Dr. Eades take on the Italian Aspartame study.

[Nancy LC]

This guy's blog rocks!

He found a few flaws (http://blog.proteinpower.com/drmike/archives/2005/12/flawed_aspartam.html)

[ysabella]

:clap:

That is fantastic.
I feel the same way - I don't particularly like aspartame and hardly ever consume any (I think it's in those s/f Fudgesicles), but I've seen some awfully extreme points of view on it that are not backed up by science.

[Nancy LC]

Yeah, I'm the same way. I only consume it in soft drinks. I'd avoid it in them, but there isn't much of an alternative yet. I don't like Diet Riet drinks.

[Dodger]

While I also try to avoid as many artificial sweeteners as possible, I am drinking an Aspertame sweetened softdrink now. I use a mixture of Splenda and stevia for cooking things that require sweetness. I think that all are better for my health than the equivalent amount of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup would be.

[nawchem]

as most authors will just categorically state that aspartame is bad for you, at which point you can dismiss them from your open-mindedness and rest assured you're dealing with a quack.


So is he calling Dr. Atkins a quack? I subscribe to the atkins monthly newsletter. The one before last Nov? had a transcript of a radio show Dr. Atkins was on talking about the dangers of aspartame. He seemed to feel kind of strongly about it, and DANDR does say there are safety issues with aspartame and to avoid it for that reason.

[Nancy LC]

Dr. Eades didn't say that, he was quoting someone else.

Hey, there's a lot of Dr's out there that reject low carb out-of-hand for no real good, well thought out reason. Like Dr. Eades said, he doesn't put a lot of energy into thinking about Aspartame, he just is troubled with the way that one molecule of it is metabolized into formaldehyde which he thinks might be an issue in some people.

I never felt like Dr. Atkins' reasons for rejecting aspartame were particularly well explained. Even though I like his diet, I don't particularly agree with every single thing he has ever said.

I like Dr. Eades more mellow approach better. Best to avoid it, but in most people it isn't a problem.

[nawchem]

My skim reading habit gets me in trouble 2 days in a row! Dr Eades name is familiar to me, is he the Protein Power doctor?

I figure everyone is different and gets to make up their minds. If the choice is coke or a diet coke, hands down its diet coke for me. It's the Donald Rumsfeld connection to aspartame that makes me uneasy- that's another subject!

[Nancy LC]

Oh geez, well... yeah, that makes me uneasy too. If he's associated with it it can't be good. Yes, Dr. Eades is the protein power dude. His blog is great! He's truly a critical thinker and goes over these studies with a critical pickiness I love.

[PlayDoh]

i love aspartame and consume it in goodly quantities. if it kills me down the road, i'll die a happy woman lol. i just don't care much for the taste of splenda and i only like stevia in tea, so aspertame is pretty much it. i actually have read alot of info on aspertame, and came to the conclusion that there may be long term problems with it, but it hasn't been proven, and there is alot of hype out there. so i figure, until something more signif comes along, it's my sweetener of choice. what i really like is how far AS's have come and how many products you can get with AS's now and how decent tasting they are. i was noshin on splenda sweetened sweet pickles earlier, how cool is that? lol. it was a good article. thank you so much for sharing :D

[SeekNfind]

Aspartame has a aftertaste that bothers me in hot beverages...I'm okay with drinking cola though

[CindySue48]

And just because shoddy science supports a position I believe in doesn’t make it any less shoddy.How true!!!!

I also try to avoid artificial sweeteners, but do use it in drinks, jello and puddings. I've only made a couple of deserts with AS, usually splenda. I also occasionally use splenda on berries.

While I don't agree that it's perfectly safe for everyone, what is? If you have a strong family history (or personal history) of cancers, maybe you should watch your intake. But I agree with Eades that 1gm of aspartane is probably better than 1 cup of sugar! I'm going to start using homey in small amounts, see how that works. I've never been a honey fan, but think maybe in place of sugars or AS it will be doable.

