a Doctor, as in Dr. Betty Martini, because she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree "for the work she has done and continues to do in alerting the world to the dangers of aspartame and other unhealthy chemicals and additives." Not even an honorary medical degree, but one in humanities. To top it off, she refuses to say which university gave her the degree. She's been using the Internet since day one for all this, so I'm guessing that's where she got her degree, too. <snort>
While she (and those who believe just like her) does at times make some good, thought provoking points, she (and they) mostly come off as crazy, what with the message mostly lost to unsubstantiated and flamoyant rhetoric. Even if we credit Martini with good intentions, it's difficult to take her seriously. Among other reasons, it without thought or regard implicates aspartame as the cause of just about every malady and medical condition known to humankind. To recap the laundry list from her site, many of which are laugh-out-loud laughable (the third one down does that to me, it just cracks me up):
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[*]"The methanol toxicity mimics multiple sclerosis..."
[*]"In the cases of systemic lupus, which is triggered by ASPARTAME, the victim usually does not know that the aspartame is the culprit."
[*]"If you...suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss-you probably have ASPARTAME DISEASE!"
[*]"In one lecture attended by the Ambassador of Uganda, he told us that their sugar industry is adding aspartame! He continued by saying that one of the industry leader's son could no longer walk - due in part by product usage!"
[*]"At the time of this first hearing, people were going blind. The methanol in the aspartame converts to formaldehyde in the retina of the eye."
[*]"Aspartame changes the brain's chemistry. It is the reason for severe seizures."
[*]"This drug also causes Birth Defects."
[*]"It makes you crave carbohydrates and will make you FAT."
[*]"The ingredients stimulates [sic] the neurons of the brain to death, causing brain damage of varying degrees."
[*]"Aspartame is especially deadly for diabetics."
[*]"...aspartame poisoning is escalating Alzheimer's Disease..."
[*]"...the phenylalanine in aspartame breaks down the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin, which causes manic depression, panic attacks, rage and violence..."
[*]"Aspartame Disease is partially the cause to what is behind some of the mystery of the Dessert [sic] Storm health problems."
- "When they remove brain tumors, they have found high levels of aspartame in them."
That's a dizzying array of charges for just one substance, to which it's not reasonable to respond: If it's all provable, why isn't the entire world-wide medical establishment up in arms about it? Why does the substance continue to have the FDA's approval and the approval of every health-related overseeing body on the planet? Why do reputable scientists and doctors scoff? Why does the CDC and the WHO dismiss it as unsubstantiated and misinformed urban legend? Surely there's not a planet-wide conspiracy here, is there?
Martini's and her followers pat answer comes in the form of a conspiracy theory: the NutraSweet Company has used its deep pockets to buy all but a very few brave critics off. In other words, the only sources you can trust, and that includes doctors and scientists the world over, are those approved by Martini, those who she can attest have not been bought and paid for, those who agree with her. Got it.
But the problem is, MS and lupus and all the other diseases aspartame is respnsible for have been around a lot longer than aspartame has, and repeated scientific studies have found no connection between the sweetener and such symptoms. Even the uber-anal UK Food Standards Agency noted, "Some critics claim that aspartame is linked to a wide range of serious disorders such as multiple sclerosis, lupus erythrematosis, Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, brain tumors and diabetes mellitus. However, all of the data to substantiate these claims is anecdotal and no reliable scientific evidence is available to show that aspartame might be responsible for these conditions."
The reason that foodstuffs containing aspartame have a warning label on them is not because of some knock-down drag-out fight on Capitol Hill, as "doctor" and other suggest, it's because certain people with the
genetic disease phenylketunuria (PKU), and those with advanced liver disease (goes back to the catecholamine compounds in the bloodstream that affects the liver - see the paragraph below on that), and pregnant women with hyperphenylaline (very high levels of phenylaline in the blood, which is relatively common, and why many pregnant women develope diabetes while pregnant, but that goes away once they give birth) have a problem with aspartame because they do not effectively metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine. Since high levels of of that amino acid in the body fluids can cause brain damage (which was know before aspartame was invented), the FDA and other agencies around the world ruled that all products containing aspartame must include a warning to phenylketonurics that the sweetener contains phenylalanine. It's the same reason some foods contain warning about the food having been processed in a plant that has peanuts in it, or shellfish.
You want to know what the REAL downside to aspartame is for someone who is diabetic? Aspartame won't
raise you blood sugar, but if your blood sugar is high, aspartame prevents it from coming back down until the aspartame has been absorbed and broken down into its natural body components. The reason it does that is the amino acid phenylalanine has similar effects to an analgesic (pain killer) and an antidpresessant (in larger doses, such as 5 or 6 cans of Diet Mt Dew or a 2-liter bottle). It does this by keeping the blood sugar high while it breaks down and is biologically converted into L-tyrosine (another one of the DNA-encoded amino acids). Then the L-tyrosine in turn is converted into L-DOPA, which is then further converted into the catecholamines, which are natrual organic compounds consisting of dopamine, noradrenaline and epinephrine (adrenaline). These catecholamines compounds are water-soluble and are 50%-bound to plasma proteins, so they circulate in the bloodstream, and while their in there they inhibit the insulin from causing the liver, skeletal muscules and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood.
So you really don't want to spike your blood sugar and then drink a bunch of Diet Mt Dew. It's also why (probably) that a lot of fat people who suck diet sodas like crazy remain fat (like I was), because they're eating chips and Twinkies and other goodies and that sugar stays in the bloodstream far longer than normal until it's eventually converted to and stored as fat.
So, while I really and truly appreciate your warnings regarding artificial sweeteners, they are quitre unnecessary, and a tad misguided. But I do thank you just the same.
