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[grumble grumble] I hate sugar in my spaghetti sauce! Why do people put sugar in everything? I have to make sauce from scratch because all the commercial spaghetti sauces have a sweet taste. Spaghetti doesn't taste good sweetened. [/grumble grumble]Originally Posted by LurchGS
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Sorry Sarong but I don't find those sites very credible.
According to the FDA, Nutrasweet is a Monsanto product, not a Searle product though perhaps the patent has changed hands. Anyone can write anything they want to the FDA about a product and it will be posted on their site. The letters on aspartame are not based on anything more than someone claiming they got this or that from the stuff. If you drink a diet soda and die 5 minutes later it doesn't mean the soda killed you.
Anyway, I don't see any big conspiracy here to hide the bad news. Aspartame has been on the market long enough to know by now if we're all going to drop dead from it.
One thing not often considered when people start buying all this company is hiding the information stuff is that not all research is funded by corporations, by government, by the control groups. If people get a disease, there are often donations to disease foundations of which some is earmarked for research. The Heart Association, the Diabetes Association, the March of Dimes, and so on all fund research that is independent of drug companies and the government. And there is research in other countries as well.
When you read stuff like in the links you provided, go find legitimate research to confirm the claims. Just because someone believes something doesn't mean that is evidence for it.
Established Member
uh, first of all, you need to reread that last statement. rumsfeld did not "appoint" the head of the FDA. reagan's transition team nominated dr. hayes, which means reagan appointed the guy. to the best of my knowledge, rumsfeld CANNOT appoint anyone to such a post now or then as he is not elected.
taks
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Sorry, thought the Barcelona Study met even Sammy's criteria for scientific legitimacy. Yes, Monsanto later bought Searle's interest in aspartame/Nutrasweet. You are correct, Taks, reflected in Message #5's correction.
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You mean in all those pages and pages of totally unsubstantiated claims I was supposed to find this?And that isn't an original article. It is a claim that doesn't even list the citation where one may look at the study and see if one draws the same conclusion as the summary here. I had to search for the original article on the net.13 MAY 1998
Independent scientists from the University of Barcelona publish a landmark study clearly showing that aspartame is transformed into formaldehyde in the bodies of living specimens (in this case rats), and that this formaldehyde spreads throughout the specimens' vital organs, including the liver, kidneys, eyes and brain. The results fly in the face of manufacturers' claims that aspartame does not break down into formaldehyde in the body, and bolster the claims of aspartame critics that many of the symptoms associated with aspartame toxicity are caused by the poisonous and cumulative effects of formaldehyde.
I couldn't find the original article so I have to assume this copy of it is correct. All it says is very large quantities "gavaged" into rats (which means they pumped it in via a tube), resulted in formaldehyde as one of the metabolites (meaning the chemical your body breaks something down into before excreting it).
Since the quantities would be expected to be minimal you have to take this line of inquiry further. You have to then look and see if NutraSweet consumption causes harm. And after that, you have to weigh risk vs benefit.
I'd rather have aspartame than sugar in my sodas given the risks and benefits currently known.
And on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the hazards I am most worried about, the big aspartame scare is about as high as the big mercury in dental fillings and vaccines scare, less than 1.
If you're interested in corporate conspiracies, there are plenty of substantiated ones like tobacco and vehicle safety concerns that have been squelched over the years. There are increasing problems with drug companies exaggerating their product's effectiveness and conveniently not mentioning the less favorable research results. Drug companies hire experts to present drug company research as if the expert actually carried out the research.
With all the substantiated threats to our safety out there, why bother with the fake threats?
These web sites, in my opinion and no offense to you meant, are chock full of people claiming to know, without any research, legitimate evidence, or investigation of alternative causes, that they can tell [fill in the blank] caused their [fill in the blank]. It simply isn't evidence to believe.
And in addition to the time wasted pursuing potential causes of diseases for which there is no evidence, these folks are missing the chance to look for the causes for which there is evidence.
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No, no---the Barcelona link was covered in message #5, above.
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Still wasn't a good source for the Barcelona study information.
I looked randomly at a bunch of other stuff on that link and it was so far out of touch with reality, it's hard to even know where to start. Once you see that much grossly incorrect information, there's no reason to think anything on the site is the least bit credible.
