There is a new and more comprehensive study on aspartame.

The article, in the New York Times is here.

There is also an abstract of the study on the FDA website, and you can access it here.

Please note, that the rats in this study were not given huge amounts of aspartame (as was the case in some older studies of other artificial sweeteners that were swept off the market), but they were given a dose equivalent to a person who might use aspartame as a sweetener for most items.

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Interesting, Maggie, and scary, considering all the stuff that has aspartame. Thanks.

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Nita

Wow - most impressive that the first study 'early terminated' the rats at a point where they WOULD be developing cancer and the 2nd let them live and they ended up GETTING cancer....mind blowing. Glad the stuff tastes like YUCK to me!

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Started: 261
Currently: 182

I've "heard" and read alot about this over the years....back in 1999-2000, my dad found an article about a certain airline that would not allow their pilots to fly within X number of hours of consuming aspartame, basically saying consumption of aspartame was "shown to decrease the reaction speeds of the pilots". I read the study then, but cannot recall now where (out there on the 'net) it is.

I've gotten into numerous discussions about this, so I am glad to have some backup on this now.
I use it on occasion, but for the last couple of years, I've been using Splenda almost exclusively. Now, I am relying on my green tea comsumption (sweetened with Splenda, of course) to reverse the effects I may or may not suffer from having used aspartame in the past.

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Like Donna,

I'm soo glad that I can not stand the taste of Aspertame. That and the stuff gives me a wicket headache.

I'm going to forward this post to my sister in-law so that she can give it to her sister. We were at her place on Saturday and her son who was only 4 was drinking a diet pepsi! I had just had to keep myself from taking it away from him!

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Anik

Stats
198/183/115
"My metabolism isn't low, it's just hibernating!"

I rarely use aspartame sweetened products because of controversy ovver the use of this product. But in the interest of fairness I did find the following reaction to this study in Dr. Michael Eades Blog: Dr. Eades is the Author of Protein Power, along with His wife Dr. Mary Dan EAdes.

"This new study overcame this problem and showed that the rats taking the aspartame really did develop many more tumors than those taking placebo. But there was a problem as I pointed out in my post that the authors of the study played down: namely that the rats taking the aspartame lived longer.

Today's New York Times featured a long story about this same study on the front page of the business section that is well worth reading in its entirety. According to the article entitled "The Lowdown on Sweet?" various people and activist groups have interpreted the data from this study in a way that furthers their particular aims.

As I read through all the posturing and finger pointing, a couple of things jumped out at me.

First, the director of the study, Dr. Morando Soffritti, was reported by another researcher as refusing to allow outside pathologists to review the cancerous samples.

Dr. Russo, however, criticized the Ramazzini study for not allowing outside pathologists to analyze all of the tissue samples where cancerous tumors were found. "People need to see every tumor," he said.
What's even worse as far as I'm concerned is the admission of a collaborating scientist that not all of the tumor slides were evaluated.

Dr. Bucher of the National Toxicology Program said pathologists at the program, with which Ramazzini collaborates, looked at 70 tumor slides. But with the study producing over 9,000 tumor-containing slides, James Swenberg, professor of environmental science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says that this falls short of standard practice.
These problems combined with the fact the aspartame rats lived longer than the control rats are enough as far as I'm concerned to raise serious issues with this study. I certainly don't think there is evidence enough to cause any kind of panic over aspartame based on these findings."

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Yeah. Very true, Rob.

For me, the aspartame issue is simple. I hate the way it tastes.

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I think it is sweeter than Splenda, and certainly a different taste. But what really finished me off for wanting to use it is when I saw a TV documentary about artificial sweeteners.....it showed how (allegedly) aspartame was "invented". Supposedly it was a lab experiment gone wrong. A beaker of formaldehyde, and a beaker of some sort of wood alcohol bubbled over. While cleaning it up, the chemist noticed white powder on the table, so he put his finger in it and tasted it....and it was sweet (the rest is history).

I prefer Splenda.

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did anyone examine the HEAD of the person who decided that it was a great idea to EVEN TRY tasting the mixture of formaldehyde and wood alcohol?

just curious..

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kims SECOND journal is HERE
kims new blog
KIMS BLOG !!
SUGARFREE BLOG

Kim, I had that same EXACT thought! LOL!

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LOL@KIM

Yes MAggie - the taste is not my favorite. If I'm going to use an artificial sweetener I dislike I'll use saccharine.

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I also dislike the taste of aspartame, but I don't use it for another reason: it seems to trigger migraine headaches for me. Before Splenda came out in the U.S., I used to use Equal, and wonder why my headaches reappeared...I had eliminated all my usual triggers, or at least knew my limits. Once I eliminated aspartame, the headaches became an occasional problem, instead of a regular thing. The stuff is evil!

I agree with Kim...what was that guy thinking?

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Trina

Vice-President of the Intergalactic Order of Brussels Sprouts Haters

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Rob, to pick up on a couple of points you made about some of the questionable aspects of this study:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/opinion/21tues4.html

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Here's the history on Aspertame!

In 1965, while creating a bioassay, an intermediate chemical
was synthesized -- aspartylphenylalanine-methyl-ester
(aspartame). In December of 1965, while James Schlatter was
recrystalling aspartame from ethanol, the mixture spilled
onto the outside of the flask. Some of the powder got onto
his fingers. Later, when he licked his fingers to pick up a
piece of paper, he noticed a very strong sweet taste. He
realized that the sweet taste might have been the aspartame.
So, believing that the dipeptide aspartame was not likely to
be toxic, he tasted a little bit and discovered its sweet
taste (Stegink 1984a, page 4). The discovery was reported in
1966, but there was no mention of the sweetness (Furia
1972).


I wonder how many times Schlatter licked his fingures when working with Chemicals!

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Anik

Stats
198/183/115
"My metabolism isn't low, it's just hibernating!"

Thanks Maggie! Interesting about the control group having an abnormally low cancer rate. It will take a dozen more studies like this one for anyone to start doing anything about aspartame. If anything even needs to be done.

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