Why is Aspartame still on the market?

was under the opinion that it caused the problems of which you speak in lab rats. They were given mass quanities and all sorts of problems appeared. The problem came in, where we realized that if you put the amount they ingested on a comparitive level, a human would have to ingest something like 24 cases of diet pop a day for "X" amount of years or something...

Same here...

As Byrd mentioned, just look at people who've been using it for over a decade...you won't see the problems mentioned, on any more of a scale than normal....

What the hell are our choices? Eat naturally sweetened food and get fat, and then die because of co-morbidities, or eat aspartame and get cancer and die, etc.

Use a cell phone and get brain cancer and die...or never use a cell phone, but also be out of touch with the world.

You know folks, EVERYTHING pretty much CAN kill us, and NOTHING is going to make us live forever... Let's just enjoy it while we're here, hmm?

Gazrok, I'm not saying that aspartame will kill you.
I'm saying that people who use artificially-sweetened food can defeat the purpose. It can cause weight gain. And, perhaps, insulin spikes.

I am just trying to make folks aware. If they are drinking more than a little diet soda, watching their food and exercising...and still not losing much, the may want to look to their aspartame use. And maybe eliminate it.

I have come to the conclusion that I can't worry much about prions, flouride, cell phones, aspartame, etc. etc. Worry will kil; you just as wasily as anything else

[edit on 8-2-2005 by DontTreadOnMe]

Gazrok...it's about being lied to by the government and big business. It just plain stinks, always has stunk and always will stink. We can't trust our own government to keep us safe.....yet, your solution is to just say "oh well, that's life??"....It's one thing to discuss theries about cell phone radiation (the same radiation coming from your TV and microwave oven by the way) and something completely different to discuss the government allowing a known poison to put be on the market and mass produced and sold to the masses.....that is just plain disgusting and you have no response that could prove otherwise.

[edit on 8-2-2005 by Zabilgy]

I don't think that aspartame is such a deadly poison in normal cosnumption, but it looks like it aint exactly harmless either and after the recent Vioxx/Celebrex scandal, I don't trust the FDA that much, it looks like they measure with 2 standards, the really big players in the industry, that can afford to donate millions to presidential campaigns can get away with a lot of junk, that wouldn't pass FDA if a small player wanted to introduce it ,

I'd rather shell the extra buck for sucralose sweetener....


[edit on 8-2-2005 by Countermeasures]

Originally posted by Countermeasures

I'd rather shell the extra buck for sucralose sweetener....


[edit on 8-2-2005 by Countermeasures]

Only in moderation though, everything is toxic really you just gotta control yourself, and Sucralose is suspected to be bad for you too. Allthough this website seems to think it isn't as hazardous as Aspertane it could lead to immunilogical decay.

www.holisticmed.com...

Drinking a bit of Artificial sweetner is OKAY! Excessive use of anything is not OKAY! Everything in Moderation.

Originally posted by Gazrok

As Byrd mentioned, just look at people who've been using it for over a decade...you won't see the problems mentioned, on any more of a scale than normal....

The majority of people don't consume enough aspartame to suffer noticable health problems. The problem comes when people believe that because it is a 'diet' product, that they consume as much as they like without consequence; and this excessive consumption does happen. As an earlier poster pointed out, some people drink these soft drinks quite literally as a substitute for water, which is when people start to ingest harmful quantities of aspartame.
Take this example: A friend of my grandmother's decided to cut out sugary food, started buying diet drinks, and eventually took the afforementioned line of thinking substituting diet pop for water (she would drink between 3-4 litres a day). After a few months, she starrted to suffer declining health, was always ill, and felt depressed. She visited the doctor several times, who after ruling out other causes, informed her that she was suffering poisoning caused by sweetners in diet drinks. She went back to a more normal fluid intake, and returned to good health.

What the hell are our choices?

Enjoy vices in moderation!

[edit on 8-2-2005 by Paul]

Personally, I avoid Aspartame like a plague. It's not something that is vital for my survival. If I want a little soda, then I'll get soda with sugar. I just try not to go crazy with it anymore. Sugar in moderation.

If I want snack foods I do try to avoid MSG, I think MSG may have a noticable adverse affect on me. Yucky stuff.

