Aspartame Disguised As New Sweetener

I came across some news that is relevant to all at Smith Mountain Lake who are concerned about their health. The following is from Dr. Mercola’s Website.

Aspartame producer Ajinomoto is launching a new initiative that will re-brand the sweetener as “AminoSweet”.

Aspartame is used in many foods and beverages marketed as low-calorie or sugar-free. However, its reputation has been clouded somewhat by studies that have investigated reports of ill effects.

Just to remind you, the side effects of aspartame can include:

Headache
Change in vision
Convulsions and seizures
Hallucination
Nausea and vomiting
Joint pain
It can cause many, many other problems as well.

Aspartame is the most controversial food additive in history, and its approval for use in food was the most contested in FDA history. In the end, the artificial sweetener was approved, not on scientific grounds, but rather because of strong political and financial pressure. After all, aspartame was previously listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent!

It’s hard to believe such a chemical would be allowed into the food supply, but it was, and it has been wreaking silent havoc with people’s health for the past 30 years.

The truth is, it should never have been released onto the market, and allowing it to remain in the food chain is seriously hurting people – no matter how many times you re-brand it under fancy new names.

The Deceptive Marketing of Aspartame

Sold commercially under names like NutraSweet, Canderel, and now AminoSweet, aspartame can be found in more than 6,000 foods, including soft drinks, chewing gum, table-top sweeteners, diet and diabetic foods, breakfast cereals, jams, sweets, vitamins, prescription, and over-the-counter drugs.

Aspartame producer Ajinomoto chose to re-brand it under the name AminoSweet, to “remind the industry that aspartame tastes just like sugar and that it’s made from amino acids – the building blocks of protein that are abundant in our diet.”

This is deception at its finest: Begin with a shred of truth, and then spin it to fit your agenda.

In this case, the agenda is to make you believe that aspartame is somehow a harmless, natural sweetener made with two amino acids that are essential for health and present in your diet already.

They want you to believe aspartame delivers all the benefits of sugar and none of its drawbacks. But nothing could be further from the truth.

How Aspartame Wreaks Havoc on Your Health

Did you know there have been more reports to the FDA for aspartame reactions than for all other food additives combined?

There are over 10,000 official complaints, but by the FDA’s admission, less than 1 percent of those who experience a reaction to a product ever report it. So in all likelihood, the toxic effects of aspartame may have affected roughly a million people already.

While a variety of symptoms have been reported, almost two-thirds of them fall into the neurological and behavioral category consisting mostly of headaches, mood alterations, and hallucinations. The remaining third is mostly gastrointestinal symptoms.

Unfortunately, aspartame toxicity is not well-known by doctors, despite its frequency. Diagnosis is also hampered by the fact that it mimics several other common health conditions, such as:

Multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Fibromyalgia, Arthritis, Multiple chemical sensitivity, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Attention deficit disorder, Panic disorder, Depression and other psychological disorders, Lupus, Diabetes and diabetic complications, Birth defects, Lymphoma, Lyme disease, Hypothyroidism

How Diet Foods and Drinks CAUSE Weight Problems

In recent years, food manufacturers have increasingly focused on developing low-calorie foods and drinks to help you maintain a healthy weight and avoid obesity. Unfortunately, the science behind these products is so flawed, that most of these products can lead to increased weight gain!

For example, researchers have discovered that drinking diet soda increases your risk of metabolic syndrome and may double your risk of obesity – the complete opposite of the stated intention behind these “zero calories” drinks.

The sad truth is that diet foods and drinks ruin your body’s ability to count calories, and stimulate your appetite, thus boosting your inclination to overindulge.

Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as an acceptable alternative to sugar, which is at best confusing and at worst harming the health of those who take their misguided advice.

Even More Toxic Dangers of Aspartame

Truly, there is enough evidence showing the dangers of consuming artificial sweeteners to fill an entire book — which is exactly why I wrote Sweet Deception. If you or your loved ones drink diet beverages or eat diet foods, this book will explain how you’ve been deceived about the truth behind artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose — for greed, for-profits, and at the expense of your health.

As mentioned earlier, almost two-thirds of all documented side effects of aspartame consumption are neurological.

One of the reasons for this side effect, researchers have discovered, is that the phenylalanine in aspartame dissociates from the ester bond. While these amino acids are indeed completely natural and safe, they were never designed to be ingested as isolated amino acids in massive quantities, which in and of itself will cause complications.

Additionally, this will also increase dopamine levels in your brain. This can lead to symptoms of depression because it distorts your serotonin/dopamine balance. It can also lead to migraine headaches and brain tumors through a similar mechanism.

The aspartic acid in aspartame is a well-documented excitotoxin. Excitotoxins are usually amino acids, such as glutamate and aspartate. These special amino acids cause particular brain cells to become excessively excited, to the point that they die.

Excitotoxins can also cause a loss of brain synapses and connecting fibers. A review conducted in 2008 by scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo found that consuming a lot of aspartame may inhibit the ability of enzymes in your brain to function normally, and may lead to neurodegeneration.

According to the researchers, consuming a lot of aspartame can disturb:

The metabolism of amino acids
Protein structure and metabolism
The integrity of nucleic acids
Neuronal function
Endocrine balances
Furthermore, the ester bond in aspartame breaks down into formaldehyde and methanol, which are also toxic in their own right. So it is not surprising that this popular artificial sweetener has also been found to cause cancer.

One truly compelling case study that shows this all too well was done by a private citizen named Victoria Inness-Brown. She decided to perform her aspartame experiment on 108 rats over 2 years and 8 months.

Daily, she fed some of the rats the equivalent (for their body weight) of two-thirds the aspartame contained in 8 oz of diet soda. Thirty-seven percent of the females fed aspartame developed tumors, some of massive size.

To read the complete article or sign up for Dr. Mercola’s free newsletter, visit his website.