Aspartame - Diet Sodas and Weight Loss

Being involved in nutrition research for such a long time I can’t stop wondering what’s wrong with our natural food. Why do sugar substitutes and artificially created ingredients receive such an enormous attention? Why can the industry freely and without prove advertise artificial sweeteners as being healthy? Can the label “zero calories” automatically indicate that the product is good for your health?

Well, I don’t blame the consumers, although nowadays with access to tons of information just a mouse click away, one has got no excuse. The reason why I’m writing this article is the misinformation I come across almost daily in newspapers, magazines and other media. A big variety of snacks, diet products and diet sodas containing artificial sweeteners are advertised as being beneficial for health. I regard this as an intentional deception. It means the industry does not shy away from targeting your health concerns for their business. Aspartame, amongst others, is such an artificial sweetener. There is a large number of products with this name on their ingredients label. What is Aspartame? Does our body know how to metabolize it, as it is programmed to deal with natural molecule structures and does not know how to process artificial ones.

If I told you that certain products you are consuming contain Formaldehyde, I guess you’d think I’m out of my mind. In fact, Aspartame contains Methanol. Studies show that this is a dangerous neurotoxin, is carcinogenic, interferes with the DNA and causes several other severe health problems. Methanol is needed to fuse together two amino acids to create the sugar substitute Aspartame. Our body metabolizes Methanol by breaking it down into Formic Acid and Formaldehyde. If you want to preserve your body for future generations to admire, I’d say then the latter is really beneficial to you. Or what about causing a little cancer to speed up your weight loss? Unfortunately these “zero calories” products might do exactly that to you.

Long term studies on rats by an Italian Cancer Institute, the Ramazzini Foundation, found increases in Lymphomas, Leukemias and Breast Cancer. The rats were given 20 mg of Aspartame per kilogram of body weight. This is comparable to a 50 pound child consuming 21/2 cans of diet soda. This doesn’t sound alarming as currently the acceptable daily intake is set at 50 mg/kg of body weight. But there are hundreds of other products which contain Aspartame and are likely to be consumed by kids and adults alike. It all adds up. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) downgraded the rating of Aspartame to “everyone should avoid”. Experts are calling on the FDA to review the Aspartame Cancer risk. Remember, this is a multi billion dollar industry and the pressure on the authorities to turn a blind eye to this issue is high. Ultimately you are responsible for your health, so just stop consuming products containing artificial sweeteners as a precaution.

If you have got a sweet tooth like I do, use brown sugar or honey in a moderate amount as a sweetener. It is a natural substance, tastes lovely and does not do you any harm. And do you know that pure water as a replacement of a diet soda is most beneficial to your health by hydrating your body and flushing out toxins? I’m sure you do! Then I need to say no more.
The author of this article, Rudy Tiefnig has been educating people in Nutrition for many years. To read his other articles please visit "Articles, Diet, Fitness, Weight loss"