Again consume as much real food as possible. Best solution is to consume 100% real food, but I know that doesn't allways work in every situation.

Troy

I don't know about any studies that were done, but from personal experience, aspartame and MSG make me ill for several hours. Aspartame gives me headaches, stomachache, and a general feeling of malaise; MSG gives me just the headaches.

It's relatively easy to avoid aspartame (except now it's even showing up in vitamins-- even ones that already contain sugar!), but MSG is in so much stuff. Thank goodness for ingredient lists...

If you want a safe alternative, try stevia (sold as Stevita). I use it in Kool-Aid and it tastes like the "real" thing.

So far, I haven't heard anything negative about it. As far as I know, it's a plant that's grown in South America. Apparently the natives use it.

Can you get Stevia in grocery stores yet? I do remember seeing it in a health food store.

My mom drinks so much soda, I would at least like to get her away from Aspartame. If I could flavor some type of soda beverage for her with Stevia, she might have a healthier alternative to sugar and Aspartame/NutraCrap. Soda is so freakin' cheap, and that's part of why my mom drinks it. Affordable sweetness.

Troy

Whats interesting about Aspartame in particular is that...

A) It is only stable in a dry powdered form, and forms unsafe compounds in solution, yet is primarily used as a drinks sweetener.
B) That a substance clearly unsuitable for use as a drinks sweetener has FDA approval.
C) That it is a product produced by Monsantos' who have a shocking record for producing unsafe toxic compounds and of manipulating the system.

My previous post was edited but, every single part was important insightful reseach and well worth examination

The whole Aspartame story is a sad indictment on the system that created, approved and profits from it.

Asparatame is indeed, bad stuff. It is an "excitotoxin" smart-drugs.net... as is MSG(why it makes so many feel ill) MSG is in almost everything. Boullions, soups, seasonings, canned goods ect; Making a soup from scratch is a real pain, as broth from cans and boullion cubes are packed with it

Diet coke doesn't bother me, but I have stopped drinking it. I am primarily a water drinker anyhow. When we go out and get pizza, I still get diet coke as it is my favorite. I don't like sugary sodas, toooo sweet. Now when we go out for dinner, I just get an unsweet tea with lemon or a water with lemon. I make my kids get water when we are out. They think I am mean.

I am not as good about making dinner from scratch, but I do fairly often. I should always, but it probably isn't going to be always

Originally posted by Byrd
This has been done unto death many times.

Try a little experiment. Take a look around you at all the people who are 40 or over. Most of them have been drinking diet sodas for at least 10 years and probably longer. Ask how many of them have the so-called symptoms that aspartane is supposed to bring on.

The answer will be "none" (or they wouldn't still be drinking the stuff.)

If that report was right, we'd have a health crisis beyond imagining right now; something that couldn't be explained by overeating and lack of exercise.

Jeez Byrd!!!

1 in 2 American men get cancer, and 1 in 3 women. .........We're looking at massive early disabilities and huge health problems.


...True - few diseases in our modern world result from a direct cause-and-effect relationship - most are multifactorial. Moreover - most are also 'subclinical' formes frustes - when 'medicine' is only prepared to acknowledge 'acute' illness.

...But - time for a new paradigm please - there are plenty of theorists who are wwilling to look at "health impacts" over old science cause-effect limitations.



.

Here's a few more links I dug up, thought I'd throw them into the mix.

And yes Byrd, Aspartame is poisonous.
Here ya go..

www.newswithviews.com...
...has a synergistic and additive effect with MSG, and is a chemical hyper-sensitization agent. Dr. John Olney, who founded the field of neuoscience called excitotoxicity, attempted to stop the approval of aspartame with Attorney James Turner back in 1996. The FDA's own toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross told Congress that without a shadow of a doubt, aspartame can cause brain tumors and brain cancer and violated the Delaney Amendment which forbids putting anything in food that is known to cause Cancer. Detailed information on this can be found in the Bressler Report (FDA report on Searle)....
Dr. Ralph Walton, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine has written of the behavioral and psychiatric problems triggered by aspartame-caused depletion of serotonin....
According to the top doctors and researchers on this issue, aspartame causes headache, memory loss, seizures, vision loss, coma and cancer. It worsens or mimics the symptoms of such diseases and conditions as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer's, chronic fatigue and depression. Further dangers highlighted is that aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol. The resulting chronic methanol poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain causing addiction. Methanol, or wood alcohol, constitutes one third of the aspartame molecule and is classified as a severe metabolic poison and narcotic....
Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, MD, author of "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills," wrote about the relationship between aspartame and macular degeneration, diabetic blindness and glaucoma (all known to result from excitotoxin accumulation in the retina)....
has even caused the epidemic of obesity because it makes you crave carbohydrates so you gain weight, and the formaldehyde accumulates in the adipose tissue (fat cells) according to the Trocho Study. Further accusations are that aspartame is also responsible for the epidemic of diabetes as it not only can precipitate diabetes but simulates and aggravates diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, can cause diabetics to go into convulsions and interacts with insulin.

