Splenda and Arsenic Poisoning

[knight4685]

Hello,
I have been an avid Splenda user for several years (2-3 large glasses of sweet tea/day) and even bought it off the internet before it was available in stores. My husband and I are big into bodybuilding and health in general. I love love sugar and splenda was a life saver at first.

After feeling very bad for several years I went to the doctor for a full lab workup. I have arsenic poisoning. My mother had arsenic poisoning about 2 years ago as well and still tests positive on and off for high levels of arsenic. We live in different homes but both drink large amounts of tea sweetened by Splenda and other foods sweetened by Splenda as well. Our local water supply is one of the best in the nation and we are not around any chemicals or treated wood. Arsenic is listed as one of the ingredients. Please have your doctor do a 24 hour heavy metals urine test or a hair analysis test. I'm not saying Splenda is the cause but it should be looked into.
My heavy metals test results
Normal Ranges 0.00-35 mine is 84 and my eyebrows and hair have been falling out among other issues such as bladder control and stomach pain.

[potatofree]

There is no arsenic in Splenda. I'd like to know where you got that idea.

[quietone]

The FDA acknowledges that sucralose "is produced at an approximate purity of 98%." While that may sound pretty pure, just what is in that other 2%? It turns out that the final sucralose product contains small amounts of potentially dangerous substances such as:

Heavy Metals (e.g., Lead)
Arsenic
Triphenilphosphine Oxide
Methanol
Chlorinated Disaccharides
Chlorinated Monosaccharide
Although manufacturing guidelines do specify limits on these substances there is no guarantee that such limits will always be met.

[potatofree]

If you want to be picky, break down ANY food product, even healthy, whole foods and you find traces of just about anything.

Don't you think it's at ALL funny that the op's first and ONLY post is a scare-mongering horror story?

[knight4685]

Potatofree,
It was just for your information, which you apparently lacked. You didn't know about the ingredients in Splenda yourself. I am far from anyone wanting to send horror stories out there nor am I an all natural health food nut. I am however a 36year old female, married with 2 kids, business owner, former LOVER of Splenda and a low carb dieter who also had no idea until here recently. I am so addicted to sugar I was in heaven when Splenda came out and I HOPE my problems aren't caused by it. I just thought people like myself who ate/eat LOTS of Splenda should know there might be a problem and it wouldn't hurt to have a heavy metals test performed at your next doctors appointment. Remember "other" artificial sugars were thought safe for years. Better safe than sorry.

[potatofree]

http://www.doh.gov.za/department/foodcontrol/newsletter/2003/august.html

Cyanide, what is it?
After a pandemonium caused by an extortionist who targeted one of South Africa's major retailers for at least two and a half months, it is very important that the concept of cyanide be dealt with to inform the public.

Once again, what is cyanide? Cyanide is ubiquitous. Many foods contain detectable levels of cyanide that is normally well below 1 mg/kg (ppm), with the exception of foods such as cassava, sorghum, wild cherries, almonds and lima beans, which may contain several hundred mg/kg cyanide. Cyanide in plants originates from cyanogenic glycosides that are formed naturally. These levels of cyanide in foods are not an issue for human health, although blood cyanide levels may be elevated if cassava forms a major part of the diet.

Cyanides are widely used in certain industrial applications such as electroplating, metallurgy, photographic development, pest control and manufacturing in plastics. The latter two applications with respect to food are not of major concern. There may be traces of cyanide in some plastics but all food-grade plastics must comply with general migration limits. Thus, it is not possible that elevated blood cyanide levels could be caused by cyanide in food packaging material. In pest control, for the use of a pesticide on each commodity, a Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) is set by the Department of Health and published in terms of the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics, and Disinfectants Act, 1972 (Act 54 of 1972). This is set bearing in mind the average daily consumption of the commodity and the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI). In bottled water, cyanide levels are regulated in terms of the Regulations Governing Bottled Waters including Natural Mineral Water.

People may be exposed to cyanide by breathing air, drinking water, eating food, or touching soil that contains cyanide. Smoking cigarettes is also a source of cyanide exposure for people who do not work in cyanide-related industries. In large amounts, cyanide is very harmful to people. Exposure to high levels of cyanide for a short time harms the brain, heart, and causes coma and death. Exposure to lower levels of cyanide for a long time may result in breathing difficulties, heart pains, vomiting, headaches, and enlargement of thyroid gland. Accidental exposure to cyanide, as either hydrogen cyanide or cyanide salt, will occur primarily in the occupational context, and appropriate preventative and protective measures need to be taken wherever cyanides are manufactured or used.

