Aspartame Causes Cancer

To my knowledge 20 to 40gr will cause gas and loose stomach, not cool if you Irritable Bowel Sindrome, but no one should take more than 5 gr a day anyways.

I've cut back from 1/2 tsp per 16oz water to 1/16 tsp in same amount of water. I'll see if it still does the job on plaque. If so, I'll keep to that dose which should amount to less than 1gm per day. Aj, how is your gum treating you? Any gas, other symptoms?

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no side effects other than cleaner teeth, because i barely swollow any of it

Stevia, or very little real sugar -- half a pack rather than six ofr an iced tea drink.  Try not to turn your drinks into syrup!  Also, saccharine had a bad rap, but appears to be by far the safest of the three primary artificial sweeteners.  It's been around for 100, years, and has NO medical reported problems I've heard about.  The other two have 1000's of reported problems.

I'm always at moderate-low carb diet, I consume sugar (or high glycemic carbs) only post-workout.
I have half a kilo of stevia. I dont tolerate well the bitter herbal aftertaste. I tried also maltitol and erythrytol (sp), which were good but not sweet enough to be affordable.

Not using artificial sweeteners is impossible for me, if wasnt only for the protein powders.

I use a sweetener made of acesulfame-K and saccharine, but i'm seriously considering sucralose (splenda).
What are the bads about acesulfame-K? Is often used together with other (stronger) sweeteners.
I dont like things very sweet, but I take some herbs that absolutely need to be sweetened by an amount corresponding to 2-4 full teaspoons of sugar.

Big news today about a study in which adolescents were given free diet soda.

http://www.forbes.co...cout531370.html

Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston had 103 teens pick non-caloric drinks they liked, then delivered a supply of those drinks to their home refrigerators.

The result: Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages tumbled by 82 percent over a six-month period, the researchers reported.

That quickly translated into real weight loss for heavier teens -- a pound a month during the half-year of the study.

"We are really excited by this line of research," said study lead author Cara Ebbeling, co-director of obesity research in the division of endocrinology at the hospital.

Her team published the findings in the March issue of Pediatrics.

"Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) may have a unique effect on obesity. Simply decreasing SSB consumption seems to be a promising strategy for preventing and treating obesity," she said.

Not only that, Ebbeling said, but the simplicity of the study -- replacing sugary drinks at home with non-caloric drinks that teens like -- could serve as a template for future interventions.

---BrianW

Look they discovered hot water!

so - how come the all lived to the same age?

uhm, uhm.

This is an interesting question. Seems that negative effects were seen almost completely with female rats. They report that there were no difference in survival. However, if one looks at the curves, it seems that especially with females, the control and low treated group DID seem to live LESS than at least some of the higher treated groups, although no difference in max life span. There seems to be about 5-10 week difference on average for a given survival rate from age 72 weeks onwards and evens out only in the very end. I know 95% lab mice die of cancer, I presume same to be true for rats also (Sprague-Dawley rats are known to be cancer prone), so such differences in survival could have large effect on the results. Could anyone else look at mortality curves to see if the difference between goups is so neglible not to cause difference in cancer rates, especially given that rats were Sprague-Dawley rats?

http://www.ramazzini...tameGEO2005.pdf

Anyway it does seem odd that the treated group purported to have higher cancer rates not only lived at least as long as the controls, but actually a bit LONGER!

Edited by opales, 21 March 2006 - 01:07 PM.

Criticism of the study:

http://www.blackwell...10.2005.00521.x

Some of it bears direct relevance to my earlier post

There are also a number of limitations that hamper drawing
any firm conclusions from this study which would usually
be picked up during the peer-review process. These
include the limited amount of data provided in the
paper, the use of post hoc statistical analyses that
increase the risk of spurious findings for combined endpoints.
(i.e. lymphomas plus leukaemias) and the reporting
of lifetime incidence of malignancies rather than age
specific incidence. All other incidences of tumours at
other sites are not given and this limits interpretation
because tumours occurring in early life and causing
early death may influence the incidence of tumours at
other sites. For example, a relatively high incidence of
mammary tumours, which is common in this strain of
rat and affected by energy intake, in the control animals
(which were heavier) may have influenced the occurrence
of lymphomas and leukaemias (i.e. led to a lower
incidence of these tumours). This may account for the
extremely low incidence of lymphomas and leukaemias
in the female control animals compared with their historical
controls. This would automatically result in a
statistical difference with the aspartame treated animals.

Here is another one, echoing some of the same but also some additional questions.

http://www.aspartame...h/medit053.html

Edited by opales, 21 March 2006 - 12:47 PM.

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,"

Opales, you touched on this very vaguely by stating that no study is completely independent. That's true.

Can you go a step further and offer the explanation for it that leads you to believe there is no foul play at work here? Because for me, and I'm sure most other people, it is far, far too suspicious.

from the link above:

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."

Dr Walton's allegations paper reveals that of the 92 pieces of "research," 85 (not 84) are said to identify an adverse reaction to aspartame. However, of the 85:

    * Ten studies actually involve aspartate and not aspartame. Aspartate is the salt of aspartic acid. Aspartic acid is a very common component of food. These studies are therefore irrelevant to aspartame safety.
    * 18 of the studies do not actually draw any negative conclusions about aspartame.
    * Five are review articles, not peer-reviewed studies.
    * Two are “brief reports” or “case reports”, not peer-reviewed studies.
    * Five are anecdotes, based on the writers’ observations of patients.
    * 11 are conference proceedings, which are not peer-reviewed studies.
    * 19 are letters to various medical journals.
    * Three are different reports of the same study.
    * Two are exact duplicates of other documents appearing in the list.
    * Three are different reports of the same allegations.