Aspartame... is it really that bad?

tigersword

I'll repost this, since it seemed to have been mostly ignored or missed. Your body has absolutely no problem processing aspartame, as I've explained already, here.

Aspartame is aspartic acid + phenylalanine. Both of those are amino acids that your body needs on a daily basis anyway. They are also in every single protein source you eat. In fact, 4 oz of chicken breast contain as much aspartic acid and phenylalanine as 23 cans of diet soda.

Do some people have bad reactions to it? Sure, but millions of people have bad, sometimes instantly fatal reactions to peanuts or shellfish. Does that mean it's bad for everyone else? No.

Also, as for the "toxic chemical" during metabolism, I assume you mean either formic acid (formaldehyde) or methanol. Both are actually naturally occurring compounds in the human body, as well as found in a variety of fruits and vegetables, in higher concentrations than you'd get from a diet soda, so any article that pushes that as a negative on aspartame is scaremongering.

giglqueen

It's really bad for me at least. It gives me migraines. I cut out Diet Pepsi, light Yoplait, and Crystal Light and I hardly get them now.

ALH1981

i just posted on this -

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/510554-artificial-sweetener-bloat?page=1#posts-7114781

Can anyone help?

Kenzietea2

I believe moderation is key. Before I found out I was having a baby, I had 1-2 diet cokes a week. Now none, but only because I don't want to risk anything with my child. After I have my baby I'll still occasionally indulge, and not stress about it.

Pifflesmom

IMHO - aspartame isn't good for you, but I'm basing that on my own personal experience. I was hooked on Crystal Light and suffered from hot flashes, sweating, headaches and body pain. I decided to cut it out and the results were wonderful - I feel a million times better.

That's just me - other people likely tolerate it better than others. Although I miss my crystal light, what I do now is buy fizzy water and put a splash of cranberry juice in it! Very refreshing.

amysj303

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but the reason that "diet soda" is bad for weight loss is because there is some evidence to suggest that your body sort of makes up for the calories it was hoping to get from the diet soda and you end up eating more of something else.
Even if aspartame is not poison, and I'm not sure it isn't, it's not helpful for your weightloss efforts. If you need caffeine, try some of the multi-vitamins with "energy support" they usually have caffeiene or ginseng without calories or aspartame.

TreboryojevoL

I do not know about the validity of this exert or that expert, I only know that for me I started all gung ho on this weight loss attempt and I was actually losing around 2 to 2.5 lbs per week, and that was drinking water only, and about 3 weeks ago I started drinking diet soda again, I did not lose any weight for that period, and that was the only thing in my routine that I had changed. I stopped drinking the diet soda last week, and this week I have lost 2 pounds so far.
It may not be scientific, but for me it was conclusive, it may not affect some but it did me and for now it is strictly H2O!

duharvalgt

... there have been many topics about E-951 and it's hydrolysis substituents in the human body.

rjt1000

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but the reason that "diet soda" is bad for weight loss is because there is some evidence to suggest that your body sort of makes up for the calories it was hoping to get from the diet soda and you end up eating more of something else.
Even if aspartame is not poison, and I'm not sure it isn't, it's not helpful for your weightloss efforts. If you need caffeine, try some of the multi-vitamins with "energy support" they usually have caffeiene or ginseng without calories or aspartame.

hasn't hurt my weight loss a bit. I'm thinking of upping my diet coke intake to 10 cans a day. Or maybe just round up to a 12 pack so i can just buy a 12 pack each morning on my way to work.

PS- how does my body know how many calories it was hoping to get from a diet soda? I guess my body is looking to find 700-800 calories a day for the 150 cal per can it doesn't get. So, since I'm doing about 1200 calories a day, if I switch to water and stop diet coke, my body should be ok with 400-500 calories a day intake?

nextrightthing

Bump to read later.........

supertracylynn

I eat fake sugar all day, every day. It's the glue that binds my fat *kitten* together.

RGonVSH

I took a nutrition class a couple of years ago, and the teacher, in discussing research on sugar substitutes (all of them) said that our bodies react to ALL of these products just as if we were eating sugar. Of course, they don't have the same calories, but if your body is going to go into insulin response mode, you may as well have sugar. But, if you want to lose weight, you would know you cannot drink sugary drinks all day and lose weight, right?

For me the key has been to NOT drink sweetened drinks between meals/snacks. If I am thirsty, I drink water. If I am hungry, that means I need to look at my food plan and see what isn't working.

My body needs time to process the food I have eaten and to rest.. That is why I eat my meals; then, I don't eat until it is time to eat again. For me, that is about every three hours. If I continue to sip ANY beverage besides water, then my body thinks I am still eating and that whole process of responding to food intake continues. According to the instructor of our nutrition course, sugar substitutes have the same effect on your body as drinking a drink with sugar, despite the fact that they don't have calories.

