Why Aspartame Isn't Scary
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I just think it tastes gross.
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BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Hey everyone. I've seen my fair share of posts on the forums with regards to the dangers of aspartame and how it is a poison or a toxin or a carcinogen. Wanted to clear some things up about aspartame if I could just to explain why I personally believe there is absolutely no reason to fear aspartame.
What is aspartame?
For my fellow biochemists just simply saying its a methylester of phenylalanine and aspartate is enough to answer that question but figure I should take the time to explain what that means. Phenylalanine and aspartate are 2 of the 20 naturally occuring amino acids found in all protein. As our sequence information databases grow we know more and more about what the average amino acid composition of proteins is. Here is a download of our sum total sequence information from protein from the UniProt database. http://web.expasy.org/docs/relnotes/relstat.html Section 6 shows the amino acid frequencies which shows phenylalanine (Phe, F) at 3.6% of protein and aspartate (Asp, D) as 5.46%. This information will come in handy later. Amino acids are connected to one another naturally via a peptide bond between the carboxylic acid group and the amino group of each individual amino acid. Aspartame is simply a dipeptide of phenylalanine and aspartate where the terminal carboxy group is substituted for a methylester.
All amino acids have the following structure:
Aspartame's structure is this:
And the natural dipeptide between aspartate and pheynlalanine (aspartyl-phenylalanine) is this:
Aspartame's structure is just a natural dipeptide of phenylalanine and aspartate where the terminal carboxylic acid group has been methylated on the oxygen to form a methyl ester so instead of COO- it is COCH3. That is the only difference.
What happens to aspartame when we ingest it?
As with any protein aspartame is hydrolized in the stomach acid and metabolically broken down in the intestine to the breakdown products of aspartate, phenylalanine and methanol in a weight ratio of 4:5:1. What that means is that 10mg of aspartame will be broken down in your body to 4mg of aspartate, 5mg of phenylalanine and 1mg of methanol before it enters your blood. [citation: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408440701516184]. No aspartame enters your blood intact.
How much of each metabolite do you get from ingesting one diet soda?
So the metabolic products of aspartame are aspartate,phenylalanine and methanol in a 4:5:1 ratio. One can of diet coke has about 180mg of aspartame. That means it is broken down to 72mg of aspartate, 90mg of phenylalanine and 18mg of methanol.
How much of those metabolites are in other foods?
As mentioned phenylalanine and aspartate are naturally occuring amino acids found in all proteins. Protein is about 5.46% aspartate and about 3.6% phenylalanine on average. So let us say you have a 4oz piece of chicken breast. A small 4oz chicken breast has about 24g of protein. That means that in that chicken breast there is .036*24*1000 = 864mg of phenylalanine and .055*24*1000 = 1320mg aspartate. That means to get the same amount of aspartate and phenylalanine from diet coke as you do from one 4oz chicken breast you would have to drink 18 diet cokes. In my diet I eat around 180g of protein in a day which means to equal the amount I get from my normal diet of whole foods I would have to drink 135 cans of diet coke.
Methanol is a biproduct of all fermentations. As such it is present in things that ferment, including things that are in the process of ferminting whether we think of them as alcohol or not. That means things like fruit. So how much methanol is present in 1 8oz glass of orange juice for example? Well according to this study of presence of methanol in a variety of orange juices [citation: http://archive.food.gov.uk/maff/archive/food/infsheet/1993/no17/table1.htm] the amount of methanol averages around 125 mg/kg. 8oz is 0.23kg so that means that 8oz of orange juice has about 29mg of methanol in it. Recall that a diet soda the aspartame content would break down to about 18mg of methanol. In otherwords orange juice, or really any fruit juice, has more methanol in it per oz than soda.
Conclusion
We know what aspartame is, we know its structure, we know its composition and we know exactly what happens to it in the human body. We are very familiar with the metabolic breakdown products of phenylalanine, aspartate and methanol all of which are found in higher amounts in natural whole foods such as fruits and proteins. There is no reason at all to suspect that aspartame presents any sort of toxic or carcinogenic risk from the chemistry of the molecule and indeed toxicology studies of aspartame in humans show no toxic dose level [citation: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408440701516184]. Stories of the toxicity of aspartame are heresay, anecdotal and fear mongering and are not supported by either the chemistry, the biochemistry, the toxicology or the epidemiology.
Yet online on the internet we get stuff like this:
Sensationalistic irrational garbage.
I just think it tastes gross.
Cool story7 -
BeccaLoves2lift wrote: »
I just think it tastes gross.
Thanks for bringing us back onto the topic
Certainly if people don't like the taste of artificially sweetened colas or whatever then don't consume them.
Would be pointless to do so.
I'm sure nobody objects to that stance.