In case of cyanide in food, there is no reason for people to be alarmed. "The woman who felt ill after eating sardines would have had to eat 2000 tins to show symptomatic levels of cyanide poisoning," Said Dr Murray Coombs, the occupational and environmental health consultant who headed the forensic team to investigate the Pick 'n Pay cyanide incident.

Nolene Maistry & Maanda Mandavha
Directorate: Food Control

[potatofree]

I've just been doing some digging, and I have found nothing so far to indicate that anything other than MASSIVE amounts of Splenda would come close to what we routinely ingest/inhale.

Sorry, nothing personal, but we get a LOT of "the sky is falling "posts around here. I'm truly sorry for your illness.

[knight4685]

Potatofree,

Thank you. I guess I should apologize for not at least introducing myself before throwing this type of info out there. The tox doc is doing a hair analysis to see if I have chronic exposure to arsenic. There are a few others coming forward (men and women) who have no other source for high exposures to arsenic but the one thing they have in common is high sucralose consumption.

I will let you know when the hair analysis comes back along with the lab results from the sucralose sample. :)

[CarolynC]

The FDA acknowledges that sucralose "is produced at an approximate purity of 98%." While that may sound pretty pure, just what is in that other 2%? It turns out that the final sucralose product contains small amounts of potentially dangerous substances such as:

Heavy Metals (e.g., Lead)
Arsenic
Triphenilphosphine Oxide
Methanol
Chlorinated Disaccharides
Chlorinated Monosaccharide
Although manufacturing guidelines do specify limits on these substances there is no guarantee that such limits will always be met.
I'm not saying that splenda is safe because I think the jury's still out on that.

But, as for arsenic, I don't offhand know how that would get into splenda. Arsenic is just not commonly used in organic synthesis and it is rarely (if ever) used in the synthesis of food products. Heavy metals may be possible if they are a catalyst for the synthesis, but offhand I wouldn't expect them to be. As for "Triphenilphosphine Oxide," I think that should be "Triphenylphosphine Oxide" and I suppose that it could be in the synthesis. Methanol is so volatile that it would only be present at trace levels too small to worry about.

As for chlorinated disaccharides, of course, splenda is 98% chlorinated disaccharide. Splenda IS a chlorinated disaccharide. It's trichlorinated sucrose and sucrose is a disaccharide. Sucrose is made of a fructose monomer and a glucose monomer, so splenda undoubtedly contains some chlorinated fructose and chlorinated glucose, which would be chloinated monosaccharides. But, as long as you think that pure splenda itself is safe, I don't know why its chlorinated monomers wouldn't also be safe.

Personally, my major worry with splenda (which I probably eat too much of) is that it is a chlorinated organic compound and has similarities to chlorinated pesticides.

In case I am accused of being unknowledgeable, I admit to not being a food chemist, but I have a PhD in chemistry, am a chemistry professor at a large US university, and I have worked as an environmental chemist (who analyzed samples for chlorinated pesticides) at a major US research institute.

[potatofree]

How do you KNOW you have no other exposure? Cyanide is so prevalent in our environment, I'm afraid the burden of proof would be quite high to single out Splenda as the culprit.

I wish you luck.

[CarolynC]

Maybe I missed something, but I thought that knight4685 was talking about arsenic, not cyanide. Both are poisons, but they are very different in structure.

[potatofree]

Sorry, I got my sweetener scare stories confused. I am prepared to eat crow now.

[potatofree]

Apparently, I'll be eating it with Splenda on top.... I see a lot of the same thing on the same scare sites listed. Can either of you link me to a reputable study linking arsenic poisoning to Splenda? I don't want to look like an arse. ;)

[Dodger]

The FDA acknowledges that sucralose "is produced at an approximate purity of 98%." While that may sound pretty pure, just what is in that other 2%? It turns out that the final sucralose product contains small amounts of potentially dangerous substances such as:

Heavy Metals (e.g., Lead)
Arsenic
Triphenilphosphine Oxide
Methanol
Chlorinated Disaccharides
Chlorinated Monosaccharide
Although manufacturing guidelines do specify limits on these substances there is no guarantee that such limits will always be met.
This is word for word from Mercola.
http://suewidemark.com/splenda.htm

[CarolynC]

Sorry, I got my sweetener scare stories confused. I am prepared to eat crow now.
Oh, at least on a low carb diet we don't have to worry about that one. If I'm thinking about what you're thinking of, the main cyanide in sweetener scare is from plain old table sugar (sucrose), where the disodium cyanodithioimidocarbonate used to process sugar cane is proposed to break down in the body into cyanide.