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Ha, ha---it's the same site you came up with.
Here's one brim-full with tech and spec, then:
European Journal of Oncology June 2005:
"Aspartame induces lymphomas and leukaemias in rats" (.pdf)
Established Member
We better get those killer tomatoes banned also!
From multiple sources:
The methanol produced during the digestion of aspartame is identical to that which is provided in much larger amounts from many fruits, vegetables and their juices and is part of the normal diet. In fact, a glass of tomato juice provides about 6 times as much methanol as an equivalent amount of diet beverage sweetened with aspartame.
Established Member
I'm not sure how well their "statistically significant" claim holds up, seeing as the statistical error in their sample is quite large — it's sqrt(N) — and usually at least half of the difference with the control group, and could be within that uncertainty when you look at the range of values they have for the control (high end is 18.4% vs the 12.4% average); they appear to have simply compiled other small-sample results. They may just be highlighting the dangers of interpreting results when a small-sample bias is present.
To use their numbers, the lowest incidence of lymphomas and leukemias in males happened for the 10X equivalent average daily intake, at 15%, (i.e. below the control group of 20.7%), which would make aspartame a health food, wouldn't it?
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You either don't understand the difference in the link I posted or I missed something on your link.
I had to hunt down a link to the Barcelona study that provided enough information to
- verify if a study was even done
verify if your citation's summary matched the researcher's conclusions
see how the study was carried out in order to assess
- how reliable is the data
how big was the study
does the study apply to something broad or only to very limited circumstances
and so on, depending on what the subject matter is
That is what I mean by going to original sources. The source you posted was totally unreliable. They could have been completely fabricating the report. They could have been completely distorting the report.
As it turned out, your source was indeed distorting the research results. The study was done on mice with larger doses than humans would normally ingest. Tests on mice are usually preliminary with human studies needed to confirm that the results apply to humans. In addition, the study looked at a metabolite that aspartame was broken down to. It didn't look at how long that metabolite stuck around before being metabolized into smaller components, and it didn't look at the consequences in a human of that metabolite, in particular a dose related consequence. I can poison you with carbon dioxide if I fill a room with it but you have lots of it in your body and you aren't being poisoned.
The following citation of yours does give enough information to evaluate the study.So let's evaluate it.Here's one brim-full with tech and spec, then:
European Journal of Oncology June 2005:
"Aspartame induces lymphomas and leukaemias in rats" (.pdf)
First, I looked at the group doing the study. I can't tell if they're a radical group like the Discovery Institute here, but other than that it seems to be a legitimate research source.
Next I looked at the dose they used. They claim, thatThis site had information on about how much aspartame was in an 8 oz. soda, along with other information.Dietary surveys, performed among APM consumers, have shown that the average APM daily intake in the general population ranged from 2 to 3 mg/kg b.w. and was even more in children and pregnant women1. The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) both in the US and in Europe is 50 and 40 mg/kg b.w., respectively1.600 mg in 36 oz equates to 200mg in an average 8 oz can of soda. Feel free to find any other source for that amount but I assume the amount of sweetener in a soda is about the same from brand to brand. A small adult female would be 50kg (using easy math numbers) so that amounts to 4mg/kg of aspartame per soda. That correlates with your citation's report that the general population averaged 2-3mg/kg/day of aspartame though there was no mention of lifetime amounts.Aspartame (APM) is a widely used dipeptide sweetener (L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester). ...serving of beverage provided 600 mg APM, a dose equivalent to the amount provided by 36 oz of APM-sweetened diet beverage.
The study you cited then went on to look at the maximum amount of aspartame considered safe, which according to them was 50mg/kg/day in the USA. That equates to 12 cans of soda.
So the study found that the equivalent of 12 cans of diet soda every day for your entire life span reached the threshold for slightly more lymphomas and leukemias than had you not had those sodas. And, only in females. In males it took the equivalent of [/b]1200 cans a day[/b] and even then the result was iffy. From this the authors called for URGENT re-evaluation of aspartame.
