Aspartame... is it really that bad?

tigersword

Bottom line ... Arguments on both sides. Some of us choose to avoid artificial sweeteners...and foods containing ingredients we can't pronounce. Note: I said we choose. Sugar substitutes are common. What about artificial fats? Was it olestra?

Agreed. What I noticed in general on this message board is that people who support natural foods, products, ingredients, etc get made fun of and receive condescending replies. I don't know why and I don't really care to understand it.

Not true at all. It's usually the people who make outlandish claims that aren't backed by science, even after being shown the science, that tend to get ribbed.

I mean, I make my own tomato sauce, peanut butter, jams, bread, pasta, ketchup, mayonnaise, crackers, tortilla chips, and mustard all from scratch, because I prefer to make as much of what I eat by myself as possible. I also have my own vegetable garden and grind my own meat. None of that changes the fact that the peer reviewed, scientific journals show that aspartame in moderation is safe for consumption. I also drink 64 oz of water a day, in addition to coffee and tea. Again, that doesn't mean I go into threads asking about water consumption and insist that people should drink ONLY x amount of water, because it just isn't medically, physically, or scientifically necessary.

People are free to eat and drink what they want to eat and drink, and in my opinion, the only people that seem negative on these boards are the ones that are insistent on being anti-[insert food product here] with absolutely no scientific basis or reasoning, and instead make outlandish claims and use fear to try and scare people into doing what they want. To me that's much worse than someone being "condescending" while posting peer reviewed, scientific research to support the point they are making.

R_is_for_Rachel

As for the acid erosion, like I mentioned earlier, there are many other foods and drinks that are equally acidic as soda, heck, even saliva can be just as acidic, and sometimes even more acidic than soda, and that's in your mouth 24/7.

of course there are other foods and drinks equally as acidic as soda, but not many of them contain aspartame which is why i haven't mentioned them as the topic is about aspartame. Regarding saliva being more acidic than soda, i guess that's potentially true but would be extremely rare as saliva normally has a resting pH of approx 6-7. Most carbonated drinks have a pH of about 2.4 which is very acidic.

DeenieWeenie

Pepsi has the same amount of acid as a car battery. My dentist has a poster with the levels right in her office!

sunnyskyjb

Thank you, Jill and AnfMusicGir,l for sharing your stories.

LorinaLynn

A few years ago, after a poorly-executed, failed weight loss attempt, I was looking for medical reasons why I felt so crappy all the time. Got bloodwork done, wondering if I might be pre-diabetic or have thyroid problems. Nada. My boss suggested to look up aspartame side effects, and I was surprised I had so many of the symptoms. But the more research I did, the more outlandish and less scientific the claims got. To me, it all sounded way too conspiracy theory based. I did try cutting out the diet soda for a while, but I had no change, except feeling even worse because I missed my caffeine, and I don't like coffee. (Yes, I have a caffeine addiction. I never smoked, don't do drugs, rarely drink alcohol... let me have this one vice! :laugh: )

Life got a little crazy for a while, with the death of my parents, the loss of my job (which was a blessing because my boss was a total d-bag), and a little extra weight gain that eventually lead me here.

All those symptoms I had before - the malaise, fatigue, aches and pains, headaches, etc. - are gone, and I'm still drinking diet soda and Crystal Light. It wasn't the aspartame, it was depression, inactivity and carrying around an extra 20-30 pounds. If I put 20 pounds of dead weight in a backpack and wore it everywhere all the time, I'm sure my knees and ankles and back would ache once again. If I had a soul-sucking, go-nowhere job with a d-bag boss again, I'm sure I'd be depressed and get frequent headaches again.

Overall, getting away from a toxic work environment, plus good nutrition and regular exercise, was all I needed to go from Eeyore to Tigger!

grassette

More research: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/health/research/diet-soft-drinks-linked-to-risk-of-heart-disease.html?ref=nutrition

"Some studies have suggested that consumption of diet soft drinks may be associated with Type 2 diabetes and development of the condition known as metabolic syndrome — high blood pressure, abdominal obesity and other risk factors. Now a 10-year epidemiological study has found a link between diet soft drinks and cardiovascular disease."

Ten years makes it quite the study.

"...the researchers found that daily consumption of diet soda was still independently associated with an increased risk for stroke, heart attack and death. ..."

Drink regular cola, the stuff that has sugar in it if you need a caffeine fix. Who needs the diet stuff?

RonSwanson66

More research: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/health/research/diet-soft-drinks-linked-to-risk-of-heart-disease.html?ref=nutrition

"Some studies have suggested that consumption of diet soft drinks may be associated with Type 2 diabetes and development of the condition known as metabolic syndrome — high blood pressure, abdominal obesity and other risk factors. Now a 10-year epidemiological study has found a link between diet soft drinks and cardiovascular disease."

Ten years makes it quite the study.

"...the researchers found that daily consumption of diet soda was still independently associated with an increased risk for stroke, heart attack and death. ..."

Drink regular cola, the stuff that has sugar in it if you need a caffeine fix. Who needs the diet stuff?

Guess you missed this part:

“What we’ve found is an association, and it might be due to chance or other unmeasured variables.”

tigersword

Linking to a New York Times article is not, "research." Linking to the actual study would be research.

Especially when looking at the study, only 163 of the 2564 people involved in the study drank diet soda "daily" according to their food survey. So the "daily" users that ended up at a higher risk of developing issues made up roughly 5% of the entire research pool. Hardly a definitive amount. Also, the study says that people who consumed no diet soda, all the way up to 6 diet sodas a week showed no association to increased cardiovascular disease risks. Seeing as almost 24% of the people involved in the study had vascular problems, I'd say it's pretty easy to skew the results based on the very small sample size of daily drinkers in that study.

The simple fact is, more people who didn't drink diet soda daily got sick, compared to people who did drink diet soda daily, but because the number of people drinking it is so much lower than people not drinking it, the percentage is higher. You can't really draw any kind of real conclusion from this study, because the numbers are just so far out of balance.

RonSwanson66

Linking to a New York Times article is not, "research." Linking to the actual study would be research.

Addendum: Merely reading the abstract isn't research either.

tigersword

The addendum actually pretty much says the study shows nothing useful.

Also, this study was done on 2500 70 year old men. Not sure how that would even apply to most people that aren't 70 year old men.

grassette

More research: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/health/research/diet-soft-drinks-linked-to-risk-of-heart-disease.html?ref=nutrition

"Some studies have suggested that consumption of diet soft drinks may be associated with Type 2 diabetes and development of the condition known as metabolic syndrome — high blood pressure, abdominal obesity and other risk factors. Now a 10-year epidemiological study has found a link between diet soft drinks and cardiovascular disease."

Ten years makes it quite the study.

"...the researchers found that daily consumption of diet soda was still independently associated with an increased risk for stroke, heart attack and death. ..."

Drink regular cola, the stuff that has sugar in it if you need a caffeine fix. Who needs the diet stuff?

Guess you missed this part:

“What we’ve found is an association, and it might be due to chance or other unmeasured variables.”

Nope. I did not miss it, but left if for those who would actually read the article.

Aureilie

I've never been able to put up with it. I've gotten headaches after drinking diet soda since I was a child. My aunt (not blood related) passed away due to brain cancer and one of the first things she was asked when she was first diagnosed was "Do you drink diet soda?" That in and of itself is enough for me to stay away from excess aspartame/phenylalanine.

zerofreeze3

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/aspartame

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/aspartame

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1308408-why-aspartame-isn-t-scary

Also, way to wake the zombie thread.