Why Aspartame Isn't Scary
Replies
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Just curious, i have heard that aspartame causes diabetes in the future if consumed too much on a regular basis. Also i have heard that it makes you crave more food. is that true or just a myth?
It is a myth:
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/consumer/learn.htm0 -
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.
I grew up with Saccharine, which was " absolutely 100% " safe....until it wasn't anymore......these days it's considered dangerous.....who would have thought it 50 or more years ago.
What is wrong with saccharine?0 -
50% Phenylalanine, Aspartic Asic, and Methyl Ester which is basically wood alcohol. Yeah, not scary at all. Let me guess, MSG is perfectly safe, too?
You claim that the same building blocks in the protein are natural in everything we eat, they may be up to 4% of Phenylalanine, not 50%. Our bodies still don't know how to react to such high percentages.
When the body breaks down Aspartame, it breaks down the Methy Alcohol. The claim that they take in Fruit that you take in more methanol. In nature, this methanol in fruit is bound to pectic, which the body cannot break down and separate. In aspartame, this is pure & free in our bodies, and it turns into formaldehyde.
Aspartame, in time, breaks down into Diketopiperazine, basically a carcinogen. Still think its perfectly safe?
You're plenty intelligent, this is obvious by your posts. I'm just not sure why the bias. Aspartame is definitely not safe.
Source please. And at what dose do you claim aspartame is unsafe at?
Also what concern do you have over MSG?
Also, formaldehyde isn't dangerous in quantities seen from known safe levels of aspartame and I believe (I'll check when not phone posting) that even at abuse doses of aspartame it's still not a concern.
Edit: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/7230276/
Just to add some context to your linked study - when they say that they administered "abuse dosages" as high as 200 mg/kg body weight, this would be like a 175 lb person drinking just slightly over 88 cans of diet coke. That's 31L of fluid. If you can drink that in a day, I am highly impressed with your determination (but I do feel real bad for all the work you're making your kidneys do!).0 -
50% Phenylalanine, Aspartic Asic, and Methyl Ester which is basically wood alcohol. Yeah, not scary at all. Let me guess, MSG is perfectly safe, too?
You claim that the same building blocks in the protein are natural in everything we eat, they may be up to 4% of Phenylalanine, not 50%. Our bodies still don't know how to react to such high percentages.
When the body breaks down Aspartame, it breaks down the Methy Alcohol. The claim that they take in Fruit that you take in more methanol. In nature, this methanol in fruit is bound to pectic, which the body cannot break down and separate. In aspartame, this is pure & free in our bodies, and it turns into formaldehyde.
Aspartame, in time, breaks down into Diketopiperazine, basically a carcinogen. Still think its perfectly safe?
You're plenty intelligent, this is obvious by your posts. I'm just not sure why the bias. Aspartame is definitely not safe.
I'm not sure you are understand what a percentage means. Protein has phenylalanine and aspartate in 3.6% and 5.5% by weight amounts while Aspartame has it in 50% and 40% by weight amounts true...but we eat 100s of grams of protein while only eating a few milligrams of aspartame. You are not going to get more phenylalanine and aspartate from a diet soda than you are from a handful of nuts or a piece of meat. They are just amino acids, there is no toxicity associated with them.
Methanol IS toxic in that its further metabolized to formaldehyde. That said there is a lot more methanol in apple juice or orange juice or any fruit juice than there is in the amount you would get in a soda. Your comment about it being "bound to pectic" does not make any sense to me and I would ask you to provide a source for why you think this and why you think it is not metabolized as methanol. In both cases the amount of methanol is far far FAR below a toxic level. If you drank enough soda to get to toxic levels of methanol you would have died long before hand from drinking that much water.
As for aspartame being metabolized into Diketopiperazine I've never even heard of that compound so I would ask you to please cite your source for that information before I can respond. The metabolic breakdown products of aspartame is aspartate, phenylalanine and methanol and that is all as far as I am aware.
I have no bias here, these are just the facts.3 -
I don't completely agree with your science. I don't think you can say that this must be fine because there's only this tiny molecular difference, because an extra methyl group can have a big effect on the chemical properties of a compound.
I do totally agree with the sentiment though. I get really wound up by the whole 'no chemicals' brigade. Water is a chemical for heavens sake.