That is the primary reason that I don't use sugar substitutes, whether they are healthy ones or artificial ones. But then, I also have to face reality: I cannot consume sweetened drinks all day without paying a price for it. Water is the best choice.

tladame

I'm also one of those people who gets terrible headaches from Splenda. I stopped using it.

I read a book recently where the author promoted cutting back on sugar intake. He said that most artificial sweeteners (aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, etc.) aren't so good for you, while natural sweeteners (such as stevia, xylitol, erythritol) are better choices. I have been using Truvia packets (made from stevia). No headaches! There is also a soda called Zevia that has zero calories and is made with stevia. I don't drink soda, but my sister tried it & liked it. It still has that "diet soda" flavor, but at least it contains healthier ingredients than some other diet sodas..

I'm no expert, just sharing what worked for me.

nutsnbolts

Can't speak for anyone else, but when I drink diet soda, I get migraines with auras. When I stop drinking diet soda, I rarely get migraines.

sunnyskyjb

I recently read that it can cause seizures.

I also read, both from a good source, that it almost didn't get approved for human comsuption becasue it causes so many diseases (you name it) in mice.

It is beyond horrible.

prism6

For me its the blue hat

nk17

I read that is causes short term memory loss. (I'm sorry, what were we talking about?) Seriously, though, I now drink only water and although I have no web sites or medical proof of anything I can say with certainty that I feel much better. I stopped drinking the soda before I began my weight loss, so the feeling good isn't due to the weight loss. I switched from Diet Coke to unsweet tea that supposedly had no caffeine and from that to only water. I am now a huge water fan where before I loathed the stuff. Except for protein shakes and/or juiced vegies, which I consider more eating than drinking, and the infrequent glass of champagne, I don't think I'll be drinking anything else at all for a long, long time.

fitterpam

I have a real sensitivity to aspartame now due to drinking quite a bit when I was younger. Now I have digestive problems when I have anything with aspartame in it.

The main issue that I have with it is that it tricks your body into thinking that insulin has entered your blood stream, but when it looks for it, it cannot find it.

My dentist was horrified when I told her I had more than 2 cans of pop a week.......Forget about the aspartame, it's more about the acid in the soda - it wears away your dental enamel faster than anything.

rjt1000

I took a nutrition class a couple of years ago, and the teacher, in discussing research on sugar substitutes (all of them) said that our bodies react to ALL of these products just as if we were eating sugar. Of course, they don't have the same calories, but if your body is going to go into insulin response mode, you may as well have sugar. But, if you want to lose weight, you would know you cannot drink sugary drinks all day and lose weight, right?

For me the key has been to NOT drink sweetened drinks between meals/snacks. If I am thirsty, I drink water. If I am hungry, that means I need to look at my food plan and see what isn't working.

My body needs time to process the food I have eaten and to rest.. That is why I eat my meals; then, I don't eat until it is time to eat again. For me, that is about every three hours. If I continue to sip ANY beverage besides water, then my body thinks I am still eating and that whole process of responding to food intake continues. According to the instructor of our nutrition course, sugar substitutes have the same effect on your body as drinking a drink with sugar, despite the fact that they don't have calories.

That is the primary reason that I don't use sugar substitutes, whether they are healthy ones or artificial ones. But then, I also have to face reality: I cannot consume sweetened drinks all day without paying a price for it. Water is the best choice.

sorry but your teacher was wrong. You can use a glucose meter (like diabetics use) and check your own blood sugar levels. I have one (my wife had gestational diabetes) and have tested the above "theory" several times. My body does not do any extra insulin response to diet coke.

capnwo85

So you're saying that you have a short attention span.



And you're proud of this?

sofaking6

I don't consume much soda or other products with aspartame, but once in a while I have a Coke Zero and it makes me feel FANTASTIC! So I think it must be really good for you.

But Diet Coke never made me feel that great, so I think really products with the word "Zero" in the title are what's good for you.

tigersword

I took a nutrition class a couple of years ago, and the teacher, in discussing research on sugar substitutes (all of them) said that our bodies react to ALL of these products just as if we were eating sugar. Of course, they don't have the same calories, but if your body is going to go into insulin response mode, you may as well have sugar. But, if you want to lose weight, you would know you cannot drink sugary drinks all day and lose weight, right?

For me the key has been to NOT drink sweetened drinks between meals/snacks. If I am thirsty, I drink water. If I am hungry, that means I need to look at my food plan and see what isn't working.

