Diet Coke (Asparatame) Controversy

As for my self, I avoid sugar substitutes like the plague. I did the south beach diet for something like two years and was eating all the sugar free stuff. It worked for a while then i started to gain weight and it was very hard to lose, even though i was being very careful to eat very little natural sugar. But lo and behold i was gaining and could not stop. Then i heard about how bad it is for your body and i stopped eating it. Ever since then i have not been able to lose weight ( i keep on gaining!!!) for anything so i think it really messed up my insides. So i would not eat it but not every one gets to where they can't lose weight so it might just be my body that is whacked out......

If I have too much diet pop with aspartame, I get a raging headache...
When I was pregnant, I gave up pop.
I felt great!
Give birth, drink pop again, headaches resumed.
I didn't make the connection until a few years later when I gave up caffiene.
I realized I wasn't addicted to caffiene, it was the aspartame.
I now drink diet coke splenda - no problems!
Pepsi one is also made with splenda I think...

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which I now have in remission.

Diet coke was one of many, many things I quit. So I can't say that quitting the one thing helped, but my nutritionist is a strong believer that it is linked to chronic pain and immune suppressing conditions.

My thing is, if you're asking about it, you have some concern. Why not quit for a few weeks, and see if you have any benefits? Everyone's different, and that's the only way you'd know for sure for you.

I can only speak from my own experience about whether or not diet coke and asparatame are addictive. 7 months ago, after 40+ years of drinking an average of 2 liters of diet pop (diet coke when I could afford it) a day as well as consuming things with artifical sweetener at every meal, I went cold turkey off both substances (at the same time........talk about delusions of being Super Woman!). I have worked in the field of mental health my entire adult life and as such, have had a wee bit of experience in working with chemically dependent people. Let's just say that my decision to detox from carbonated water and asparatame gave me an entirely new insight into the sheer torment that the chemically dependent go through!! :sick: Yes, I went through very real, very gawd-awful physical, mental and emotional WITHDRAWAL!! About 2 months after that, I ate something that, unbeknown to me, had asparatame in it and oh but my system let me know that that wasn't acceptable! :noway: :sick: :sad: I haven't touched anything with carbonated water in it........frankly too afraid of the same reaction I got when I unknowingly consumed asparatame again. I certainly am not in a position to tell anyone else how to manage their food choices ~ all I can do is say that at least for me, carbonated water and especially asparatame are sweet poison and the health benefits I've gained from swearing off the stuff far exceed the pain I went through to get shuck of the stuff.

While this isn't aspartame related I don't think it completely off-topic. About 6 months ago I quit all caffeine and while it was all from coffee ( I quit drinking soda 4 years ago) I did notice some major changes. Before when I was heavily caffeinated I would get hypoglycemic like symptoms if I ate sugary foods such as crashing and burning and getting headaches. I also had to eat regularly or I would feel like crap and get really, really mean. Once I eliminated caffeine from my diet all these problems went away. Not sure what it all means but I'm throwing it out there.

Oh if we only knew then what we know now! :noway: Maybe if I did, I WOULD still have a gall bladder and WOULDN'T have osteoporosis!

My yoga guy on tv just talked about this. From his mouth "the more diet sodas you drink a day, the more likely you'll become overweight. In a large study it showed that regular soda drinkers are 32% more likely to become overweight or obese but it's even worse for diet soda drinkers whose risk of becoming overwight or obese was over 54%"

I've heard this from many other sources as well.

Calories aren't everything. Health is the most important thing. If studies show that it's linked to headaches and even brain tumors, I'm staying away. Seriously though, we have all these low calorie, fat free, sugar substitutes, and diet foods and drinks and our nation is huge. Obviously these things don't work. Real food works. I mean thinking about it right now, every person that I know that drinks diet soda is seriously overweight. I just think natural, real foods and drinks are the best way to go. I don't always eat the best, but I never eat things that say fat free or diet just because I don't trust them. Just my opinion though

Kels

What about using Splenda in my hot tea...is splenda the same as asparatame?

I thought I was doing better by drinking decaffinated tea with Splenda and not Equal/SweetnLow... am I wrong?

Melissa

I also use stevia, a couple drops in a cup of plain yogurt and then add frozen berries ( i like raspberries and blueberries). I LOVE ice cream so this is a decent substitute. And I can have it every day. I used to drink alot of Diet Coke, then have gradually cut down. Now that I am really serious about losing weight I only drink water. My skin looks all the more fabu for it!

Pretty scary. I am definitely going to make an effort to get rid of that stuff in my diet

Melissa

Try this link for the Mayo clinic which explains safe levels for consuming artificial sweeteners.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/diabetes-diet/NU00592

What about using Splenda in my hot tea...is splenda the same as asparatame?

I thought I was doing better by drinking decaffinated tea with Splenda and not Equal/SweetnLow... am I wrong?

Melissa

thats a whole different can of worms. if you google splenda you will find plenty of viewpoints from people who have had violent reactions, to those who say iit was rushed to market without sufficient testing, to the fact that spleda is realy closer to chlorine than sugar. I don't touch the stuff and won't let my kids either.

I use Splenda regularly and have had no ill effects and know of no one who has, unlike aspartame. I've read some of the controversy over it and find myself in the "moderation" camp for the most part with Splenda. It is basically sugar, triple rinsed with a cloride (read: part of chlorine) substance to make the "sugar" part unable to be digested. I'm sure some people DO have reactions to it, just like some people can't swim in pools with chlorine, and some people can't eat peanuts. Doesn't mean chlorine in a public pool is bad or peanuts are bad, but they ARE bad for some people! My $.02 anyway!!

Sucralose is not sugar "triple rinsed" with chloride. Sucralose is made by taking the sugar molecule and replacing three of the hydroxyl groups with chlorine atoms. This creates a completely new chemical compound that is not sugar. Why is it sweet then? because chlorine makes it that way. Also the FDA states that 11% to 27% of sucralose is absorbed in the body, which is a far cry from passing through the body harmlessly which the maker claims. Couple this with the fact there have been no long term human studies and I will pass.