Candace: I am a poster child for the dangers of Aspartame. I began using it not very long after it came out, because of the hypoglycemia I had, weight issues, my love of teas and not wishing to consume empty calories in sugar sweetened stuff. I paid a heavy price. I developed a terrible case of meniere's syndrome, and artery spasms, which affected my heart and limbs. Basically this is called Reynaud's syndrome and I had it with my coronary arteries in a very serious manner. I had to used nitroglycerin several times a day for many years, plus another drug to help with the other cirulatory problems, which I also used the nitroglycerine for. This is NOT safe people, drop it. If you must use sweetners (ME), then use white stevia powder. AA Raphael says stevia is the ONLY safe sweetener on the market.
You should also not be using the alcohol based sweetners that end in "ol", like manitol, sorbitol and others. These are basically the same metabolites that are responsible for damage from diabetes, and it is thus just as safe to eat sugar with diabetes. You do not help yourself out by using these at all. They are damaging. While they do exist in nature, nature does not add them in excessive quantities to its products. Only man does that! The other new popular sweetner, sucrulose, is also dangerous.
Beware - Aspartame Has Been Renamed 'AminoSweet' And is now being marketed as a 'natural' sweetener!
By Ethan Huff Citizen Journalist 2-13-10
In response to growing awareness about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, what does the manufacturer of one of the world's most notable artificial sweeteners do? Why, rename it and begin marketing it as natural, of course. This is precisely the strategy of Ajinomoto, maker of aspartame, which hopes to pull the wool over the eyes of the public with its rebranded version of aspartame, called "AminoSweet".
Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the general public is waking up to the truth about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health. The latest aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public into accepting the chemical sweetener as natural and safe, despite evidence to the contrary.
Aspartame was an accidental discovery by James Schlatter, a chemist who had been trying to produce an anti-ulcer pharmaceutical drug for G.D. Searle & Company back in 1965. Upon mixing aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two naturally-occurring amino acids, he discovered that the new compound had a sweet taste. The company merely changed its FDA approval application from drug to food additive and, voila, aspartame was born.
G.D. Searle & Company first patented aspartame in 1970. An internal memo released in the same year urged company executives to work on getting the FDA into the "habit of saying yes" and of encouraging a "subconscious spirit of participation" in getting the chemical approved.
G.D. Searle & Company submitted its first petition to the FDA in 1973 and fought for years to gain FDA approval, submitting its own safety studies that many believed were inadequate and deceptive. Despite numerous objections, including one from its own scientists, the company was able to convince the FDA to approve aspartame for commercial use in a few products in 1974, igniting a blaze of controversy.
In 1976, then FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt wrote a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy expressing concern over the "questionable integrity of the basic safety data submitted for aspartame safety". FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill believed that a grand jury should investigate G.D. Searle & Company for lying about the safety of aspartame in its reports and for concealing evidence proving the chemical is unsafe for consumption.
Despite the myriad of evidence gained over the years showing that aspartame is a dangerous toxin, it has remained on the global market with the exception of a few countries that have banned it. In fact, it continued to gain approval for use in new types of food despite evidence showing that it causes neurological brain damage, cancerous tumors, and endocrine disruption, among other things.
The details of aspartame's history are lengthy, but the point remains that the carcinogen was illegitimately approved as a food additive through heavy-handed prodding by a powerful corporation with its own interests in mind. Practically all drugs and food additives are approved by the FDA not because science shows they are safe but because companies essentially lobby the FDA with monetary payoffs and complete the agency's multi-million dollar approval process.
Changing aspartame's name to something that is "appealing and memorable", in Ajinomoto's own words, may hoodwink some but hopefully most will reject this clever marketing tactic as nothing more than a desperate attempt to preserve the company's multi-billion dollar cash cow. Do not be deceived.
