Why Aspartame Isn't Scary

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  • The_Enginerd
    The_Enginerd Posts: 3,982 Member
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    A little too much chemistry that would lose and confuse the average reader, but I raise my Coke Zero I'm currently drinking in praise of this post.

    WQswGd4.gif
  • CallMeCupcakeDammit
    CallMeCupcakeDammit Posts: 9,375 Member
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    Thanks OP! *heads to fridge for a Diet Sunkist*
  • ksy1969
    ksy1969 Posts: 700 Member
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    I don't drink/eat the no calorie sweeteners because they taste bad. If I'm going to have it, give me the real stuff! Diet Coke/Pepsi/whatever tastes awful to me and the idea of tea sweetened with Splenda .. just say no. Luckily I'm not a pop/soda drinker, so I've never had the need to curb that by drinking diet versions. However, my husband and his sister both LOVE Diet Coke; I'll have to show them this!

    I just laugh loudly when I see statements like this. Years ago, I would only drink full sugared pop. Tried diet once and didn't like it. Someone finally convinced me to give diet pop another try. Years later, I can't stand full sugared pop. It is nasty sweet and ruins my rum when the bartender uses it in my drink.
  • threnjen
    threnjen Posts: 687 Member
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    OP thanks! Great post! Seems timely with all of the Diet Coke arguments lately...

    DIET COKE 4EVA
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    That is why I put "toxic" in quotes, because yes as you say water is not toxic. What is the LD50 of aspartame, I was unaware that there was a lethal dose of aspartame.

    Putting something in quotes doesn't removing the misleading aspect of the statement.

    The LD50 is around 10g/kg in what I've seen. These levels are unattainable in normal human consumption though and based on rats/mice studies.

    The establishment of LD50 though still does not imply safe consumption at relative levels. To give a comparison the levels of arsenic found in apple juice a while ago wasn't even enough to reach the LD50 in an adult drinking gallons over their entire lives, but we know that arsenic causes nerve damage and isn't considered safe in any dose. There is an LD50 of sodium is 1.1 g/kg which the average American consumes every month. The differences between sodium, arsenic, and aspartame is that two of them are really well understood and been studied for centuries.

    Quite frankly even decades of research around a particular substance doesn't guarantee safety. We are learning about chemicals and compounds all the time. Think of how long it took for smoking to be recognized as unsafe. In fact the American Medical Association was a big paid advertiser for tobacco for many years. So just because we have a few studies over the decades that say it's safe doesn't mean it doesn't warrant more investigation.

    P.S. The NIH spends about 30 billion per year so I don't think their funds are running dry anytime soon.


    As for toxicity let me clear it up right now as I do not want to be misleading.

    Water is not toxic.

    Aspartame very well may have an LD50, without looking into it further I will accept your value of 10g/kg. My assumption would be that this toxicity is based on the methanol metabolic product and that if aspartame is 10g/kg then methanol is probably an LD50 of 1g/kg since 1:10 of aspartame by weight breaks down to methanol.

    "Quite frankly even decades of research around a particular substance doesn't guarantee safety"

    I agree with this however I still think with limited resources we can only do so much and it is wasteful to repeatedly study the same thing over and over again when there are things that have gone untested.

    As for NIH funding I'm in science and I can assure you money is very tight right now for NIH funding, the funding level is at an all time low. It is frustrating to see needed research go unfunded while we waste money on things like testing aspartame yet again for no apparent reason. I will agree that 10 million is a drop in the overall bucket though its just the sentiment that irks me and aspartame is not the only example of science money squandered on public whim.

    As for your general points I actually agree with you and I'm not sure you really disagree with me. If what I said about water implied it was toxic then let me say clearly that it is not.
  • FireOpalCO
    FireOpalCO Posts: 641 Member
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    I don't drink/eat the no calorie sweeteners because they taste bad. If I'm going to have it, give me the real stuff! Diet Coke/Pepsi/whatever tastes awful to me and the idea of tea sweetened with Splenda .. just say no. Luckily I'm not a pop/soda drinker, so I've never had the need to curb that by drinking diet versions. However, my husband and his sister both LOVE Diet Coke; I'll have to show them this!

    I just laugh loudly when I see statements like this. Years ago, I would only drink full sugared pop. Tried diet once and didn't like it. Someone finally convinced me to give diet pop another try. Years later, I can't stand full sugared pop. It is nasty sweet and ruins my rum when the bartender uses it in my drink.

    Fully sugared as in High Fructose Corn Syrup or fully sugared as in real sugar? Because if you have Mexican coke (made with real sugar) it is less sweet then the American version (with HFCS) but somehow more satisfying and I stop at one. (Don't ask me why.)
  • MsMaryMac48
    MsMaryMac48 Posts: 89 Member
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    Why even risk it? After all, it still is a possible carcinogen. I stay away from all artificial sweeteners. I only eat the real stuff.

    Exactly. Why risk it? Healthy living is about choosing wisely. Making good choices for your overall health.

    AND why in the heck does it even matter. If you prefer not to use those artificial products for WHATEVER reason more power to you. and if you do use them well.... best of luck..... for your sake, I hope you are right.