[2bthinner!]

and is pretty good. I can get it in Kash and Karry, but I've quit drinking sodas. It's called Waist Watchers. It comes in root beer, black cherry (yum), a citrus drink. When I drink a soda, it's one of these.. But, it's rare.

http://www.waist-watcher.com/

" I don't like Diet Riet drinks."

[tom sawyer]

You are most likely exposed to far more formaldehyde through inhalation of external sources such as building materials (carpet, glues, furniture), than you are ever going to get through ingestion and metabolism of a typical quantity of aspartame. In fact, your body has the means of converting it to other chemicals, most notably formic acid. Formate is an acid and is what makes ingestion of a significant quantity of formaldehyde, potentially lethal. You can get a pH imbalance that will cause problems. I think there is enough of a buffer system in your blood to handle low milligram quantities however.

[Nancy LC]

Isn't formic acid the stuff the ants secrete and burn you! Owie!

[stephiewil]

Well, all I know is that I have been drinking a 2 liter bottle a day of diet soda with aspartame in it for years and do not seem to have any problems. I had decided to try using the diet coke with splenda for a few months and see if I feel diffeant and if I don't, I will put the worries about aspartame away for good. Kind of an experiment of my own. Stephie :)

[Nancy LC]

Ok, now someone else is taking on the Italian Aspartame study: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/health/printer_1097063.php
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=1611955&page=1

The study has been criticized because rats in U.S. studies are sacrificed after two years -- the human equivalent of age 53, but Soffritti allowed them to live until 3 years, the Times said.

\'Cancer is a disease of the third part of life,\' Soffritti said. \'You have 75 percent of cancer diagnoses for people who are 55 years old or older. So if you truncate the experiments at 110 weeks and the rats are supposed to survive until 150 to 160 weeks, it means you avoid the development of cancer at the time when cancer would be starting to arise.\'

[ItsTheWooo]

The concern over artificial sweeteners is entirely and completely irrational. There is something about the human psyche that has an instinctual aversion to things that seem unnaturally "too good to be true". To most people, a sugar free calorie free drink fits this description. Something about it just makes people say "oh my god this is a MUTANT FOOD PRODUCT that will kill me".
If people realized just how little of these chemicals were in a serving of the product, and if they knew just how many other chemicals they ingest every single day in life, there would be no more concern.

I'm sure there are some people allergic to aspartame, just like some people are allergic to eggs, legumes, dairy, wheat or shellfish. It doesn't even have to be "unnatural" to be an allergen - it could be essential to life. I once heard of a child with a rare allergy to water. Most allergies are not indicative of the thing being bad, but rather, some kind of defect in immune system. Sometimes people exhibit an immunological reaction to a substance because, genetically speaking, they come from ethnic populations that had a very low contact with similar substances (like dairy/wheat allergies are higher in people from hunter gatherer groups).
Some people just have messed up immune systems with a million allergies to everything, possibly from some kind of genetic defect, virus, or some kind of sickness.

Ironically, this kind of alarmist neurotic behavior is the exact sort of thing that encourages allergies to develop. Early life greatly influences the immune systems' tolerance later in life; if your mom or dad was a clean freak and overprotective you're more likely to suffer allergies later. http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-themd6feb06,1,4312865.column?coll=la-headlines-health

There's a reason the stereotype of a wheezing, hacking, sickly looking kid with a fearful, "super attentive" mother exists.
I have a relative like that. She is a bit neurotic, and, her first born child was her obsession. She wouldn't let him move around much because she was terrified of him getting hurt, she fed him only a few foods and was paranoid everything would make him sick. She was constantly having panic episodes imagining he was getting ill. As a result, her child did not learn to walk until well after he should have (he is a very bright boy). He didn't learn to walk till my mother told her that he would never learn until she let him roam around and gave him the freedom to do that - as soon as she took my moms advice he learned to walk within days. He is now 11 years old and he has numerous allergies as well.
Compare this to his sister - she learned to walk very fast and has no allergies. Could be a genetic lucky roll, but, IMO I think it has more to do with the fact momma wasn't quite as neurotic with her as she was with the boy. She was given the freedom and exposure to normal environment allowed for her to develop normally.


