By Carol Chuang, MS, CHC, CMTA

 

 

The obesity epidemic is one of America's most serious health problems. Adult obesity rates have doubled since 1980, from 15% to 30%, while childhood obesity rates have more than tripled. Increasingly, more Americans are searching for low-calorie options to control their weight and food makers roll out new artificial sweeteners to meet this rising demand. Artificial sweeteners are a billion dollar industry. Nowadays, they are found in so many foods, from diet drinks, yogurt, snacks, dessert, candies, chewing gums, children's vitamins, over-the-counter drugs, prescription drugs, to even water.

 

"Artificial" means something that is not found in nature; it is a man-made chemical compound. When you consume them day-in, day-out, what effect do they have on your body?  Is it really safe for long-term consumption? Does it really help prevent you from gaining weight?

Artificial sweeteners are just about the worst of all possible worlds, as far as dietary choices go. They are beyond processed, completely unnatural, insufficiently tested for long-term safety, and have a long history of causing health problems. They are extreme examples of what has gone wrong with our modern day diet. Studies show that people who consume diet drinks tend to gain more weight than people who consume regular soft drinks.

 

In the following, we will first look at why you should not consume anything sweetened with aspartame and sucralose, the two most popular artificial sweeteners on the market. Then we will look at the new stevia-based sweeteners such as Truvia and PureVia, and lastly, some natural options for your sweet tooth.

Aspartame was originally developed in a lab as a drug to treat peptic ulcer. In 1965, a scientist at G. D. Searle & Co., licked his fingers to pick up a piece of paper, and got the world's first taste of this chemical. Since its approval in 1981, aspartame has gained substantial market share over saccharin (Sweet'N Low), which has been determined to increase the risk of bladder cancer in rats.

 

Aspartame is also known as NutraSweet, Equal, and Canderel. It is an ingredient used in over 6,000 consumer foods and beverages worldwide and is found in little blue packets at coffee shops and restaurants.

Aspartame has been touted as safe because it is made from amino acids, the building blocks of protein. However, the statement is not entirely true. Aspartame is not a natural product; it is a synthesized compound composed of 50% phenylalanine (an amino acid), 40% aspartic acid (also an amino acid) and 10% methanol (wood alcohol or paint remover). Aspartame breaks down into its constituents under conditions of elevated temperature or high pH (high alkalinity). The following are some reasons why aspartame is not as safe as it claims:

 

Phenylalanine changes brain chemistry

·         Causes mental retardation in people who have the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU).

·         When consumed in high concentrations, it interferes with the growth of the fetus' brain.

·         Blocks production of serotonin, a neurostransmitter that controls eating patterns, resulting in sugar and carbohydrate cravings, and weight gain. Therefore, diabetics, should never use aspartame as a substitute for sugar. Further, low serotonin is associated with symptoms from premenstrual syndrome, mood swings, to depression.

·         Changes dopamine level in brain and exacerbates symptoms of Parkinson's Disease

 

Aspartic acid is neurotoxic

• When consumed in high concentrations, it causes excessive firing of brain neurons and potential cell death, an effect called excitotoxicity. It is linked to disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and symptoms such as headaches, depression, mental confusion, memory loss, severe vision loss, balance problems, and seizures.

Methanol is extremely toxic

• Toxicity symptoms mimic multiple sclerosis, which leads to many wrong diagnoses.
• Worsens symptoms of systemic lupus

In the ten years from 1981 to 1991, 10,000 aspartame complaints had been filed with the FDA, totaling over 80% of all FDA complaints. Then in 1992, the FDA quit categorizing complaints as an aspartame grievance and began putting them into generic categories. So after 1992, no more specific aspartame complaints were recorded.

 

In 1976, a chemistry student at Queen Elizabeth College in London was working with his advisor to create new pesticides. They accidentally discovered an exceptionally sweet compound by adding chlorine to sugar and putting it through a lengthy chemical transformation process. This compound eventually became sucralose and is marketed by Tate & Lyle under the name Splenda. It was first approved for use in the U.S. in 1998.

 

Sucralose is used in more than 4,500 food and beverage products and is found in little yellow packets at coffee shops and restaurants. It has at least twice the shelf life of aspartame and unlike aspartame, does not react to heat and can be used for baking. As a result, sucralose became an overnight success.

 

Splenda is marketed as natural and safe, "Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar." But nowhere in nature is there any form of sugar that remotely resembles the resulting chlorinated hydrocarbon known as sucralose:

1,6-dichloro-1, 6-dideoxy-BETA-D-fructofuranosyl-4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha-D-galactopyranoside.

Besides, there are no long-term safety trials done on any humans, only animals, and it was over a mere two-year period.

 

Since the introduction of sucralose, there have been many reported side effects:

• Skin - rash, hives, itching, redness, swelling
• Lungs - wheezing, cough
• Head - headaches, dry mouth and sinuses
• Nose - runny nose, sneezing
• Eyes - itchy, swollen
• Stomach - bloating gas, diarrhea, nausea
• Heart - chest pains, palpitations
• Joint - pains and aches
• Neurological - anxiety, anger, mood swings, seizures, depression

Worse, a recent Duke University study on rats shows that Splenda

• reduces the amount of good bacteria in the intestines by 50%,
• increases the pH level in the intestines,
• contributes to increases in body weight, and
• affects the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) in the body in such a way that crucial health-related drugs (e.g. chemo, AIDS, heart) could be rejected.

Consuming sucralose is almost like putting pesticide in your body. Tate & Lyle admitted that 15% of sucralose is absorbed by the body and some into the fat tissues, however, we don't know what amount stays and what amount gets flushed out.