    It matters because this sort of fearmongering results in the waste of a lot of money in science, millions of dollars. It also results in people focusing on the wrong things, ignoring their calories and instead avoiding soda because apparently it is dangerous.

    Misinformation is ALWAYS dangerous.

    And because avoiding soda would be a horrible nutritional deficit? Don't see avoiding artificial sweeteners as detrimental to our health. This is insignificant in the real scheme of things.

    IMO it sounds more like you are trying to persuade those that disagree in regards to aspartame. It sounds to me like the waste is in the profit margin of the manufacturer of these products. Kind of like tobacco wasn't harmful way back when.... but now it is. But it's still available for you to choose to use or not... because primarily of the manufacturer profit margin and government kick backs. Even though it has been proven to be harmful/deadly.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    I looked up the LD50 of methanol in its MSDS and it is about 5g/kg so in that ballpark.

    http://kni.caltech.edu/facilities/msds/methanol.pdf
  • ihad
    ihad Posts: 7,462 Member
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    I like science.

    :drinker:
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    I wish these kinds of articles would not get posted. Neither pro nor con.
    I have never had problems with artificial sweeteners, but largely avoid them ( as I do most sugar ) because I don't like sweet stuff very much. So I am fine. A friend of mine gets awful migraines ( the have to stay in a dark room kind ) and another one gets impaired vision.....
    That is why I don't like those generalized articles, because any food item ( natural or artificial ) is fine for most people while health and even life threatening for others. Blanket statements do not help....

    What article?

    I was referring to the OP....maybe it's not called an " article "....as a non-native speaker of English I am not always sure.

    Ah well as the OP I will say I am not pro-soda particularly, I could take it or leave it. I just see no reason to think aspartame is dangerous and I'm tired of the fear-mongering I see associated with it on the forums.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    I agree with you. However my doctor disagrees. I have cut way back on it and diet coke and i am way less hungry. May be a coincidence. But i thonk its okay in moderation. Feel much better since i gave up doet coke. Moght be sodium though

    I made no comment towards weight loss or hunger at all.
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
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    Yeah, Mr. White, science!

    This is a great post, thanks!

    I approve of this post.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    Seriously though. Does anyone have an actual reason to avoid aspartame other than the general desire to avoid anything that sounds like it has a name you might not be able to pronounce.

    I like sugar?

    That's my reason.
    Excellent thread, Aaron.
  • DanaDark
    DanaDark Posts: 2,187 Member
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    I friggin' love science. I really do.
  • thesupremeforce
    thesupremeforce Posts: 1,207 Member
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    Why even risk it? After all, it still is a possible carcinogen. I stay away from all artificial sweeteners. I only eat the real stuff.

    Exactly. Why risk it? Healthy living is about choosing wisely. Making good choices for your overall health.

    AND why in the heck does it even matter. If you prefer not to use those artificial products for WHATEVER reason more power to you. and if you do use them well.... best of luck..... for your sake, I hope you are right.

    It matters because this sort of fearmongering results in the waste of a lot of money in science, millions of dollars. It also results in people focusing on the wrong things, ignoring their calories and instead avoiding soda because apparently it is dangerous.

    Misinformation is ALWAYS dangerous.

    And because avoiding soda would be a horrible nutritional deficit? Don't see avoiding artificial sweeteners as detrimental to our health. This is insignificant in the real scheme of things.

    IMO it sounds more like you are trying to persuade those that disagree in regards to aspartame. It sounds to me like the waste is in the profit margin of the manufacturer of these products. Kind of like tobacco wasn't harmful way back when.... but now it is. But it's still available for you to choose to use or not... because primarily of the manufacturer profit margin and government kick backs. Even though it has been proven to be harmful/deadly.

    Is that supposed to be a real argument, because it's not one at all. Stop trying to compare aspartame to tobacco. You're only making yourself look clueless.

    No one said anything about encouraging people to drink soda anyway.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
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    Thanks OP! *heads to fridge for a Diet Sunkist*

    That's what I'm having too. :drinker:
  • perseverance14
    perseverance14 Posts: 1,364 Member
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    I stopped drinking soda, at the time I drank Diet Pepsi but I quit all soda except for the rare exception, because of aspartame. This was around 1995, the Internet was just getting started, and I didn't know about any "danger" websites, which did not exist at the time. I did one of the first 20,000 sites on the Internet and that was in 1995, trust me this information was not being shared at that time.

    I kept getting headaches and other weird symptoms, like vision disturbances...so I started ruling things out, when I got to Diet Pepsi, after a week or so I felt better, so that was that, no more soda for me, but here in the midwest they call it pop.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    Just to be absolutely clear the purpose of my post was not to advocate for soda consumption for the purpose of weight loss or for any other reason either, in my opinion take it or leave it it doesn't matter.

    The reason for my post was recent posts where I saw people referring to their reason for avoiding diet soda was because aspartame was a "toxin" and I wanted to explain why, scientifically speaking, there was no evidence for that and therefore that was not a good reason to avoid soda.

    If you have other reasons for avoiding soda including "eh I just don't like soda" that is perfectly fine. That does not require fear mongering aspartame though which I view as misinformation that is counterproductive and harmful.

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