What people object to is the generalisation...... not said by you ........ that it is bad for everybody because poison,chemicals, scaremongering woo etc.
Bit like me saying I think cucumber tastes gross and so I don't eat it.
Can't imagine anyone getting uptight about that, even if they love cucumber themselves.
But If I said nobody should eat cucumbers....... different story.
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There are studies that do shed light on possible issues. As a chemist you should know that just because it looks the same as something in our bodies doesn't mean it is the same or it will be treated the same. For example, high fructose corn syrup is just sugars we are already exposed to even in high amounts like fruits and yet the body still seems to process them differently as opposed to hfcs. It calls into question at least the possible issues we may not know about. Either way, none of it is evil, but not willing to say there is no risk. We all just have to decide which risk we want to live with because it all comes with it.
I hate drinking diet because it tastes like *kitten*. I'd rather just have the sugar. The only one I can stand is diet dr. Pepper, but honestly I'd rather have actual sugar still.30 -
For example, high fructose corn syrup is just sugars we are already exposed to even in high amounts like fruits and yet the body still seems to process them differently as opposed to hfcs.
There are reasons sugars are processed differently (really just slower) from fruit vs. straight or in some other contexts -- fiber, mostly, plus in some cases dosage. The main context I've seen suggesting that HFCS is specifically a problem is in soda, which is a pretty specific situation: high dosage, consumed on its own, for most big users (and big users can consume crazy amounts). I've not seen any evidence that similar behavior with sucrose sodas or, say, the same behaviors with juice (which is probably much rarer) would have different effects (although at least you'd get some micros with the juice).
Has nothing to do with the sugars being different even though they aren't. And not support for any concerns about artificial sweeteners. (In fact, more reason to replace sugary soda with them if one does consume lots of soda.)
I think diet coke tastes better than regular coke or any other non diet sodas commonly available. I still don't drink huge amounts of it, but I enjoy the way it tastes. If someone doesn't, well, clearly they should not drink it.11 -
Fizzypopization wrote: »There are studies that do shed light on possible issues. As a chemist you should know that just because it looks the same as something in our bodies doesn't mean it is the same or it will be treated the same. For example, high fructose corn syrup is just sugars we are already exposed to even in high amounts like fruits and yet the body still seems to process them differently as opposed to hfcs. It calls into question at least the possible issues we may not know about. Either way, none of it is evil, but not willing to say there is no risk. We all just have to decide which risk we want to live with because it all comes with it.
I hate drinking diet because it tastes like *kitten*. I'd rather just have the sugar. The only one I can stand is diet dr. Pepper, but honestly I'd rather have actual sugar still.
@Fizzypopization Yes, chemicals that look the same or are close to one another aren't necessarily going to have similar properties that is true. The thing is it isn't that it looks the same, it is that the products aspartame is metabolized into in your gastrointestinal tract before it hits your blood stream literally ARE the same as molecules found in your body and in the majority of foods you eat. It is digested into aspartate, a natural amino acid found in all proteins, phenylalanine, a natural amino acid found in all proteins and methanol, an alcohol found in all fermented products and things that can ferment such as fruit and fruit juices. No aspartame enters your circulatory system intact, this not only makes sense that it wouldn't from a chemistry perspective but it has been studied and shown that aspartame is not found in blood after ingesting it in a variety of ADME/DMPK studies and that it is rapidly metabolized into those three breakdown products as is summarized in chapter 5 of the book "Clinical Evaluation of a food additive: assesment of aspartame or in the published "Review of data on the food additive aspartame". I stated this in my original post and it has been brought up numerous times within this thread. The amount you get of the metabolic products from drinking a can of diet soda are functionally identical and equivalent to the amount you'd recieve having a bite of chicken and a sip or two of orange juice.
Summary of the Review of data on the food additive aspartame section on metabolism shown on page 21:
"Following oral exposure, aspartame undergoes hydrolysis catalysed by esterases and dipeptidases leading to release of its individual components (Asp, Phe and methanol). This may occur either in the lumen of the GI tract or within intestinal mucosal cells; either way, it is the individual components which undergo absorption. Intact aspartame is not detected in the systemic circulation, and aspartame therefore has an effective oral bioavailability of zero."
The only potential issue with aspartame is that since one of its breakdown products is phenylalanine that could be an issue for people who suffer from phenylketonuria (PKU), a rare genetic disorder where you can't appropriately metabolize phenylalanine. That said it has been shown that normal levels of aspartame consumption are not enough to raise phenylalanine levels to clinically relevant levels even in people with PKU. Despite that companies have still opted to apply warning labels saying products with aspartame contain phenylalanine because of this condition.
As for you hating the taste yeah sure okay, I mean that is subjective....certainly not saying you need to partake in foods or drinks flavored with artificial sweeteners.
