Artificial Sweeteners- More Dangerous Than You Ever Imagined

If you still believe sweeteners like Equal and NutraSweet are safe, you'll want to pay very close attention to this special report.

 

You're probably aware of the dangers of consuming too much sugar and that sugar is not healthy for you. You might have been led to believe that artificial sweeteners like aspartame are safer and less likely to cause you to gain weight.

 

Well, neither of those beliefs is true.

 

Slick marketing of products containing aspartame by giants in the food industry -- especially marketing that sends the message it's healthy to consume these products -- might be giving you a false sense of security.

 

You might even be convinced you're doing the right thingfor your health and the health of your family by using products artificially sweetened with aspartame.

 

You couldn't be more mistaken.

 

It's not pleasant to learn that corporations, government-sponsored regulatory agencies, and politicians are more interested in lining their pockets than protecting your health and the health of your loved ones. But unfortunately, these are serious issues that you must consider for your and your family's safety.

 

Manufacturers, marketers, and others with financial interests have successfully convinced millions of consumers the chemicals used in artificially sweetened products are safe. Don't believe them! The arguments used to convince you these ingredients are healthy and "natural" will be addressed later in this report.

 

For now, just keep in mind that the reason you feel products containing aspartame are safe is a direct result of deliberate deception on the part of big business and government. Remember:

 

If you're consuming a food or beverage created in a lab instead of by nature, you can be assured your body doesn't recognize it. This opens the door to short-term and long-lasting health problems for you and your family.

 

If you already avoid aspartame, the information you're about to read will confirm the wise choice you've made, and cement your resolve to stay away from any product that contains this potential toxin.

An Accident Waiting to Happen: The Birth of Aspartame

Like an omen, aspartame was discovered in 1965 entirely by mistake. That's right ... by mistake.

 

G.D. Searle chemist James M. Schlatter was at work in his laboratory developing a drug to treat peptic ulcer disease. The story goes that Schlatter accidentally spilled one of the chemicals he was using onto his finger. He licked his finger clean, and in doing so discovered the sweet taste of the aspartame he had spilled.¹

 

This inauspicious beginning heralded the birth of what has become one of the most potentially dangerous and controversial food additives in human history.

How Aspartame Got to Market in Spite of Itself

As you're about to learn, the tale of how aspartame got to market is a disturbing one. It reads like a crime mystery. One you would assume is based on the author's over-active imagination. Except it's all true.

 

The approval process for aspartame was said to have been riddled with scandal, bribes, and other shady dealings within the pharmaceutical industry, large American corporations, and the FDA. Initially, the FDA strongly denied the approval of aspartame products. Reasons given were sound and included:

 

• Flawed data
• Brain tumorfindings in animal studies
• Lack of studies on humans to determine longer-term effects

How aspartame got to market despite initial FDA concerns and evidence of its neurotoxicity is a study in good timing, heavy financial investment, and the impact of political clout.

Timing Is Everything

Aspartame studies were on the rise just after cyclamate was pulled from the U.S. market and saccharin was under serious scrutiny. The disappearance of cyclamate left a void it appeared saccharin might not be poised to fill.

At the time of the cyclamate ban, the "diet" market was a $1 billion dollar per year business in the U.S.² Manufacturers of diet products were in a mad scramble to find a substitute product that would insure they left not a dollar of that billion on the table.

Pouring Good Money Into Bad Studies

G.D. Searle spent tens of millions of dollars to conduct the necessary approval tests on aspartame. Not surprisingly, studies funded by Searle and other groups with a financial interest in aspartame found no adverse health effects. However, independent studies delivered evidence that aspartame consumption did indeed create health problems in test subjects.

Flexing Political Muscle

In addition to its enormous financial investment in favorable study results, Searle developed what can be fairly described as a diabolical political strategy to insure the FDA would end up with a positive view of aspartame.

Deceptive Safety Studies

G.D. Searle provided the FDA with over 100 aspartame studies in early 1973. Later that same year, the FDA asked for additional studies. Searle complied, and in June 1974, the FDA granted preliminary approval for the restricted use of aspartame.

The study findings submitted by Searle were immediately challenged by Dr. John Olney, a neuroscientist who was instrumental in getting monosodium glutamate removed from baby foods, and Jim Turner, an attorney and consumer advocate.³

In August 1974, Olney and Turner filed the first formal objections to the approval of aspartame. Their petition prompted the FDA to initiate investigations into Searle's lab practices.

The investigations ultimately led to concerns within the FDA about the validity of the studies submitted by Searle. Investigators uncovered substandard testing procedures and manipulated test data. In fact, what investigators found at Searle was an unprecedented incidence of bad testing procedures and inaccurate results. Final approval of aspartame was delayed.

Based on the results of these findings, in January 1977, for the first time in history, the FDA requested a criminal investigation into a food manufacturer for willfully misrepresenting results in their safety tests of a product. The FDA asked the U.S. Attorney's office to examine Searle's handling of aspartame testing.⁴

In August 1977, the FDA published a report by Jerome Bressler which pointed to specific issues with Searle's aspartame safety studies.⁵

The Bressler Report revealed stunning examples of very bad research. A few examples included:

• Deceased lab animals were not immediately autopsied, some not for an entire year after death. Decomposition rendered any data from them inaccurate.
• Tumors found in lab animals were reportedly cut out and thrown away.
• Animals from whom tumors were removed were labeled "normal," and obvious tumors were deemed to be "normal swelling."