My body needs time to process the food I have eaten and to rest.. That is why I eat my meals; then, I don't eat until it is time to eat again. For me, that is about every three hours. If I continue to sip ANY beverage besides water, then my body thinks I am still eating and that whole process of responding to food intake continues. According to the instructor of our nutrition course, sugar substitutes have the same effect on your body as drinking a drink with sugar, despite the fact that they don't have calories.

That is the primary reason that I don't use sugar substitutes, whether they are healthy ones or artificial ones. But then, I also have to face reality: I cannot consume sweetened drinks all day without paying a price for it. Water is the best choice.

This theory has never held up to scientific scrutiny.

Anomalia

I actually feel really smart because I know the names and structures of all these compounds being spoken of, yay school!

As for whether or not aspartame is bad for you, I do not know. I do know that the more I stick to purely water the leaner I am, whether that is actually the lack of fluids other than water or some other confounding variable I do not know. That being said, I drink 1 diet cream soda everyday and it hasn't impacted my ability to maintain my weight.

brenteesha

There are many threads that discuss aspartame, splenda, and other artificial sweeteners. You an also google it and find the many reasons artificial sweeteners are not good for you.

Whatever I type here will be attacked by all of those who don't agree with my statement and I don't feel like going back and forth on the subject. I have read many threads discussing similar issues and whoever doesn't agree with the majority gets hammered, specially if the person believes in natural / organic way of life.

Finally, I believe that an autoinmune disease I have is linked to diet sodas I drank in the past. Never had them before coming to the United States and then got hooked on diet coke. A few years later, I got a rare autoinmune disease that doctors don't know much about. I was told that I would have to let it progress and there wasn't much that could be done. I went online and started looking for answers and reading. I decided to clean up my act, eliminate processed foods, eliminate diet coke and eat just natural/organic. Disease stopped progressing and it is dormant. Drs have no idea why but told me to continue doing whatever I am doing.

I can mention many names that explain the reasons but those names are hated in this message board.


The OP asked if it is really that bad for you and I answered: Yes, it is bad for you.

This is all I would say about this.

Ahh, it's bad for YOU. Doesn't mean it's bad for me. In fact, it's not bad for me. I drink 6-8 cans of diet coke a day and have for 20 years at least. I'm 50 years old, weight 165 pounds and am very healthy. I have a bad shoulder and some lower back pain from injuries. I never get sick except an occasional cold. Haven't had flu in at least 25 years. Haven't taken 2 days off in a row from work for sickness since I can't remember. Clearly, aspartame is not bad for ME.

So, let's stick to reality. Aspartame is bad for people who have sensitivity to it. As nuts are to my niece. so, nuts are bad for everybody? no, bad for her. not bad for me.

Just because you haven't had any negative side effects doesn't mean it is healthy. It also doesn't invalidate her opinion and experience. I appreciate your reply and how you examined the flip side of the argument... but you seem rather combative with this person and I don't really feel that is necessary.

I'm combative of people who post "it's bad for you" across the board. I never said it was HEALTHY. There's a huge difference between something being healthy or not healthy and it being bad for you. Ice cream is not healthy but it's not bad for you. Unless you have a sensitivity to lactose or eat too much of it. If people want to give anecdotal evidence of their experience with something like aspartame, take it for what it is, anecdotal evidence, not data driven info.

That's why so many people have been posting about wearing hats whent they work out and water and mustard being bad for you, etc. Because using correlations between things as if they are cause and effect and using singular anecdotal info is next to useless.

My own experience offsets her experience if we go with single user info. So, net zero. The links she posted have been discredited by many research studies over the past 30 or 40 years.

Same thread, different day......

I'm quite aware that it was not 'data driven info'... but I still welcomed it because as I stated in the first post, I was fine with opinions, personal experience or advice from medical professionals. It's great that you are so well informed, but the self righteous part isn't so great. What is I was politely trying to say is that you were being a jerk and it was uncalled for. If you don't like it or don't agree, move on. Don't drag the rest of us down with your negative attitude.

JayByrd107

Well, folks, we're four pages in and let's see how the debate is going:

Team "It Aint no Thing" has provided several medical studies and some pretty solid science-based articles to back up their assertions.

That may be true, Bob, but Team "It Gives You Migraines!" is going to bury their fact-based arguments with so many anecdotes and "stuff that they heard from this one guy the other day but I can't remember where but I'm pretty sure he took a science class in seventh grade" that it'll give you a headache!

Can we agree that one team might be lacking a certain credibility that the other is looking for? C'mon team migraine, I want peer reviewed articles!

rjt1000

"I'm quite aware that it was not 'data driven info'... but I still welcomed it because as I stated in the first post, I was fine with opinions, personal experience or advice from medical professionals. It's great that you are so well informed, but the self righteous part isn't so great. What is I was politely trying to say is that you were being a jerk and it was uncalled for. If you don't like it or don't agree, move on. Don't drag the rest of us down with your negative attitude."

