Why Aspartame Isn't Scary

I just wanted to say Thank You to Aaron for bringing intellectually stimulating discussions back to MFP. If I never see another "is the person above you hot?" thread, it will be too soon.

As a former research scientist myself (cardiac electrophysiology), you speak my language. I've known for many years that aspartame was simply made up of amino acids and have therefore never been afraid of it. I am, however, one of those genetic freaks who can taste it, and I find it extremely unpleasant, so I avoid it for that reason only. I save my non-diet Ginger Ales for running days. :-)

I currently work as an academic editor/reviewer of scientific papers being submitted for publication. When I read an article online about a study and then go read the original study, I'm astonished at how often the former gets it wrong. However, while anybody can go to PubMed and read an article there, it does take some skill, knowledge, and/or training to know how to sift the wheat from the chaff and critically evaluate a paper. It's not always easy and it takes a lot more time than most people are willing to devote to issues that aren't very high on their priority list.

If they did away with school curricula and replaced it with one lifelong course on critical thinking, the world would be a better place <wink!>.

I was so happy to see this topic. I'm going to work in the biochemistry field and it's difficult for people to understand how products will affect them or "a couple of studies showed this causes cancer in mice. It causes cancer."

Unfortunately, I have some issues with processing it myself. I get hypoglycemia from drinking products containing aspartame if not taken with food. I was wondering if you had any research on this subject in previous posts, my boyfriend suggested that it's my body thinking it's getting sugar but not actually then raising insulin levels in response, but I haven't found much on the subject.

I have only read some of the posts in the last hour, so please forgive me if I am repeating a question already asked. I read a couple supposed studies a while back pertaining to "aspartsme toxicity," and one of the points made was that the body stores excess toxins in fat cells to protect itself. If this is true, would the percentages of methanol build up enough in the body to cause an adverse reaction? I wish I could remember which study it was in order to post the reference. Anyway, I'm curious if the concept has any scientific merit. Thank you to anyone that can provide insight!

I agree with you! My mom used Sweet N Low (which HAS been proved to cause cancer), but she lived to 89!

It was linked to bladder cancer in rats when saccharin (sweet 'n low) was combined with cyclamates (an artificial sweetener banned in the US). Even then it apparently was determined that the cancer developed due to some kind of mechanism that is unique to rats and not people.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/artificial-sweeteners

Scroll down to #3.

Dunno if this helps.

I agree with you! My mom used Sweet N Low (which HAS been proved to cause cancer), but she lived to 89!

It was linked to bladder cancer in rats when saccharin (sweet 'n low) was combined with cyclamates (an artificial sweetener banned in the US). Even then it apparently was determined that the cancer developed due to some kind of mechanism that is unique to rats and not people.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/artificial-sweeteners

Scroll down to #3.

Dunno if this helps.

I do wonder how paranoid one must be to believe that a product that is still on the market and readily availabe has been "proven" to cause cancer.

Honestly people there isn't a conspiracy to try to kill you. If something is shown to be carcinogenic or toxic it is not going to be put into food because A) if you believe that the FDA is actually interested in protecting health then obviously they would disallow that and if you believe that the FDA doesn't care and everything is driven by market forces then something like that would be pretty easy for competitors to market against. Makers of other artificial sweetners would sing from the rooftops how this other sweetener causes cancer. The reason that doesn't happen is because it doesn't cause cancer.

I don't believe there is a conspiracy either. But there was a warning label on pink packets for decades about cancer and rats. I posted about this earlier, but that warning label was a conversation piece when waiting for our meals at restaurants many times. It's very recent history that the warning label was removed.
That there is a widespread belief in the US that pink packets (or artificial sweetener in general) are proved to cause cancer, it is hardly a mystery why that is.
If the surgeon generals warning was removed from cigarettes because of the discovery of some causal attribution error about cigarettes and cancer, it also wouldn't be that big of a mystery why most people would nevertheless be of the belief that cigarettes have been proven to cause cancer.

I use pink packets multiple times a day, it's my favorite sweetener, I understand why the warning was removed, and I have enjoyed your thread. But I don't think the belief that artificial sweeteners cause cancer is entirely irrational given that one had a huge warning label stamped on it, and I don't agree that the FDA wouldn't continue to let something that has been shown to cause cancer to be put on the food market anyway because... did they not do exactly that with sweet n low with the caveat of stamping a warning label on it. i.e. consume at your own risk? That it isn't believed to be carcinogenic NOW has no bearing on what was believed about it THEN, does it? And the residual effects of that warning label seem what one might expect from a population that had been staring at a warning label on their artificial sweetener for decades.

I think you make some valid points but just to clarify what I said was do you think the FDA would allow something to remain on the market that had been PROVEN to cause cancer. Saccharine was never proven to cause cancer. There was one study, that was discussed previously in this thread, where in combination with another molecule in high dose some rats got cancer. That study was not particularly convincing but in a move that I consider to be a mistake (and the FDA later decided was a mistake) on the basis of that possibility they applied a warning label despite there being insufficient evidence. When later time and time again other studies showed no effect they eventually removed the label.

As for cigarettes they aren't food and therefore are not regulated in the same way. There is also a big difference between an identifiable product (like a cigarette) and the inclusion of an ingredient within foods (as saccharine is used in many products). The analogy would be would the FDA allow the inclusion of nicotine in food products. Do you think they would?

The point of my analogy was just to illustrate the idea of the public needing an adjustment period. I used cigarettes as being analogous insofar as they have a warning label and it's part of the collective conscience now that they 'cause cancer.' This was once also so (though to a much smaller degree) for saccharin, rightly or wrongly, so a person not fully adjusted to the new (for him) revelation that saccharin does not cause cancer, I think that is understandable. Just as it would be understandable if the public doesn't adjust right away to any revelation that cigarettes don't cause cancer. (I think suspicion at that revelation would be ubiquitous and understandably so)
The differences in how these products are regulated I don't feel detracts from the point of my analogy, and you recognized the greater point I was making later.

I will agree with you though based on that former label I can see why people are hesitant or unsure about it. That said there is a big BIG difference between being hesitant and unsure (which I understand) and loudly proclaiming in a public forum that saccharine "has been proven to cause cancer" which I do not understand. I do think that is fairly paranoid and not very well thought out.

Perhaps not well thought-out, people toss around 'proven' 'proof' and 'proved' pretty carelessly, when what they probably mean is something a lot less strong than that, like "science supports blah blah". The poster who said saccharin was proved to cause cancer, I didn't suspect them to be pushing paranoia or conspiracies, but rather was repeating what they probably learned from a warning stamp on a pink packet. Evidently they didn't take that knowledge too seriously given their accompanying personal anecdote about their mother's longevity that appeared to the poster to defy the science.

And that was what I really getting at, that posters like that one are more likely a remnant of the warning label era, rather than a paranoid conspiracy theorist. I do think it's kind of ironic though that they essentially rejected what they thought was the science in favor of personal anecdote.