Keep in mind when you read the follwing the connections between the major involed pharmaceutical companies here is braoder than what it may appear, i.e Monsanto, Bayer, etc. Pretty much look I G Farben and follow the money from there. Rumsfeld in particular has his hands deep into the pharmaceutical industry. Gilead Sciences, GD Searle, etc.

www.newmediaexplorer.org...

Complaints filed in the World Court... (.pdf)
www4.dr-rath-foundation.org...

Do we really want these guys to make artificial sweetners fo us?
www.sunshine-project.org...

news.phaseiii.org...

news.phaseiii.org...
Since its discovery in 1965, controversy has raged over the health risks associated with the sugar substitute. From laboratory testing of the chemical on rats, researchers have discovered that the drug induces brain tumors. On Sept 30, 1980 the Board of Inquiry of the FDA concurred and denied the petition for approval.

In 1981, the newly appointed FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, ignored the negative ruling and approved aspartame for dry goods. As recorded in the Congressional Record of 1985, then CEO of Searle Laboratories Donald Rumsfeld said that he would "call in his markers" to get aspartame approved. Rumsfeld was on President Reagan's transition team and a day after taking office appointed Hayes. No FDA Commissioner in the previous sixteen years had allowed aspartame on the market.
When Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle, that conglomerate manufactured aspartame. For 16 years the FDA refused to approve it, not only because its not safe but because they wanted the company indicted for fraud. Both U.S. Prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statute of limitations expired. They were Sam Skinner and William Conlon. Skinner went on to become Secretary of Transportation squelching the cries of the pilots who were now having seizures on this seizure triggering drug, aspartame, and then Chief of Staff under President Bush's father. Some of these people reach high places. Even Supreme Justice Clarence Thomas is a former Monsanto attorney. (Monsanto bought Searle in 1985, and sold it a few years ago). When Ashcroft became Attorney General, Thompson from King and Spalding Attorneys (another former Monsanto attorney) became deputy under Ashcroft. (Attorneys for NutraSweet and Coke)....
The FDA set up a Board of Inquiry of the best scientists they had to offer who said aspartame is not safe and causes brain tumors, and the petition for approval is hereby revoked. The new FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, over-ruled that Board of Inquiry and then went to work for the PR Agency of the manufacturer, Burson-Marstellar, rumored at $1000.00 a day, and has refused to talk to the press ever since.

A good time line of the development of this crap...
www.rense.com...

Holes in your brain, boy that's one sweet deal!

www.stevia.net...
Dr. Olney had already shown that aspartic acid (one aspartame component) caused microscopic holes in the brains of rats after each feeding. Aspartame also includes phenylalinine, which causes PKU in a small number of susceptible children, and methyl, or wood, alcohol which is neurotoxic in large amounts.

A wealth of knowlege from Dr. Joseph Mercola
www.mercola.com...
www.mercola.com...
www.mercola.com...
www.mercola.com...
www.mercola.com...

But they are just good guys looking our for us by providing a sugar alternative right? LOL
Racketeering (Rico)Charges filed Against NutraSweet
www.highway2health.net...

A must read...
nancymarkle.com...

Edit:
Footnote here of sorts...

members.aol.com...
Not only did Hayes approve a product based on studies that were "scientifically lacking in design and execution," according to a report issued by Science Times in February of 1985, but upon leaving the FDA, Hayestook the post of senior medical consultant for Burson-Marsteller, the public relations firm retained by G. D. Searle.