[potatofree]

Thanks, Dodger. I thought it sounded familiar. ;)

I was just making myself paranoid about arsenic in chicken..... and water.... and from pesticides on vegetables...

There went MY supper.

[Pogojo]

Hmmm.... within any reliable source I have not heard about this being an issue. This Splenda debate has been around washington post and ny times and other pretty big players. So far the only concerns I have read is about chlorine and some phosgene gas being used in manufacturing.

[Nancy LC]

Sorry, I got my sweetener scare stories confused. I am prepared to eat crow now.

I don't think Crow has been approved by the FDA!

[KryssiMc]

I tried finding it in there, but they don't say how much they were feeding the rats. I don't know anyone, including myself, who eats "large amounts" of Splenda. It takes very little to make something taste sweet so I'm not going to worry...yet.

[Pogojo]

I think I remember reading about this rat test/cancer thing and it was some outrageous quantity that probably should not cause too much worries but did cause some reaction.

I was reading on this board about someone having cravings. So eating Splenda made them want to eat more Splenda/sweet things. Sounds like nicatine...:-)

[Roguecloud]

this stuff is poison, I'd never use it. Just go natural, it'll take some getting used to but in the end, you'll be better off.

[webmedic]

after going natural I can say I feel mutch better and for quite a few years I was able to controle candida by diet alone.

[Christal]

What is the KNOW plan?

[lillylou]

After reading all the information regarding splends in this post, I will CONTINUE to avoid it at all costs! I feel so much better when I do not injest chemicals. Thanks for all the great information, which I will be forwardig to my friends and family.

[Pogojo]

Why did you avoid it in the first place? I don't understand your statement: "I feel so much better when I do not injest chemicals." :-)

[cota]

I have also been using Splenda daily for the last year. I used it in my coffee as well as other products (under the name Sucralose), which I was unaware of at the time. I have been very sick this year. I was going to the gym 2-3 times a week (until recently) and was healthy, or so I thought. I have never been this sick in my life. I have been on short term disability because my symptoms have gotten so bad. My symptoms came on gradually over the past year, but progressed to daily symptoms interfering with my ability to function. I had persistent dizziness, diarrhea, bad headaches, nausea, shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, hair thinning/breaking and many other problems. When I stopped using Splenda or Sucralose (which is another name for it), most of my problems disappeared. I am most certain that Splenda is to blame. I'm so angry that this has happened to me. I haven't been tested for arsenic poisoning yet, but I certainly will now. I know other people that have been adversely affected by Splenda also. This is becoming a real problem, and so many people don't know about it yet. For more information, look it up on the internet.

[Christal]

I use Splenda regularly and don't have a problem at all. It's weird, because I have such a sensitive system. Aspartame made me feel horrible. I remember when I stopped using it, I felt so much better. I am really "tuned in" to foods/sweeteners I ingest and how they make me feel. I won't stop using Splenda -- it's one of the FEW substances out there which doesn't cause me any problems. Without it, the word "sweet" would probably be wiped out of my vocabulary! :)

[cota]

Christal,

I have been using aspartame for years, despite the bad rap it's gotten. My problems may have been from using both aspartame and Splenda/sucralose together. Just using aspartame, I did have some problems, now that I know more about it. It wasn't until I started using Splenda/sucralose and aspartame together that I could'nt function in my daily life. I am now avoiding any type of artificial sweetener at all costs. It's just not worth it. Two people that I know personally have also been affected by Splenda. They both had symptoms similar to mine. One actually had petit mal seizures from it! When they stopped using Splenda, their symptoms improved dramatically. There are many other cases like this cited on the internet. It's happening to too many people to be just a coincidence. I wouldn't have believed it either if it didn't happen to me. Please don't wait until it happens to you.