Aspartame--facts and fiction.

Will Heffernan

Happy for this to be moved if it isn't the place for it.

Not a great one for posting abstracts but I've had emails and PM's about this lately as a results of discussions that I assume have been ongoing here.

Thought I would throw this up here for those that are interested in the topic.

N Z Med J. 2010 Mar 19;123(1311):53-7. Aspartame--facts and fiction.

Magnuson B.

Senior Scientific and Regulatory Consultant,
Cantox Health Sciences International,
2233 Argentia Road, Suite 308, Mississaunga, ON, Canada L5N 2X7.

AA team of nine independent internationally esteemed toxicologists, reviewed hundreds of studies on aspartame safety. The key findings of the review with respect to aspartame safety were: Aspartame is completely broken down in the intestine to components found in other foods. Aspartame consumption (even at levels much higher than consumed by the highest users) has virtually no impact on blood levels of amino acids, methanol or glucose. Aspartame safety is clearly documented and well established through extensive laboratory testing, animal experiments, human clinical trials and epidemiological (population) studies. There is no evidence from numerous well conducted studies that consumption of aspartame at levels found in the human diet are associated with conditions of nervous system, behaviour, or other illness. Aspartame does not cause mutations, and there is no credible evidence that it causes cancer.

EileenG

Who funded that study?

g'em

moved from Fitness...

El_Dangeroso

These threads always go around in circles, mainly because there isn't really great evidence on either side, I feel sorry for Aspartame proponents sometimes, it is impossible to prove a negative, that's where the pity stops though.

When someone performs a study that follows 1,000 identical twins over the course of their lifetime, gives one aspartame and the other not, controls for every single other risk factor and determines that there is no difference in health I'll believe aspartame is safe.*

Until then, I'll put it in the 'wasn't consumed for 99.9999999999999% of our species' evolution and is a known excitotoxin' box and avoid it out of caution. Everyone is welcome to make their own decision on the subject.

*Actual study is impossible and unethical.

Barry.Oglesby

You could say that for 90% of food additives. That in itself is another argument entirely mind you.

I would assume that the burden of proof is on the people looking for it banned rather than the other way around. From my searches, any links to cancer were tenuous at best.

El_Dangeroso

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

You could say that for 90% of food additives. That in itself is another argument entirely mind you.

Yep, pretty much.

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

I would assume that the burden of proof is on the people looking for it banned rather than the other way around.

Well, not really, if that was the case then the FDA wouldn't have to approve anything. The burden of proof for safety has and will always lie with the party that is making the profit out of it. It is up to non-industry affiliated scientist to keep constant pressure for the manufacturers to consistently assure it's safety. Science isn't static, especially in cases so unclear as these.

Re: cancer links being tenuous, that's not hard when ALL the evidence is tenuous, both for and against. Fact being we don't have one single long term (spanning 30+ years) study into the safety of aspartame (or for splenda either for that matter).

So once again it just comes back to rules of thumb about what types of substances our metabolism has experience in handling and what types of substances it does not. You pay your money and you takes your chances.

Mellor

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Re: cancer links being tenuous, that's not hard when ALL the evidence is tenuous, both for and against. Fact being we don't have one single long term (spanning 30+ years) study into the safety of aspartame (or for splenda either for that matter).

Meh, its the single most tested additive. The FDA are conservative when it coems to new additinos and it they say its perfectly safe (tey said something to this effect) then I'm comfortable eating it.

El_Dangeroso

Mellor wrote: »

Meh, its the single most tested additive.

on rats...and the fda have been wrong before, lots of times..