The Lowdown on Sweet?

luv2bike · #1 02-28-2006

I know this is a rather long article but I felt that it was pretty good. Last November another study on the safety of aspartame was made public. It was conducted in Italy by Dr. Soffritti. He has spent 28 years doing research on potential carcinogens.

I just quoted a couple of things from the article that can be found here. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/bu...erland&emc=rss

Quote:

She added that there were more than 100 published scientific studies showing no adverse effects from aspartame, and said that in 2002, the European Commission reviewed many of these studies and reaffirmed the sweetener's safety. The bulk of the studies investigated neurological effects; none were animal cancer studies, which are lengthy and expensive.

In any case, critics say that most of these studies were financed either directly or indirectly by manufacturers of aspartame, and that the results of aspartame studies tend to depend on who paid for them. In an analysis of 166 articles published in medical journals from 1980 to 1985, Dr. Ralph G. Walton, a professor of psychiatry at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine found that all 74 studies that were financed by the industry attested to sweetener's safety.

Of the 92 independently funded articles, 84 identified adverse health effects. "Whenever you have studies that were not funded by the industry, some sort of problem is identified," said Dr. Walton, adding that he has not looked at studies performed since 1985. "It's far too much for it to be a coincidence."

Isn't it funny how the results tend to lean in favor of whomever is financing the studies?

It's one of those things that make you go,"Umm?"

Quote:

Dr. Soffritti said he thought that more research and open debate were needed on whether aspartame was a carcinogen. "It is very important to have scientists who are independent and not funded by industry looking at this," he said.

Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group, said he did not think that Dr. Soffritti's study could be considered definitive, but that it should prompt an "urgent re-examination.

"For a chemical that is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, it should be absolutely safe," Mr. Jacobson said. "There shouldn't be a cloud of doubt."

Of course perhaps it could be that, like humans, rats are just more susceptible to cancer in their later years. Also, I wonder why the study didn't have a group of rats that wasn't given aspartame and then see how many of them got cancer. So, I'm not fully convinced by the latest study.

As for me ..... I think I'll cut down on my consumption of aspartame. Better safe than sorry.

Mindy moves on! · #2 02-28-2006

My niece is one of the people who is deathly allergic to Aspartame. She goes into anaphylactic shock if she has it. I personally know 3 people that get bad migraines whenever they ingest it.

I used to work in the Natural Products Industry and NutraSweet/Equal/Aspartame was a big no-no in any of the foods the manufacturers would create. I wish I still had the study that showed how ingesting Aspartame created a sort of short-circuit in the brain. That was a very scary report produced by an independant third party.

Funny how that report which caused a big stink in my old industry got swept under the carpet!!

luvbug412 · #3 12-19-2008

While this is an old post (in internet years 2 yrs is old) it's nice to see that stevia as a sweetener is making it onto the U.S. market finally.

There has been a ton of news in the last few weeks regarding two products (oddly enough being backed by Coco-Cola Co. and Pepsi-Co seperately) that introduce a stevia sweetener onto the shelves as a packet but also introduce stevia into bottled drinks.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out since some old research indicated that stevia (in mass quantities) could do bad things (doesn't anything when it's not taken in moderation?), but after reading some of the aspertame/sucralose test results, I'll take my chances of something derived from a plant!

RedRox · #4 12-20-2008

Stevia is not without its issues either, particularly for those with ragweed allergies which can also cause anaphylactic shock as well if they are particularly allergic and susceptible. I suspect the person in the earlier post was probably PKU (sorry can't spell it out!) but that is why there is a warning label on any and all aspartame containing foods for that small segment of the population that it is dangerous for them to consume because they have no way of processing it.

Personally I prefer the Center for Science in the Public Interest's website on food additives for mostly non-biased, scientifically based opinions on all sorts of food additives. The complete list of their additive summaries can be found here: Food Additives ~ CSPI’s Food Safety and they have this to say about those new forms of stevia drinks:

Quote:

Cargill and Merisant (which marks aspartame-based Equal) have developed purified extracts of stevia called Truvia and PureVia, respectively. Cargill is partnering with Coca-Cola, and Merisant with PepsiCo. The extracts are 95 percent pure rebaudioside A, which is 200 times as sweet as sugar. That substance is nicknamed rebiana. In 2008, Cargill published several toxicology studies and, on the basis of those studies, told the FDA that rebiana should be considering “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS. GRAS substances are given less scrutiny by the FDA than standard food additives. Merisant also told the FDA that PureVia should be GRAS. Meanwhile, a third company, Wisdom Natural Brands, declared that its stevia-related product is GRAS without even notifying the FDA.

Notwithstanding the new evidence, UCLA toxicologists and the Center for Science in the Public Interest have urged the FDA to reject the GRAS claims for rebiana. They emphasized that cancer studies were done with stevioside, which is closely related, but not identical, to rebiana. More importantly, they noted that FDA’s guidelines call for testing major new food additives in both rats and mice. The toxicologists and CSPI said that testing of rebiana itself, in both rats and mice, is particularly important, because several tests found that rebiana-related substances damaged chromosomes or DNA.

There are plenty of natural substances that are quite toxic to humans, so naturalness does not necessarily equate with safety. I have always found SB's reliance on artificial sweeteners to be at odds with their general guidelines for more healthy and yes, natural, foods. While I used a fair amount of sucralose at first, I gradually tapered that usage down and use more agave nectar in the few places I need something a little bit sweeter, like oatmeal and dark teas. My favorite fudgepops do contain aspartame, but do not cause me any particular problems and given the lack of other usage of any artificial sweeteners, I'm not too concerned about that very low level of usage. For the most part, fruits have become my sweet treats of choice and I've learned to just enjoy the natural flavors of everything else along the way. To each their own though1

I think everyone should just do their own research and draw their own conclusions, but there are a lot of emotionally charged sites on both sides on the internet, so tend to prefer something with a more calm and balanced approach like the CSPI site for information.

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