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Originally posted by anhinga
3. Methyl Alcohol - CH3OH; a flammable, toxic, mobile liquid, used as an industrial solvent, antifreeze, and in chemical manufacture; ingestion may result in severe acidosis, visual impairment, and other effects on the central nervous system. (aka formaldehyde)
It should be noted that the human body can metabolize and eliminate low concentrations of methanol with no ill effects. (Methanol is present in many cooked vegetables, and the artificial sweetener in diet soft drinks breaks down into methanol during digestion.) Methanol becomes poisonous only when it overwhelms the body's capacity to remove it. Toxic effects do not occur until several hours after exposure. Effective antidotes to methanol poisoning are readily available and can be administered during this interim period.
www.stillcooker.com...
Methanol is toxic by two mechanisms. Firstly, methanol (whether it enters the body by ingestion, inhalation, or absorption through the skin) can be fatal due to its CNS depressant properties in the same manner as ethanol poisoning. Secondly, it is toxic by its breakdown (toxication) by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver by forming formic acid and formaldehyde which cause permanent blindness by destruction of the optic nerve.[2] Fetal tissue will not tolerate methanol.
Dangerous doses will build up if a person is regularly exposed to vapors or handles liquid without skin protection. If methanol has been ingested, a doctor should be contacted immediately. The usual fatal dose is 100–125 mL (4 fl oz). Toxic effects take hours to start, and effective antidotes can often prevent permanent damage. This is treated using ethanol or fomepizole.[3] Either of these drugs acts to slow down the action of alcohol dehydrogenase on methanol by means of competitive inhibition, so that it is excreted by the kidneys rather than being transformed into toxic metabolites.
Originally posted by anhinga
What part of TOXIC don't you understand?
EVER naturally occurring?
At room temperature it is a polar liquid and is used as an antifreeze, solvent, fuel, and as a denaturant for ethyl alcohol. It is also used for producing biodiesel via transesterification reaction.
Originally posted by anhinga
reply to post by 27jd
What part of TOXIC don't you understand?
Methanol is toxic by two mechanisms. Firstly, methanol (whether it enters the body by ingestion, inhalation, or absorption through the skin) can be fatal due to its CNS depressant properties in the same manner as ethanol poisoning. Secondly, it is toxic by its breakdown (toxication) by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver by forming formic acid and formaldehyde which cause permanent blindness by destruction of the optic nerve.[2] Fetal tissue will not tolerate methanol.
Dangerous doses will build up if a person is regularly exposed to vapors or handles liquid without skin protection. If methanol has been ingested, a doctor should be contacted immediately. The usual fatal dose is 100–125 mL (4 fl oz). Toxic effects take hours to start, and effective antidotes can often prevent permanent damage. This is treated using ethanol or fomepizole.[3] Either of these drugs acts to slow down the action of alcohol dehydrogenase on methanol by means of competitive inhibition, so that it is excreted by the kidneys rather than being transformed into toxic metabolites.
Although, do they mention it's an INGREDIENT in one of the BEST SELLING beverages on the planet, of course not.
Try this, 18,600 Google hits, just skim the clips of the first few:
www.google.com...
on thee edit: so, for those addicted to diet Coke/Pepsi and not listening to 101 reason here, let the ol thread know when your kidney fails or one of your retina gets detached or the other numerous conditions listed just on that first Google page. (I don't know why this is in bold, Mods?)
The truth from a liar is still the truth. Wisdom from an idiot is still wisdom. I would tend to distrust the corporation that is selling something for profit, but I'm open-minded enough to listen to their arguments. In the case of aspartame, their arguments are in the form of the scientific studies done. And after months of looking up dozens of studies in medical libraries throughout Northern California and reading them, I find their arguments are pretty damn convincing. Not every study done is convincing and thorough, but there really is a large body of evidence that says aspartame is generally safe. If you can believe they falsified all this data, paid off literally dozens and dozens of Phd. researchers at major universities and medical centers.... you may as well believe that everyone is out to get you! The "footprint" of a full blown cover-up would be much more messy, I would think. Manipulating data and paying off researchers would only go so far. Researchers are people, and you have to have a little faith in their humanity. If aspartame was truly dangerous (with 100 million users today), we wouldn't need a web site to know it.
*snip*
But to put these sites in perspective, imagine the fraction of 1% of the people who have reactions to say... peanut butter. What would you think of "www.peanutbutterkills.com", that detailed gruesome reactions to peanut butter, called Skippy a poison, and compared the Nutter Butter man to Hitler? How far is this from "www.aspartamekills.com"? Not far.
*snip*
These anti-aspartame sites list a number of biochemical mechanisms as to how aspartame can cause harm. Most people don't know enough about biochemistry to make sense of all these claims (but it certainly sounds convincing, doesn't it?). For a counter-example, note that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen--two flammable gases... what does that prove? That water is a dangerous substance? If so, there must be a conspiracy to cover it up, right? I'm not defending aspartame here--what I'm saying is that it's very easy to generate pseudo-scientific claims and fuel conspiracy theories.
*snip*
You can access the summaries of all published medical research by searching for "aspartame", "aspartame symptoms" or "aspartame experiment" (for example) at National Library of Medicine This site contains over 9 million citations from medical journals. It (of course) includes experiments and commentary both critical and supportive of the safety of aspartame. It is ALL published research. Judge for yourself. And ask yourself, Why don't the anti-aspartame sites mention where I can get the real research?. Look at the variety of Universities and Medical Centers involved in this research. No, this isn't research done by Monsanto--it's real research submitted and reviewed by the editorial boards of real medical journals. These are doctors, universities and journals that are putting their reputation on the line.
aspartametruth.org...
I downloaded Andrea McCreery's article just in time, because Google immediately deleted it, though they left it on the menu. Somebody at aspartame [Diet Coke, Equal, NutraSweet, E951, Ajinomoto, Merisant, or the other suspects] had the clout to kill the release to continue blinding consumers about their addictive neurotoxic, carcinogenic junk. In this case what you don't know can kill you.
For 16 years from the creation of aspartame our FDA denied approval of that chemical because it causes brain tumors. The agency even compiled a list of 92 symptoms of aspartame poisoning from over 10,000 volunteered consumer complaints. FDA now denies there ever was such a list but here it is on their stationery: www.mpwhi.com... It took Don Rumsfeld to leave his job as head of the company that made aspartame to become Reagan's Secretary of Defense.
Aspartame Disease is partially behind some of the mystery of the Desert Storm health problems. The burning tongue and other problems discussed many cases can be directly related to the consumption of aspartame. Several thousand pallets of diet drinks were shipped to the Desert Storm troops. (Remember: heat can liberate the methanol from the aspartame at 86 degrees F). These diet drinks sat in the 120 degree F Arabian sun for weeks at a time on pallets. The serviceman and women drank them all day long. All of their symptoms are identical to aspartame poisoning.
Originally posted by intrepid
You two want to knock this bickering off? Nuff said.