This tells me I might want to not be encouraging young girls to drink diet soda. But I hold that position anyway because I think it's psychologically harmful to imply to little girls they need to diet. OTOH, if a child is obese or a diabetic, then the use of aspartame is by far less risk given this data, than sugared sodas. Ideally, you don't want kids drinking much soda anyway. Juice and milk would be preferred.
It also tells me it's a good idea to give this information to pregnant women and let them know avoiding diet drinks was suggested but if they had a hard time complying not to worry or feel guilty about it.
And, if you have a bad liver or drink a lot of alcohol, then aspartame could add a bit of injury on top of whatever else you have. If I were counseling a recovering alcoholic, diet sodas would be an excellent choice, even with liver problems because the pathway to break down alcohol gets larger in alcoholics (oversimplified explanation) and it is the same pathway that breaks down methanol. So an alcoholic that quits drinking clears those aspartame metabolites out of their system faster than usual.
As for the Barcelona study, while I was looking at stuff for the lymphoma/leukemia connection I came across two studies that looked at aspartame metabolites in humans and found the hazards to be negligible.
From my link above on the dose in a can of soda, it was actually about metabolites of aspartame in humans:And,this one:Stegink LD, Filer LJ Jr, Bell EF, Ziegler EE, Tephly TR.
Effect of repeated ingestion of aspartame-sweetened beverage on plasma amino acid, blood methanol, and blood formate concentrations in normal adults. Metabolism. 1989 Apr;38(4):357-63.
It has been suggested that excessive use of APM might elevate plasma aspartate, phenylalanine, and/or methanol concentrations to levels that are potentially harmful. Six normal young adults ingested eight successive servings of unsweetened and APM-sweetened beverage at one-hour intervals in a balanced crossover design.....ingestion of APM-sweetened beverage significantly increased plasma phenylalanine levels 1.41 to 2.35 mumol/dL above baseline 30 minutes after ingestion. Plasma phenylalanine values reached a steady state after administration of four to five servings and did not exceed normal postprandial values at any time. Blood methanol and formate concentrations remained within normal limits. The data indicate ready metabolism of APM when administered at levels that may be ingested by normal individuals who are heavy users of diet beverages.J Toxicol Environ Health. 1981 Feb;7(2):281-90.
Blood methanol concentrations in normal adult subjects administered abuse doses of aspartame.
Stegink LD, Brummel MC, McMartin K, Martin-Amat G, Filer LJ Jr, Baker GL, Tephly TR.
Blood methanol concentrations were measured in 30 normal adult subjects administered aspartame, a dipeptide methyl ester. The doses studied included the 99th percentile of projected daily ingestion (34 mg/kg body weight) and three doses considered to be in the abuse range (100, 150, and 200 mg/kg body weight). Methanol concentrations were below the level of detection (0.4 mg/dl) in the blood of the 12 normal subjects who ingested aspartame at 34 mg/kg. They were significantly elevated (p less than or equal to 0 .001) after ingestion of each abuse dose, with the mean peak blood methanol concentrations and the areas under the blood methanol concentration-time curve increasing in proportion to dose. Mean (+/- SD) peak blood methanol concentrations were 1.27 +/- 0.48 mg/dl at the 100 mg/kg dose, 2.14 +/- 0.35 mg/dl at the 150 mg/kg dose, and 2.58 +/- 0.78 mg/dl at the 200 mg/kg dose. Blood methanol concentrations returned to predosing levels by 8 h after administration of the 100 mg/kg dose. Methanol was still detected in the blood 8 h after the subjects had ingested aspartame at 150 or 200 mg/kg. Blood formate analyses were carried out in the 6 subjects who ingested aspartame at 200 mg/kg, since recent studies indicate that the toxic effects of methanol are due to formate accumulation. No significant increase in blood formate concentrations over predosing concentrations was noted. No changes were noted in any of the blood chemistry profile parameters measured 24 h after aspartame ingestion, compared to values noted before administration. Similarly, no differences were noted in ophthalmologic examinations carried out before and after aspartame loading.
Again, if you're looking for an issue, I spent a lot of time educating my son's grade school and the local PTSA about the caffeine they hadn't noticed in the soda offered at the school carnival and picnic, and that was certainly more important than aspartame hazards.
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This is an additionally good point. The numbers almost didn't make sense. See the issues I addressed as well.
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