To be honest I never at any point said this " this must be fine because there's only this tiny molecular difference." I completely agree that even small differences in a chemical structure can make huge differences in its metabolism and how our body responds to it.
I said what the metabolic breakdown products were and I dealt with each one. I did not just hand-wave that it was a small difference and ignore the methanol.5 -
Well said!0
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Diketopiperazine isn't a compound, for starters. It's a class of molecules (piperazine rings with two ketones). As to DKPs being carcinogenic, I dunno. They use them in medicine.
5-Benzyl-3,6-dioxo-2-piperazineacetic acid is the specific DKP that's associated with aspartame. Apparently it's also found in cocoa powder.
PS: I have a Diet Dr. Pepper habit to the tune of 2L a day..... and have for a very long time. If something bad were going to happen it probably would have already..... lol2 -
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Just curious, i have heard that aspartame causes diabetes in the future if consumed too much on a regular basis. Also i have heard that it makes you crave more food. is that true or just a myth?
Well I have not heard that aspartame causes diabetes and I would be very skeptical of that simply because of what aspartame is metabolised to. What of aspartames metabolic products supposedly causes diabeties? The amino acids that you get more of from any protein source or the methanol that you would get more of from fruit or any alcohol source? Does protein also cause diabeties? Does fruit or alcohol?
As for it making you crave more food that is completely subjective so if you want me to be scientifically objective I cannot really answer that. Science isn't going to comment on what makes any particular individual feel hungry or not.2 -
With ANYTHING toxic you have to make sure to note at what dosage it is toxic and at what concentration it is in in the thing you are investigating.
For example almonds contain cyanide, but the amount of cyanide they have is well below the fatal dose so eat as many as you want and it is fine. There is no reasonable or conceivable way you could eat enough almonds to get a fatal dosage of cyanide so you don't have to be concerned.
Aspartame breaks down in part to methanol which is toxic when taken at high enough amounts. The toxicity of methanol is given in its material safety datasheet (MSDS). http://avogadro.chem.iastate.edu/MSDS/methanol.htm
The LD50 (Lethal dose - 50, or the dosage at which 50% of those who took that amount would die) for oral ingestion of methanol is about 5.5 grams per kg.
Let us do the math. I weigh 175 pounds which is 79 kg. That means that the LD50 for methanol for me would be 79*5.5 or 435 grams.
As stated in one can of soda from aspartame you would get about 18mg of methanol. That means I would have to drink 435/0.018 or 24,167 cans of soda to get to the LD50 of methanol.
I am going to restate that for emphasis. To get to the lethal dose of methanol you would have to drink twenty-four thousand one hundred and sixty seven cans of diet coke in the course of a single day.7 -
bump - Great Post!0
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Diketopiperazine isn't a compound, for starters. It's a class of molecules (piperazine rings with two ketones). As to DKPs being carcinogenic, I dunno. They use them in medicine.
5-Benzyl-3,6-dioxo-2-piperazineacetic acid is the specific DKP that's associated with aspartame. Apparently it's also found in cocoa powder.
PS: I have a Diet Dr. Pepper habit to the tune of 2L a day..... and have for a very long time. If something bad were going to happen it probably would have already..... lol
I'm admittedly not familiar with that compound class. Is it "associated" with aspartame meaning its potentially a step in its synthesis or is it a biological metabolic breakdown product as the poster who brought it up suggested.0 -
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I am going to restate that for emphasis. To get to the lethal dose of methanol you would have to drink twenty-four thousand one hundred and sixty seven cans of diet coke in the course of a single day.
Challengeaccepted.jpeg5 -
Diketopiperazine isn't a compound, for starters. It's a class of molecules (piperazine rings with two ketones). As to DKPs being carcinogenic, I dunno. They use them in medicine.
5-Benzyl-3,6-dioxo-2-piperazineacetic acid is the specific DKP that's associated with aspartame. Apparently it's also found in cocoa powder.