Funny how in our efforts to protect ourselves from harm, by creating a "sterile sanctuary", we can actually hurt ourselves and achieve the exact opposite. Immune system is dynamic relative to environment; if you isolate because of fear that's what you'll get, an isolated immune system.

[Nancy LC]

Oh lucky us. NY Times decided to present it as a new study again. So here we go with another round.

You know, one advantage of coming from a large family and being the last borne is that my Mom had given up on trying to sterilize the crap out of everything when kid #6 came along. :D And I had lots of brothers to inflict germs upon me... and pets too.

[ItsTheWooo]

Oh lucky us. NY Times decided to present it as a new study again. So here we go with another round.

You know, one advantage of coming from a large family and being the last borne is that my Mom had given up on trying to sterilize the crap out of everything when kid #6 came along. :D And I had lots of brothers to inflict germs upon me... and pets too.
Yea me too. I had a ton of brothers and sisters. Even though I was the oldest and first born so my mom went through a little bit of phobia with me, she got over that right quick after the others came :). Never had any allergies.

[MyJourney]

You are most likely exposed to far more formaldehyde through inhalation of external sources such as building materials (carpet, glues, furniture), than you are ever going to get through ingestion and metabolism of a typical quantity of aspartame. In fact, your body has the means of converting it to other chemicals, most notably formic acid. Formate is an acid and is what makes ingestion of a significant quantity of formaldehyde, potentially lethal. You can get a pH imbalance that will cause problems. I think there is enough of a buffer system in your blood to handle low milligram quantities however.


I completely agree. Formaldehyde occurs naturally in the environment and can be found naturally in small amounts in a wide range of raw food, including fruits and vegetables, meat, fish etc. It is also produced naturally in our bodies in very small amounts and is part of our normal metabolism. That isnt saying that Formaldehyde is good, but we are exposed to it far more than one might think.

Plastics that foods are packaged in, paper products like paper towels and toilet paper, perfumes (dont even get me started on what goes into perfumes) lotions, glues, just walking around outside (the exhaust from cars). In fact if I remember correctly you are exposed to it more while inside the house than outside, so getting into a frenzy over aspartame is really overdone.

[KarenJ]

Yes, I do agree that the hysteria over aspartame is overdone, but why consume it if you don't absolutely have to? That is the only part that doesn't make sense to me. Don't get me wrong- if you don't get any symptoms, then who cares? Go ahead and consume it. If you get the cancer that it is purported to cause, at least take heart that you will live longer anyway!
I love the Eades blog as well. :)

Woo-
"Ironically, this kind of alarmist neurotic behavior is the exact sort of thing that encourages allergies to develop. Early life greatly influences the immune systems' tolerance later in life; if your mom or dad was a clean freak and overprotective you're more likely to suffer allergies later"

I could not agree more. I also have a family member who has been cleaning her entire house with bleach for years, as well as "prescribing" antibiotics for every little tiny VIRUS (duh) that her kids ever had. Let me tell you, that family is now a complete mess. They get sick at the drop of a hat! Plus, they are allergic to poultry, peanuts, wheat, corn, and broccoli. :daze:

Nancy LC, I think Atkin's reproachfulness against aspartame was simply because it may induce an insulin response in some people.

[MyJourney]

Yes, I do agree that the hysteria over aspartame is overdone, but why consume it if you don't absolutely have to?

The same reason people wear perfumes or lotions that contain phthalate esters and synthetic musks~ which are considered to be toxic. Or the same reason people use bounty paper towels or regular drain cleaner instead of towels woven from hemp and seventh generation drain cleaner from whole foods. People like it and it is cheaper. Just because you arent eating it, it doesn't mean it can't damage your health, case cancer or other diseases etc.

Personally, I do not care for the aftertaste and I try and limit my AS consumption altogether but I will eat SF jello on occasion and I am not really concerned about it. Many people love their diet sodas. While I know that this forum is typically focused on foods, I often feel that not enough emphasis is put on other toxins that we fill our bodies with in other ways.

I have a friend who prefers the taste of aspartame in his iced tea and its much cheaper than splenda. For a while he used splenda and then he switched back.

Its really a matter of personal preference.