It's interesting that for somebody who opened this thread with a "tell me what you think", all of your subsequent posts seem to heavily lean to the "anti aspartame" side. I'm self righteous in answering your initial request with as much or as little fact based info as the anti's? OK. You've almost fawned over the links provided by the anti side but have ignored (at least as far as not responding) to the info and links provided by the pro aspartame people.

Troll much?

R_is_for_Rachel

I have a real sensitivity to aspartame now due to drinking quite a bit when I was younger. Now I have digestive problems when I have anything with aspartame in it.

The main issue that I have with it is that it tricks your body into thinking that insulin has entered your blood stream, but when it looks for it, it cannot find it.

My dentist was horrified when I told her I had more than 2 cans of pop a week.......Forget about the aspartame, it's more about the acid in the soda - it wears away your dental enamel faster than anything.

THANK YOU!!
I'm always amazed when I read these posts especially replies such as "I drink 6 cans of diet coke a day, and I'm fine" because the chances are that your teeth are badly damaged and you don't realise it. As a dental hygienist I see this problem every single day, teeth badly eroded from acid in carbonated drinks, fruit juice and sports drinks. Avoid them for the sake of your teeth!

rjt1000

I have a real sensitivity to aspartame now due to drinking quite a bit when I was younger. Now I have digestive problems when I have anything with aspartame in it.

The main issue that I have with it is that it tricks your body into thinking that insulin has entered your blood stream, but when it looks for it, it cannot find it.

My dentist was horrified when I told her I had more than 2 cans of pop a week.......Forget about the aspartame, it's more about the acid in the soda - it wears away your dental enamel faster than anything.

THANK YOU!!
I'm always amazed when I read these posts especially replies such as "I drink 6 cans of diet coke a day, and I'm fine" because the chances are that your teeth are badly damaged and you don't realise it. As a dental hygienist I see this problem every single day, teeth badly eroded from acid in carbonated drinks, fruit juice and sports drinks. Avoid them for the sake of your teeth!

if my teeth are badly damaged, not only do I not know it but the dentist I see 2x a year also doesn't seem to know it either.

R_is_for_Rachel

I have a real sensitivity to aspartame now due to drinking quite a bit when I was younger. Now I have digestive problems when I have anything with aspartame in it.

The main issue that I have with it is that it tricks your body into thinking that insulin has entered your blood stream, but when it looks for it, it cannot find it.

My dentist was horrified when I told her I had more than 2 cans of pop a week.......Forget about the aspartame, it's more about the acid in the soda - it wears away your dental enamel faster than anything.

THANK YOU!!
I'm always amazed when I read these posts especially replies such as "I drink 6 cans of diet coke a day, and I'm fine" because the chances are that your teeth are badly damaged and you don't realise it. As a dental hygienist I see this problem every single day, teeth badly eroded from acid in carbonated drinks, fruit juice and sports drinks. Avoid them for the sake of your teeth!

if my teeth are badly damaged, not only do I not know it but the dentist I see 2x a year also doesn't seem to know it either.

How about your hygienist? In my 10 yrs post qualification only 1 dentist I have worked with has ever mentioned it to a patient. Obviously I can't see your mouth, so can not pass opinion on you personally

rjt1000

I have a real sensitivity to aspartame now due to drinking quite a bit when I was younger. Now I have digestive problems when I have anything with aspartame in it.

The main issue that I have with it is that it tricks your body into thinking that insulin has entered your blood stream, but when it looks for it, it cannot find it.

My dentist was horrified when I told her I had more than 2 cans of pop a week.......Forget about the aspartame, it's more about the acid in the soda - it wears away your dental enamel faster than anything.

THANK YOU!!
I'm always amazed when I read these posts especially replies such as "I drink 6 cans of diet coke a day, and I'm fine" because the chances are that your teeth are badly damaged and you don't realise it. As a dental hygienist I see this problem every single day, teeth badly eroded from acid in carbonated drinks, fruit juice and sports drinks. Avoid them for the sake of your teeth!

if my teeth are badly damaged, not only do I not know it but the dentist I see 2x a year also doesn't seem to know it either.

How about your hygienist? In my 10 yrs post qualification only 1 dentist I have worked with has ever mentioned it to a patient. Obviously I can't see your mouth, so can not pass opinion on you personally

wouldn't my dentist notice if my teeth were badly damaged? I'd not use a dentist that didn't know or didn't tell me of damage to my teeth. He readily tells me that soda is staining my teeth. So, he'd warn me about stains but not about serious damage?