Side Effects of Aspartame

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that adds a sweet taste but no calories to the food in which it is used. It is the artificial sweetener used in brand names such as Equal and NutraSweet and is used extensively in other foods, mainly diet sodas to reduce their calorie count. It is important to put the side effects of aspartame in proportion to the benefits. Three of the leading causes of death in America are cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. With over one million people dying each year from each of these. One of the leading causes of all three of these diseases is obesity, of which high sugar consumption is a leading cause. While aspartame is not the perfect answer, in the twenty years since it has been used in the USA, not a single death has resulted from it. This is despite the fact that many people consume large amounts of diet beverages. Meanwhile, cancer, diabetes and heart disease continue to kill millions of people each year.

Some of the leading side effects claimed against Aspartame such as brain tumors and methanol poisoning have never been directly linked to Aspartame in humans, not even a single case. When 25% of our children are obese mainly because of high fructose corn syrup and at risk of developing cancer, heart disease and diabetes, should we really be spreading urban legends about tumor growths and embalming fluid related to Aspartame?

Some of the most common side effects, either in laboratory animals or human consumers.

1. Brain Tumors - While there has been no link to brain tumors being caused by aspartame in humans, in laboratory rats, brain tumors developed when extremely high levels of aspartame were given over a long period of time. While this is often cited by opponents of aspartame, the doses required to cause tumors in the rats was more than a human could ever ingest unless they ate pure Aspartame from the sugar bowl every day.

2. Methanol poison - Another frequent claim by opponents of aspartame is that when digested, aspartame breaks down and forms embalming fluid and methanol. While this sounds outrageous, the fact is that it just does not happen inside the human body. Yes, Aspartame is made of many of the same ingredients as embalming fluid. But snake venom is almost entirely made of water, does that mean we should ban water consumption? The fact is that aspartame does not break down into embalming fluid when ingested. You are not turning yourself into a living zombie by drinking a glass of diet soda. As far as methanol goes... the same 'mis-science' is used to scare people. Methanol is found in huge amounts in fruits an vegetables. Eating your recommended daily allowance of most vitamins from fruits and vegetables will result in much higher levels of methanol in your body then you ever get from drinking a glass of diet soda. The fact is the body is well equipped to eliminate this substance from you body... it does so every time you eat an apple. Again, this is used by opponents of Aspartame as a scare tactic.

3. The most commonly reported side effects of aspartame that are based on science include fatigue, memory loss, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, mood swings and depression, dizziness and headaches. While these are certainly serious side effects associated with aspartame, two things must be noted. First, many of these side effects could be caused by the loss of calories. If a person is used to drinking a beverage such as Coke that contains a lot of calories, and then they switch to a beverage that contains no calories, things like dizziness and fatigue will happen because the person no longer is consuming the same amount of calories. The second important thing to remember is that many of the side effects involving digestion such as abdominal pains and diarrhea are caused because most of the Aspartame a person consumes is not even absorbed in the body.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the safety of Aspartame and the testing that has been done on it. While proponents of aspartame are quick to point out the over 100 scientific tests that were performed on the safety of aspartame, people who are against the use of the chemical will tell you that most of that research was funded by companies that directly benefit from the sales of aspartame. Even the testing done by the FDA has come under criticism when it was revealed that several of the leading researchers who were working for the FDA, also were drawing salaries from companies that are the leading users of aspartame.

Because of the controversy surrounding aspartame, it is hard to determine the truth about the side effects of the chemical. For instance, in the mid to late 90's, there was an active collaboration on the internet to flood the FDA with calls regarding side effects. At one point, the FDA stated that almost 80% of their complaints regarding food additives were because of side effects from aspartame.

There has been some independent research done that does suggest that there are very serious side effects, but many of the more dangerous claims against aspartame, such as it causing brain cancer have not been supported. For the most part, the side effects of consuming aspartame are similar to some other chemicals that are added to foods to make them more healthy, such as fat substitutes and other artificial sweeteners. It is also important to note that side effects will vary greatly with the amount of aspartame consumed, in some of the more controversial anti-aspartame research done, the side effects were reported for test subjects that consumed far greater doses than an average person ever would.

The best advice with any food additive, especially a controversial one with jaded research like aspartame is to avoid it as much as possible. While it is probably healthier to drink a no calorie drink with aspartame rather than Coke or Pepsi, it is also better to completely switch to juices or water and avoid both high sugar and high aspartame drinks.