In 1979, the FDA established a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) to rule on safety issues with aspartame, with the result that NutraSweet would not receive final approval pending further investigation into its link to brain tumors in animals.

Political and Regulatory Dirty Tricks

During the 1977 criminal investigation initiated by the FDA, the law firm representing G.D. Searle arranged to hire away the U.S. Attorney leading the investigation. Samuel Skinner went to work for Searle in July. Skinner's resignation from the U.S. Attorney's office stalled the investigation into Searle's aspartame studies until the statute of limitations expired. The investigation was subsequently abandoned.

In March 1977, Donald Rumsfeld was hired as the CEO of Searle -- yes, the same Rumsfeld that was the Secretary of Defense in the Bush administration. He brought with him additional political clout by appointing several of his D.C. associates to top management positions.

In January 1981, Rumsfeld proclaimed he would get aspartame approved within one year.⁶ Worthy of note is the fact Rumsfeld was part of newly elected President Ronald Reagan's transition team -- a team which had carefully selected Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes Jr. as the new FDA Commissioner. Two months later, in March, Dr. Hayes appointed an internal panel to review the 1979 decision by the Public Board of Inquiry that ruled thumbs down on final approval of NutraSweet.

Three of the five members of Dr. Hayes' panel advised against approval of aspartame, citing on the record that Searle's safety study tests were flawed. Hayes then appointed a sixth member to the panel who tied the vote three-three. Dr. Hayes then cast the deciding vote in favor of approval.

Hayes, an official with no background on the subject of food additives, claimed aspartame was safe for proposed use, and had undergone more testing and scientific scrutiny than most additives on the market. Shortly after approving this drug he resigned from the FDA panel and was hired by the manufacturer of aspartame for a position in which he was paid several hundred thousand dollars per year.

So, despite all the game playing and countless unresolved safety issues, aspartame was approved for use in soft drinks in the fall of 1983. Less than a year later, the FDA had recorded 600 consumer complaints of headaches, dizziness and other health-related reactions from aspartame consumption. The unprecedented number of complaints caused the FDA to call in the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). The CDC concluded adverse reactions to aspartame were occurring in "unusually sensitive" individuals, but there was not enough evidence to prove existence of wide-spread health problems attributable to its consumption.

 

How Aspartame Acts Inside Your Body

The two primary components of aspartame, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, are amino acids that are combined in an ester bond. You normally consume these two amino acids in the foods you eat. These amino acids are harmless when consumed as part of natural unprocessed foods. However, when they are chemically manipulated and consumed out of the normal ratios to other amino acids, they can cause problems.

Your body initially breaks down the ester link between the two amino acids to turn them into free amino acids. The neurotoxic effects of these chemicals in their "free form" can result in immediate health consequences such as headaches, mental confusion, dizziness, and seizures.

Your body does require small amounts of these amino acids to function properly. However, the high concentration of these chemicals in the form of aspartame floods your central nervous system and can cause excessive firing of brain neurons. Cell death is also possible.

This is a condition called excitotoxicity. Your body doesn't recognize phenylalanine and aspartic acid in their free form, but your system will try to manage them through metabolization. Whenever your body tries to process an unrecognizable substance, the stage is set for health problems. The chemicals in aspartame will be absorbed by your intestinal cells, where they will be broken down into other amino acids and byproducts. A large percentage of the absorbed chemicals will be used immediately in your small intestine.

A Formaldehyde Cocktail

Ultimately, aspartame will be fully absorbed into your body. Ten percent of what is absorbed is the breakdown product methanol (wood alcohol). The EPA defines safe consumption of this toxin as 7.8 milligrams a day, which is the amount found in about half a can of diet soda.

It's not the amino acids themselves or the methanol that are toxic to your system. It's the breakdown products they turn into along the way -- either during transport, on the store shelf, or during the metabolization process.

Stored at warm temperatures or for a prolonged period of time, phenylalanine turns into diketopiperazine, a known carcinogen. Methanol can spontaneously break down to formaldehyde, also a toxin, which can accumulate in your cells and result in severe health consequences.

Methanol is found naturally in some of the foods you eat. However, it is never bound to amino acids in nature, as it is as an ingredient in aspartame. In nature, for example, methanol is bound to pectin. Pectin is a fiber which allows the methanol to pass through your body without being metabolized and converted to formaldehyde.⁸

Since methanol in aspartame has no natural binder, nearly all of it turns into formaldehyde in your body. Formaldehyde (which is used in, among other things, paint remover and embalming fluid) is a poison several thousand times more potent than ethyl alcohol.

The EPA has determined formaldehyde causes cancer in humans. Specifically, it is known to increase your risk of breast or prostate cancer. Incidents of both types of cancer have been on the rise at a pace closely associated with the expanding use of aspartame throughout the world.⁹ The EPA has also concluded there is no known "safe" level of formaldehyde in your body -- risk depends on the amount and duration of your exposure.

The end waste product of formaldehyde is formate. An accumulation of formate in your body can cause metabolic acidosis, which is excessive acidity in your blood. Metabolic acidosis can cause methanol poisoning and can result in blindness, fatal kidney damage, multiple organ system failure, and death.¹⁰