What Is Aspartame? 5 Surprising Facts You Never Knew About This Chemical “Sweetener”

If you don’t know what aspartame is by now it’s about time you pay attention. It’s in about 6000 products currently, so you might want to watch out.

There is much controversy surrounding one of the world’s most popular artificial sweeteners, aspartame (aka NutraSweet, aminosweet, Equal). This has continued for about 30 years after the chemical was first pushed through the regulatory process by big pharmaceutical interest, despite all the well-documented side effects. Still today many people are unaware of the aspartames’s horrible history, not to mention what aspartame is made from and how it affects the body and brain. Many people think aspartame is just another FDA-approved sugar alternative that must be safe, otherwise it wouldn’t be on the market, right? Wrong. Truth about aspartame is much darker, especially how the chemical sweetener got market approval. There’s is also much more to the aspartame story that you may have never heard before. You can thank the government’s conflict of interest with powerful drug companies. Below are 5 important reasons to never consume anything with aspartame ever again:

1) Aspartame converts into formaldehyde in the human body, and this is a known cancer-causing chemical. Aspartame is comprised of three unique compounds, and is a synergistically toxic chemical, which means the sum of its individual parts are exponentially more toxic than just one by itself. Even in isolation, the three main compounds found in aspartame, phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol are toxic in their own right. Free methanol especially is very toxic. It converts first into formaldehyde and then into formic acid after consumption. And to be clear, it’s not like the methanol found in alcoholic beverages or fruits and vegetables. The methanol produced by aspartame is not accompanied by ethanol, which protects against methanol poisoning. By itself, methanol embalms living tissues and damages DNA, and can cause leukemia, lymphoma, and other cancers.

2) Aspartame causes obesity and metabolic syndrome.
Artificial sweeteners are accepted as a safe alternative to sugar by the masses, but a few people are now recognizing the truth. Information is coming to light that show instead of helping people lose weight it actually causes weight gain and metabolic disorders like diabetes when consumed in excess. Also, many studies have found even small amounts can be damaging and are best avoided all together. A study published in the journal Appetite in 2013 found that in comparison to sugar, aspartame is actually worse for promoting weight gain. Completely the opposite of what a consumer would want if it’s supposed to be a healthy sugar alternative! Similar research published in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (YJBM) found that aspartame alters the body’s natural production of hormones, increases appetite and sugar cravings. Not exactly what you want when you are trying to lose weight, right?

3) Reagan-appointed the FDA commissioner that helped get aspartame approved despite evidence showing it’s harmful.

Aspartame was discovered by accident by scientists working on developing an ulcer drug for G.D. Searle and Company, a pharmaceutical company later bought by Monsanto in 1985. The scientists discovered that the chemical had a sweet taste and G.D. Searle presented it to the FDA for approval. Keep in mind, the first safety studies done on aspartame found it caused grand mal seizures and death in monkeys, results that were omitted from the FDA. Later, the FDA scientists discovered on their own that aspartame was unsafe, but G.D. Searle waited for a new FDA commissioner appointed by Ronald Reagan and he was already paid off so the chemical sailed through the approval process. The details are clearly visible in the following document posted on the FDA’s website. Only through corruption this artificial sweetener ended up making its way into over 9,000 products, many of which still contain it today: http://www.fda.gov

4) Aspartame is made from the feces of genetically-modified (GM) E. coli bacteria.

Like the fermentation process, E. coli are modified with special genes that cause them to produce high levels of a special enzyme that produces the phenylalanine needed for aspartame production.

5) Aspartame crosses the blood-brain barrier, potentially causing permanent brain damage.

Aspartame is made up of about 40 percent aspartic acid. What’s Aspartic Acid? It’s a free-form amino acid that can cross between the blood-brain tissue. And when excess amounts of this compound enter the body, our brain cells are overwhelmed with calcium. The result is neural cell damage and even cell death, which can lead to serious brain damage. In extreme cases, exposure to aspartic acid, also known as aspartate, can cause neurological conditions such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s. It is also implicated in causing diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) and dementia. Endocrine disorders, or imbalanced or inadequate hormone production, are also linked to so-called “excitotoxin” exposure, or exposure to free-form amino acids like aspartate that overstimulate the brain.

Source: 

http://www.fhfn.org/what-is-aspartame-5-surprising-facts-you-never-knew-about-this-chemical-sweetener/