Posted on 02/12/2006 7:22:02 PM PST by neverdem
get a seltzer bottle and run your coffee through that. Or drop a couple of Alka-Seltzers into your cup.
Thank you. Very interesting. I had not read this before.
One of the side effects: Severe depression.
I KNEW IT!
Archer
Daniels
Midland
Ah! Thank you for this information. I have added it after pouring the coffee in the past.
One study claimed that sucralose is teratogenic. Of course, they provided no information in the summary on how much was fed to the lab animals, which immediately makes me suspicious. This was just one study. Another study did confirm that they fed the lab animal sucralose for 5% of it's entire diet. My god, that's just crazy! No wonder all these maladays are resulting.
There were some positive studies. These particular studies were highlighted, in red, and were said to have been conducted by McNeil. This is disingenuous and self-serving. McNeil may have done some of this on their own but I guarantee you that they paid to have much of this work done by outside labs.
The FDA studied sucralose to death. It is probably, along with Olestra, the most studied food ingredient in the history of the FDA.
Many here worry about the chlorine on sucralose. This chlorine is organically bound so it shouldn't come apart. Your linked research confirms this. Even if it were somehow broken down, it would come off as a chlorine bound to carbon and the liver could easily eliminate it. And, even if it didn't, the first LD 50 test they did would have killed the lab mice and the product would never have been approved because it would have been shown to be toxic.
This is what amazes me about all the controversy about these compounds. New drugs are being discovered all the time. The liver has never seen these drugs yet it figures out a way to break them down and remove them without causing any damage. It's an amazing thing the way the liver learns how to remove compounds from our body without them becoming toxic. Given this ability, it's baffling to me that people worry about a minute amount formaldehyde in aspartame or chlorine, that is not absorbed, in sucralose.
Whatever are you talking about? Your misinformation provides a fine example for why conspiracy theorists can always find an audience on the interent. In the early 70's a study was published showing that at high levels, saccharin was a mild carcinogen. The media seized on this information and created enough fear that the FDA caved and removed it from the market. There was no collusion or payoff. That's just loony.
Aspartame was discovered by a scientist at Searle Labs while making short peptides for pharmaceutical application (IIRC). By accident, a peptide he was working with got sterified with methanol. He tasted it and found it to be sweet. That's how aspartame was discovered. Searle couldn't manufacture it in large enough quantities so they licensed it to others. For example, Lipton bought the rights to make it and now market it under Equal. How does ADM fit in to your conspiracy? They aren't a chemical company. Searle was independent at the time. The relationship between the food industry and the FDA is highly adversarial. There is no way any company gave money to the FDA to do anything nefarious.
Aspartame also cannot be HEATED (That Aldehyde thing again...), unlike saccharin and Sucralose (Splenda)!
What does that have to do with anything? Aspartame breaks down in acid solutions. Soft drinks are high in acid (phosphoric) so the product must be fresh or it will lose it's sweetness. Under heat, the methanol is metabolized off the aspartic acid. When this occurs, aspartame loses its sweetness. It's the biggest problem with aspartame. You can't bake with it. The free methanol remains and is broken down by the body just the same as if it hadn't been broken down by acid or heat in the first place.
ADM is a BIG problem in food additives, and corruption of politics!
ADM contributes to politicians who are sympathetic to their needs? Wow! Just like all other large corporations. ADM presents no problem in food additives. That's just nonsense. They have been pretty good at price fixing though.
Not sure what you're trying to communicate here. This statement makes no sense to me. Are you trying to claim that the body is subjected to more aldehyde from a person drinking diet soda than one consuming alcohol? Let's see, beer is 6% alcohol and wine averages about 12%. Diet soda, IIRC, is about 1% aspartame. Aspartame contains only about 10% alcohol. The rest is made up of two amino acids. You don't have to be a math major to see the fallacy of your argument here.
The ethanol to acid aldehyde process is also a longer metabolic process in the body than the Aspartame to Aldehyde...especially if the Aspartame is heated.
LOL!