Cites:
Clinical Evaluation of a food additive: assesment of aspartame. Chapter 5 for metabolism and radiolabeling studies in humans
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0849349737
Review of data on the food additive aspartame (359 page document): Page 18 for start of metabolism section. Page 21 has a summary.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/sp.efsa.2013.EN-399/pdf
DMPK study in mice and rats:
https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/138873
Phenylalanine in plasma from consumption of aspartame PKU study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1617863
It is hard to argue with a "better safe than sorry" attitude but honestly there is as much evidence supporting that one should be "better safe than sorry" with aspartame as there is with something like chicken and orange juice...there is no evidence that it causes any problems nor does it make sense that it would. Would I claim it is utterly impossible that there might be some sort of way it would cause an issue...no I wouldn't, but i wouldn't claim that for chicken or orange juice either...never a good idea to assert something that can never be proven. The issue is the constant barrage of people saying "well I don't know seems like it might be dangerous" in the public arena about things like aspartame have lead people to just assume it is dangerous despite it literally just being people like you just asserting that there "seems" like their "might" be a danger. That is basing decisions on fear of something one doesn't understand, that sort of approach does not make good policy.
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There isn't a lack of understanding in the scientific community nor a paucity of studies on the topic of aspartame safety and metabolism either (mainly because the public keeps ignoring the studies and demanding more studies). On the Review of Data on the Food Additive Aspartame published in 2013 and cited above as a review of the scientific literature relevant to aspartame there are 26 pages of references to scientific studies that have been done (pages 115-141) with about 18 references on each page (so around 468 studies). Considering most scientific research is quite expensive it wouldn't be an overestimate to assume a million dollars on each study which would suggest we've spent about half a billion dollars on this already. Yet all the time on these forums there are claims we haven't studied it enough or we just don't know. No, it isn't that, it is that the public in general isn't really reading the scientific literature on the topic (nor would I really expect them to) they are just listening to what is basically gossip published in online blogs by other members of the public or people saying well "better safe than sorry" repeatedly. Other more useful studies don't get funded because the public wants yet another aspartame study and science is largely publically funded. As a scientist that is very frustrating.11
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »It is hard to argue with a "better safe than sorry" attitude but honestly there is as much evidence supporting that one should be "better safe than sorry" with aspartame as there is with something like chicken and orange juice...there is no evidence that it causes any problems nor does it make sense that it would.
Next time someone starts on the aspartame thing with me I'm going to tell them that's why I don't eat chicken. Better safe than sorry as I don't know what the chickens were eating and they could have eaten a bug, and I don't want to eat bugs.
Maybe this is why I have no friends....
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »There isn't a lack of understanding in the scientific community nor a paucity of studies on the topic of aspartame safety and metabolism either (mainly because the public keeps ignoring the studies and demanding more studies). On the Review of Data on the Food Additive Aspartame published in 2013 and cited above as a review of the scientific literature relevant to aspartame there are 26 pages of references to scientific studies that have been done (pages 115-141) with about 18 references on each page (so around 468 studies). Considering most scientific research is quite expensive it wouldn't be an overestimate to assume a million dollars on each study which would suggest we've spent about half a billion dollars on this already. Yet all the time on these forums there are claims we haven't studied it enough or we just don't know. No, it isn't that, it is that the public in general isn't really reading the scientific literature on the topic (nor would I really expect them to) they are just listening to what is basically gossip published in online blogs by other members of the public or people saying well "better safe than sorry" repeatedly. Other more useful studies don't get funded because the public wants yet another aspartame study and science is largely publically funded. As a scientist that is very frustrating.
This is exactly the problem with a lot of pseudo-science crap we see. We have people claiming to be skeptics and truth tellers who are really just ignorant or, worse yet, even con artists and fear mongers trying to play upon people's lack of knowledge. This is why we end up with conspiracy theories, because they sound so good when you are going against "the government conspiracy to keep you in the dark" and other such nonsense.
We also end up, as you point out, wasting lots of time, money and other resources to yet again show what was already known and yet again see people say "Yeah, but..."5 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »It is hard to argue with a "better safe than sorry" attitude but honestly there is as much evidence supporting that one should be "better safe than sorry" with aspartame as there is with something like chicken and orange juice...there is no evidence that it causes any problems nor does it make sense that it would.
Next time someone starts on the aspartame thing with me I'm going to tell them that's why I don't eat chicken. Better safe than sorry as I don't know what the chickens were eating and they could have eaten a bug, and I don't want to eat bugs.
Maybe this is why I have no friends....
Oh, and ask them if they have any idea what goes on with their quinoa while it's organically grown and harvested lol. Oh, can't have too much bug, bird and rat crap on your food now can you?
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »paucity
Thanks for the new word!
