ASPARTAME, SWEET BUT SOUR

      In general everything has pros and cons, but it is hard for people to know both of them. Even if someone knows the pros of something, still he or she may not know the cons of the same thing. As an illustration, we can think about the advertisements of most of the big companies. These big companies tell all the good things about their products but hardly mention the other side of the story, of course the negative one. Aspartame, an artificial sweetener, was discovered accidentally by Jim Schlatter in 1965 when he was working on a project to develop treatments for gastric ulcer and it was first brought into the market by G&D Searle Company in 1974. Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar and low in calories. It is also marketed as a non saccharide alternative of sugar which can used by people including diabetics. That is why people find artificial sweeteners to be a better choice than the regular sugar. However, the government has declared aspartame safe for consumption, even it has been suspected of numerous disturbances. The researchers are alarmed by their studies of severe adverse reactions to aspartame.

     Aspartame is made of three components: aspartic, phenylalanine and methanol. The researchers have found that consuming aspartame for a long time can lead to various negative health effects like memory loss, brain damage, migraine, behavioral changes and can cause weight gain. Moreover the major problems caused by aspartame are premature births, brain tumors and cancers. There are so many real stories and facts about how aspartame has done damages on human’s health while consuming it for a long time.

        David Gutierrez, the writer in Natural News says, that “regular consumption of artificial sweeteners by pregnant women may increase their risk of premature birth.” He further mentions the researchers interviewing almost 60,000 pregnant women about their diet drink consumption, and thencomparing these data with the results of the women’s births, they found that drinking one can of dietsoda per day increased the risk of giving birth prematurely by 38 percent compared with who never drank diet soda. Drinking four or more of the sodas per day increased the risk of preterm birth by 78 percent and preterm birth is defined as taking place before the 38^th week of pregnancy. So, the researchers suggested that premature births are caused by the neurotoxin methanol which is found in artificial sweeteners.

      According to researchers and physicians studying the adverse effects of aspartame; memory loss is one of the common effects of the consumption of the sweetener. They say aspartate and glutamate act as neurotransmitters in the brain by facilitating the transmission of information from neuron to neuron. When  co aspartame products are heated or improperly stored causeS the methanol in them to break down into formaldehyde, a deadly neurotoxin which  slowly destroys the neurons and stimulates  the neural cells to death. That is how aspartame users were more likely to report long term memory lapses like forgetting details of personal routines or whether or not a task had been completed.

   Another misconception about aspartame is that  people who are calorie- conscious go for diet sodas or other diet products thinking they are good for maintaining body weight. But these sweeteners have opposite effect instead of causing users to lose weight. People hardly know exactly how this artificial sweetener  interacts with our different organ systems. Dr. Joseph Mercola, physician and the writer of book Sweet Deception says our body has a self regulating mechanism which measures the amount of energy obtain from a particular meal. So, when our body received enough energy from the food that we have eaten then mouth, intestine, and liver send message to the brain signaling energy requirements have been met. That’s how our nervous system secretes hormone which stops our desire for food. But when you are eating the foods which are in low calorie or diet products, body will not get enough energy and body will tempt you to eat more. So, as it goes on, this will lead to chronic overeating and body will gain more weight than losing. This is the reason people who use Equal and Sweet N Low instead of regular sugar and eat only diet products are still fat and moreover sometimes they get even fatter. (Sweet Deception, p61-83). And one of the worse things is that the big companies that manufacture these artificial sweeteners have renamed it and begin to market the product as natural. Despite the fact, this product is being proved as a toxin; it has remained on the global market with the exception of a few countries that have banned it.

       Based on all the above arguments and my research on aspartame I must conclude that this product seem to cause many complications to our health. Therefore this product shouldn’t be approved for human consumption. We need to give more education for the general public about the negative effects of the product and very importantly I propose the government should do thorough research on all these sweeteners and must act appropriately as soon as possible. The government needs to put more concern about peoples’ health rather than succumbing to millions of dollar being paid by the big companies for its approval in the global market. Ethan Huff, the writer in Natural News says “Practically all drugs and food additives are approved by the FDA not because science shows they are safe but because companies essentially lobby the FDA with monetary payoffs and complete the agency’s multi-million dollar approval process.” And lastly I must say that each individual have to make his or her own decision about whether they will continue to consume them or not.