PS: I have a Diet Dr. Pepper habit to the tune of 2L a day..... and have for a very long time. If something bad were going to happen it probably would have already..... lol
Here is the MSDS for DKP http://pharmacycode.com/msds/Diketopiperazine . Its LD50 is 3800mg/kg. That means even if aspartame was pure DKP you would have to drink 1,500 cans of soda to reach that dosage.1 -
So if you had aspartame powder it would degrade slowly into DKP I imagine. That said I bet the biological breakdown of DKP follows a similar pathway and you would likely get phenylalanine, aspartate and methanol out of it in the end after it passed through the body. I'm not sure about that but the LD50 of DKP is quite high so it isn't toxic at the levels we are talking about regardless.1 -
Diketopiperazine isn't a compound, for starters. It's a class of molecules (piperazine rings with two ketones). As to DKPs being carcinogenic, I dunno. They use them in medicine.
5-Benzyl-3,6-dioxo-2-piperazineacetic acid is the specific DKP that's associated with aspartame. Apparently it's also found in cocoa powder.
PS: I have a Diet Dr. Pepper habit to the tune of 2L a day..... and have for a very long time. If something bad were going to happen it probably would have already..... lol
Here is the MSDS for DKP http://pharmacycode.com/msds/Diketopiperazine . Its LD50 is 3800mg/kg. That means even if aspartame was pure DKP you would have to drink 1,500 cans of soda to reach that dosage.
To back that up, here's an abstract supporting it!
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/15918306_Toxicity_of_aspartame_and_its_diketopiperazine_for_Wistar_rats_by_dietary_administration_for_104_weeks
I'm firmly on the side of "not toxic" anyway..... but I'm a biochem major myself and had to look it up for kicks when I saw the name.0 -
Diketopiperazine isn't a compound, for starters. It's a class of molecules (piperazine rings with two ketones). As to DKPs being carcinogenic, I dunno. They use them in medicine.
5-Benzyl-3,6-dioxo-2-piperazineacetic acid is the specific DKP that's associated with aspartame. Apparently it's also found in cocoa powder.
PS: I have a Diet Dr. Pepper habit to the tune of 2L a day..... and have for a very long time. If something bad were going to happen it probably would have already..... lol
Here is the MSDS for DKP http://pharmacycode.com/msds/Diketopiperazine . Its LD50 is 3800mg/kg. That means even if aspartame was pure DKP you would have to drink 1,500 cans of soda to reach that dosage.
To back that up, here's an abstract supporting it!
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/15918306_Toxicity_of_aspartame_and_its_diketopiperazine_for_Wistar_rats_by_dietary_administration_for_104_weeks
Thanks conquering. You have a chemistry or medchem background I assume?
ETA: Ah biochem cool.0 -
Diketopiperazine isn't a compound, for starters. It's a class of molecules (piperazine rings with two ketones). As to DKPs being carcinogenic, I dunno. They use them in medicine.
5-Benzyl-3,6-dioxo-2-piperazineacetic acid is the specific DKP that's associated with aspartame. Apparently it's also found in cocoa powder.
PS: I have a Diet Dr. Pepper habit to the tune of 2L a day..... and have for a very long time. If something bad were going to happen it probably would have already..... lol
Here is the MSDS for DKP http://pharmacycode.com/msds/Diketopiperazine . Its LD50 is 3800mg/kg. That means even if aspartame was pure DKP you would have to drink 1,500 cans of soda to reach that dosage.
To back that up, here's an abstract supporting it!
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/15918306_Toxicity_of_aspartame_and_its_diketopiperazine_for_Wistar_rats_by_dietary_administration_for_104_weeks
Thanks conquering. You have a chemistry or medchem background I assume?
I answered that in the edit I just wrote on the last post. I'm just a lowly undergrad with one of my majors in biochem. I don't even know if I'll get the chance to finish the degree, so I can't say it's a background. Just an interest.0 -
Diketopiperazine isn't a compound, for starters. It's a class of molecules (piperazine rings with two ketones). As to DKPs being carcinogenic, I dunno. They use them in medicine.
5-Benzyl-3,6-dioxo-2-piperazineacetic acid is the specific DKP that's associated with aspartame. Apparently it's also found in cocoa powder.
PS: I have a Diet Dr. Pepper habit to the tune of 2L a day..... and have for a very long time. If something bad were going to happen it probably would have already..... lol
Here is the MSDS for DKP http://pharmacycode.com/msds/Diketopiperazine . Its LD50 is 3800mg/kg. That means even if aspartame was pure DKP you would have to drink 1,500 cans of soda to reach that dosage.
To back that up, here's an abstract supporting it!