Again, maybe I'm missing your point but anyone with a basic understanding of physiology should get a laugh out of this statement. If what you say were true, we'd all die from alcohol poisoning. The body's enzymatic reaction to alcohol is very fast. The liver is very good at removing it. If it didn't we'd all die just by having a couple of quick cocktails.
Aspartame is also broken down rapidly. However, the conversion of ethanol to acid aldehyde is faster because the body easily metabolizes two carbon alcohols. The conversion of methanol is slower because it's a one carbon alcohol. The human body has a harder time with one carbon alcohols. Either way though, the process is very fast and the liver can easily handle the small amounts of methanol in aspartame. In the old days, there were guys who drank methanol martinis. They didn't die because the body is very adept at removing these poisons from the body. Drink too much and you'll be in trouble, just like alcohol, but this serves as a good example of the liver's incredible ability to deal with these sorts of things.
..especially if the Aspartame is heated
Again, this makes absolutely no difference on how the body metabolizes the aldehyde. If it's attached to the amino acid or free makes not one bit of difference to the body.
You should stop relying on the interent as a substitute for scientific knowledge. These wacky websites are run by charlatans and are, for the most part, nothing but BS.
bump
Interestingly, Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle and called in his markers to get it approved. For 16 years the FDA refused to allow Aspartame on the market. When Reagan was elected Don Rumsfeld, CEO of Searle, said he'd call in his markers to get aspartame approved. This is documented by a UPI investigation and congressional record. The day after Reagan took office Arthur Hayes was appointed as FDA Commissioner to get it approved.
Reagan knew it might take 30 days to get Hayes installed, so he wrote an Executive Order making the outgoing FDA Commissioner powerless to act against aspartame before he departed. Then FDA set up a Public Board of Inquiry that revoked the petition for approval because it had not been proved safe and causes brain tumors. Hayes overruled the PBOI and let slip the hounds of disease, disability and death on an innocent unwarned population. Soon he became a consultant for the NutraSweet Co's public relations outfit on a 10 year contract at $1,000/day. Hayes then refused to talk to the press.(source Here)
It's rather obvious you are an Aspartame cheerleader, so I'll just post these links and let folks decide for themselves just how much Incest hjad to occur between Searle/Monsanto and the FDA to get Aspartame approved.
How accurate is this information? DORway.com opened Searle's Pandora's book of facts on aspartame during September, of 1996. For over four years Monsanto (who bought Searle in 1985) and their many PR and law firms visited DORway.com many thousands of times. The FDA, CDC and other entities visited, as well. The highly litigious Monsanto was unable to find anything to use against the site in an effort to close it down and relieve the growing pressure on its dying aspartame cash-cow. Obviously, they cannot argue with the documentation (the most damning of which comes from the FDA and sworn testimony)! And, while two anti-aspartame Web sites (1996) grew to tens of thousands (as of Oct, 2001, Google.com had over 80,000), and while Nutrasweet's 28 million pounds of aspartame sold during 1996 slipped to only 20 million pounds during 1998, Monsanto sought to counter the truth (and their negative "good growth") with more pro-aspartame Web sites.
When the "Nancy Markle" Email appeared during December, 1998, Monsanto and friends panicked. Monsanto, FDA, ADA, IFIC, MSFacts, TIME, CNN, LA Times, and a lot more who stand to LOSE if aspartame is recalled, ALL joined hands to call our information and the facts... an "Internet hoax." Want a hint at the whole truth? Simply compare their messages, and then look for the $$$ connection. FDA? Just think future industry jobs and the fact that they are culpable of approving this cumulative toxic poison.
By mid February, 1999, when the many PRO aspartame articles seemed to be failing to turn the tide, Monsanto seems to have made a momentous decision and they stopped visiting DORway until after July. In April they sold their Phenylalanine facilities (half of aspartame) to Great Lakes Chemical (GLC) for $125,000,000. (A year later, GLC sued Monsanto for the $71,000,000 shortfall in expected sales.) On the first of July, 1999, Monsanto put the Nutrasweet Co. on the auction block with TWO other companies - the THREE of which had "combined sales of a billion dollars." So much for "good growth." It took another 10 months for Monsanto to find an investment firm that would relieve them of their growing burden.