[edit on 11-2-2005 by twitchy]

Twitchy.....nice research. I love how there can be this much information out there and people can still think it's safe. That bgoes to show that the masses can easily be brainwashed....pretty scary. Pretty disgusting too that Reagan ousts the head of the FDA that denid the stuff and his new FDA guy magically approved it......how much money did Reagan and hi cronies make off that one....millions I am sure!! God Bless America...it sure needs a blessing!!

I have come to the conclusion that large quantities of anything will cause health risks (I also think that rats must be more prone to cancer than humans, at least when you inject a rat to enough of one certain food to feed an elephant!)

Half of things you come in contact with every day are "known to the state of California to cause cancer." What are you to do? Don’t like it? Become a mountain man and move to Yukon. No, better yet, don’t like it? DONT DRINK IT!

If I want to drink 4 liters of Diet Coke a day (and I do, and I am healthy) because I am addicted to and like the caffeine in it, that is my business, not yours. Who are you and your FDA to tell me I can’t drink something because 40 gallons per day of it will kill a lab rat? Give me a break, and stay out of my "kitchen liberties" while you are at it!


Maybe instead of alternative sweetener companies spending millions on studies to demonize aspartame and sell their own fake sugar, they should spend that money on aids research or some worthwhile charity instead of worrying about what I ingest.

It’s damn pathetic; there are children that are starving and dieing, and people with 10 years of schooling are wasting their time, skills and million$ feeding Diet Coke to lab rats! Disgusting and disturbing .

Djohnsto77 says: “Please provide some links to scientific studies to back up your claims.”

Zabilgy responds: 77...yes sir!! www.holisticmed.com... The above link discusses the ill effects of Aspartame and there many, many more out there!!

Zabilgy, I’m afraid you may have misunderstood our colleague djohnsto77. He was asking for links to scientific studies.

Your link, entitled “Aspartame Is Dangerous For Everyone” is not a scientific study. It is a bunch of data with terms like “it appears to cause…”, “…at a dose that could be considered within the …”, or ”… experiments showed that an aspartame breakdown product caused uterine polyps in experimental animals…”

I’m sorry, but none of that is a serious study. The study is not quoted, we don’t know who conducted the study, the results were not published (or if they were, we don’t know where), we don’t know the methodology, and so on.

And the reporting is not in the least valid. Look at the statement, “…it appears to..” Well, does the study show a positive causative correlation or not?

When you look at the statement “… dose that could be considered within the ‘Acceptable Daily Intake’ limit …”. Is it within the published limits or not?

And how about this one: “…that an aspartame breakdown product caused…”. Hey, a “breakdown product” of table salt, chlorine, is a poisonous gas, and another “breakdown product”, sodium, is a deadly poison, as well. Does this mean the salting your green beans will kill you? No, because the salt doesn’t break down to sodium and chlorine in the body! Your link doesn’t say anything about the breakdown products, nor does it way where and how it’s produced.

Now Zabilgy, I’m not saying that aspartame is safe or that it’s dangerous. My wife and I have been using aspartame as a sweetener for about eight years and neither of us has begun to glow in the dark or have square babies. But that doesn’t mean anything, either. The point is that some people consider it dangerous and others don’t.

I personally would stop using aspartame if the preponderance of scientific evidence showed it to be hazardous in the dosages I take it, but your link simply doesn’t satisfy that particular criterion.

BTW people, too much WATER INTAKE will kill you faster than aspartame and smoking and taking gasoline baths will.

Zabilgy, I’m afraid you may have misunderstood our colleague djohnsto77. He was asking for links to scientific studies.

Pardon me your highness if my link didn't satisfy your colleague's wishes. Check out this whole thread. There has been tons of data posted regarding the fact that Aspartame is a known poison. If you don't like what I posted or what others have posted, then look up your own information. There's plenty out there.

One person posted a link to the contrary and it was pretty lame. Why don't you post some "SCIENTIFIC STUDIES" that prove Aspartame to not to be the poison it is.

By the way your snooty attitude is funny!

It’s damn pathetic; there are children that are starving and dieing, and people with 10 years of schooling are wasting their time, skills and million$ feeding Diet Coke to lab rats! Disgusting and disturbing .

CaveScout...what are you doing to help those starving and dying children?