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/15918306_Toxicity_of_aspartame_and_its_diketopiperazine_for_Wistar_rats_by_dietary_administration_for_104_weeks
Thanks conquering. You have a chemistry or medchem background I assume?
I answered that in the edit I just wrote on the last post. I'm just a lowly undergrad with one of my majors in biochem. I don't even know if I'll get the chance to finish the degree, so I can't say it's a background. Just an interest.
Well you sound like you know your stuff so I appreciate the info.0 -
Well you sound like you know your stuff so I appreciate the info.
Feigning competence.... one post at a time.... :-P
Thanks.1 -
I'm pretty sure I got smarter reading this. Thanks for the info, OP and people who contributed! :drinker: 0 -
Young man. You've got a new sticky.
(Great.
Now the alarmists will compelled to go all out in this thread.)0 -
Thank you for this post!! I am a diet pepsi addict of 20+ years. I have felt awful in the past and craved and binged carbs, and was led to believe that this was all due to the aspartame in my drinks. Since coming to MFP, I have learned how to eat properly (increasing proteins and vital nutrients) to banish the cravings for carbs and sweets. I can tell you, it's NOT the diet pepsi that causes this. I can control my eating easily and still drink 3 cans a day. I may still have an addiction to diet pepsi, but it is much more likely to be to caffeine rather than the aspartame.
Now that that has been answered for me... I have also heard recently that the caramel colouring is actually the toxic/carcinogenic culprit in diet soft drinks, rather than aspartame. Anyone have scientific info on that?2 -
I do know that the levels of aspartame that have caused cancer in lab mice and rats are thousands of times higher than any possible ingestion by human consumption. Also, rats and mice are highly susceptible to the cancers, which is they are so often used in cancer research.0
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Now that that has been answered for me... I have also heard recently that the caramel colouring is actually the toxic/carcinogenic culprit in diet soft drinks, rather than aspartame. Anyone have scientific info on that?
Well no to be honest. Don't take that to mean that there is, it just means I haven't looked into it at all and I'm being honest about that. I don't know just means I don't know.
I, of course, would be very skeptical of such a claim and would want evidence provided before I believed it.1 -
I am on month 6 of giving up diet pop...I was "addicted" Diet Dr. Pepper for years. 3 cans a day easy. I have honestly never bought the idea that aspartame is evil. Which is why I found it so hard to give up.
My biggest issue is that I felt it was controlling ME...I couldn't "go without" one...I would always buy one, or have one around, even if I didn't really want it. My goal is to give it up for one year, and then perhaps see if I can once again try to moderate it.
This extremely intelligent post does not help me when I'm on the wagon...LOL
What IS bad then about diet pop? Aluminum in the can? Acidity wearing down tooth enamel? It can get expensive... Give me SOMETHING! LOL0 -
Excellent and informative.
OP I am a biochemist as well. However, I gave up trying to explain things to the 'I want to be afraid for the sake of being afraid' crowd quite some time ago. I appreciate your effort. But usually those that post things like 'why take a chance' have no interest in following logic and cannot be swayed by any amount of data. These are the same people that would have us still believing the Earth is flat and the center of the universe. Because...you know...why take the chance of finding out the truth.2 -
Great post, glad it was made a sticky.0
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I am on month 6 of giving up diet pop...I was "addicted" Diet Dr. Pepper for years. 3 cans a day easy. I have honestly never bought the idea that aspartame is evil. Which is why I found it so hard to give up.
My biggest issue is that I felt it was controlling ME...I couldn't "go without" one...I would always buy one, or have one around, even if I didn't really want it. My goal is to give it up for one year, and then perhaps see if I can once again try to moderate it.
This extremely intelligent post does not help me when I'm on the wagon...LOL
What IS bad then about diet pop? Aluminum in the can? Acidity wearing down tooth enamel? It can get expensive... Give me SOMETHING! LOL
I gave up soda in 2005 just to prove that I could. I don't drink it now because I just don't like it (and because I don't like the taste of artificial sweeteners and I sometimes struggle to hit my protein and fat target while staying under my calories, at least when cutting).
Do it just to prove that you can...because it's empowering. (That said, don't use this same logic to give up something that would be dangerous to give up...or as an excuse for making other bad decisions if you fail at your objective.)0
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