Also, thank you for continuing to educate and share your knowledge.
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It’s not natural. It’s a chemical. If you feel like it’s a dietary help for losing weight...it’s not. It gives me migraines. Judge for yourself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame
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Maybe read the thread? Also, if chemical formulas are supposed to prove something, H2O.13
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It’s not natural. It’s a chemical. If you feel like it’s a dietary help for losing weight...it’s not. It gives me migraines. Judge for yourself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame
So....what did I say that was wrong exactly?
Not sure what your definition of "chemical" and "natural" are but yeah its a chemical, same way that every molecule is a chemical. I assume by natural you mean produced directly from the environment or life in which case yes it is not natural, it is synthetically derived by methylation of a natural dipeptide which is mass produced and exported by genetically engineered e.coli (typical way of producing a specific peptide). That said the methyl group and the dipeptide are both natural, they are just combined together through a natural process. Sort of like how meat is natural, and fire is natural but when you put meat over a fire for a specific amount of time to cook it it changes into something you would not find in nature....cooked meat. So is cooked meat "natural" by the definition you are using?
More to the point though...so what? Is natural automatically good and synthetic automatically bad?
If for whatever reason whenever you ingest aspartame you get a migraine then yeah, avoid aspartame. However if you are in the vast majority of people that isn't true of then that isn't relevant.16 -
It’s not natural. It’s a chemical. If you feel like it’s a dietary help for losing weight...it’s not. It gives me migraines. Judge for yourself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame
Whether or not something is natural is irrelevant when we are deciding whether or not it is "scary." There are plenty of natural things that are terrifying and plenty of unnatural things that aren't.
Everything is a chemical.
It's a dietary help for losing weight if people find that that it helps them consume fewer calories and reach a deficit.
People who find something is a migraine trigger for them probably should avoid that substance. But why should anyone else care?8 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »It’s not natural. It’s a chemical. If you feel like it’s a dietary help for losing weight...it’s not. It gives me migraines. Judge for yourself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame
So....what did I say that was wrong exactly?
Not sure what your definition of "chemical" and "natural" are but yeah its a chemical, same way that every molecule is a chemical. I assume by natural you mean produced directly from the environment or life in which case yes it is not natural, it is synthetically derived by methylation of a natural dipeptide which is mass produced and exported by genetically engineered e.coli (typical way of producing a specific peptide). That said the methyl group and the dipeptide are both natural, they are just combined together through a natural process. Sort of like how meat is natural, and fire is natural but when you put meat over a fire for a specific amount of time to cook it it changes into something you would not find in nature....cooked meat. So is cooked meat "natural" by the definition you are using?
More to the point though...so what? Is natural automatically good and synthetic automatically bad?
If for whatever reason whenever you ingest aspartame you get a migraine then yeah, avoid aspartame. However if you are in the vast majority of people that isn't true of then that isn't relevant.
Aspertaime = synthetic
Sodium cyanide = natural
What do you want in your coffee? :huh:
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It’s not natural. It’s a chemical. If you feel like it’s a dietary help for losing weight...it’s not. It gives me migraines. Judge for yourself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame
I don't know how @aaron_k123 does it. Probably has explained the issue a dozen times (at least) in this thread and explained, in very clear laymans terms why it is not a problem. Backed by appropriate research and actual science. And, it's clear, it's a topic he knows an awful lot about. But still someone has to come in with a wikipedia article and make pronouncements.
If there is anything that is giving someone a migraine....17 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »It’s not natural. It’s a chemical. If you feel like it’s a dietary help for losing weight...it’s not. It gives me migraines. Judge for yourself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame
I don't know how @aaron_k123 does it. Probably has explained the issue a dozen times (at least) in this thread and explained, in very clear laymans terms why it is not a problem. Backed by appropriate research and actual science. And, it's clear, it's a topic he knows an awful lot about. But still someone has to come in with a wikipedia article and make pronouncements.
If there is anything that is giving someone a migraine....
More times than that, countless more if you count other threads. And I don't copy paste my response either, I type it out again and again explaining in my own words tailored to whomever I am responding to and providing whatever sources I might reference. It is time consuming and 99% of the time I do it the person I am responding to doesn't respond back. They put their 30 seconds in to type out an opinion with no reference or a google/wiki link and I spend 30 minutes to respond and get nothing.
I'll admit it gets frustrating.24 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »I'll admit it gets frustrating.
Just know that you are one of the most respected and appreciated posters I know. And I know a lot of others that feel that way.
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Tacklewasher wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »I'll admit it gets frustrating.
Just know that you are one of the most respected and appreciated posters I know. And I know a lot of others that feel that way.
Respect my kitten post!
Sorry, don't know how to appropriately deal with compliments, usually comes out as sarcasm.21
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