Dr. Friedman, who quit the FDA when Jane Henney was selected to become the permanent FDA commissioner (1999), elected to sign on with G. D. Searle as a senior vice president at a purported cushy $500,000 a year. Going to work for someone who he was supposed to REGULATE (AND for a company that he helped to DEFEND ["60 Minutes," Dec. 1996] seems very WRONG! Could this new job be his reward for ignoring citizen complaints and defending aspartame and rbGH? Perhaps more importantly, does the U.S. have a congress that cares? Is there a justice department really interested in prosecuting fraud and genocide for huge profits? So far... the answer has been NO!
So why DORway.com? Well, in addition to what I said in the first paragraph above, I don't like the idea of being poisoned for profit, and I don't like being the first in my family to get any form of cancer. Worse, to have an OLD MAN's prostate cancer that was declared to have already spread (terminal stage) at the young age of 55 is totally abhorrent to me (not to mention awful damned expensive and life altering). I am doing all that I can to warn others about aspartame, and milk and dairy with its abundance of IGF-1 cell growth factor - GET OFF BOTH ASPARTAME AND MILK/DAIRY and live a healthier and longer (perhaps even cancer-free) life. This is something that was denied me by a whole lot of greedy self-important self-serving "humans."
Oh, and as for your "point"...
Take note of these facts...
The ingredients in aspartame are aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methyl alcohol. Methyl alcohol is a chemical that breaks down in high temperatures and turns into formaldehyde and DKP (diketopiperazine), two chemicals known to cause problems in the nervous system. Aspartame's life is 262 days at 77 degrees Fahrenheit, or 25 degrees Celsius. The FDA gets more complaints about aspartame than any other food or drink. The symptoms of aspartame are a lot like the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease. Ever since aspartame was approved in l985, there has been an increase in brain tumors. There is no direct proof that aspartame caused the brain tumors, but there is enough reason to suspect that, and the television show, "60 Minutes" recently did a report linking the increase in brain cancer to aspartame use.
And then ethere are THESE lovely culmulative toxic poisons in Aspartame...
L-Aspartyl-l-phenylalanine methyl ester, 98% (or) Aspartame (CAS# 22839-47-0) --------------
METHYL ALCOHOL 67-56-1
Methanol
--------
FORMALDEHYDE, 37% SOLUTION 50-00-0 syn. FORMALIN
Formaldehyde
--------------
METHYL FORMATE 107-31-3 syn. FORMIC ACID, METHYL ESTER
Formic Acid
I'll stick to a Beer or occasional Vodka or Tequila...
You may drink what you wish
Phenylalanine, for anyone not suffering from PKU, is harmless. It's one of the essential amino acids for crying out loud. She fears isolated amino acids but that's exactly what the body does. Your gut breaks down chains of amino acids into individual amino acids. There are some small peptides that don't break down but most are individual. Normally, the individual amino acids are cleared by the liver. She fears something her body is already doing. Just stupid.
Phenylalanine is found in most proteins. Some proteins contain a very large amount of phenylalanine. Her nonsense assumes that if a person were to consume large amounts of this particular protein they would be subjected to all sorts of problems. This is garbage. She assumes that the body can't control the amount of proteins and other nutrients in the system.
Anyone who chooses foods based on whether or not they contain isolated amino acids or not should have their head examined. They have much bigger problems than phenylalanine. In the meantime this idiot will continue to sell books to people who believe this crap.
Thanks for your logical answers, I'll bet you caused a few heads to explode.
I didn't endorse her, just thought it was interesting based on the comments I saw.
At what level does Phenylalanine become a problem. I drink a lot of diet pepsi and do seem to have some of these side effects. I do find that she claims 92 side effects pretty far-fetched.
...for anyone not suffering from PKU..
What is PKU and what are its symptoms?
Not to worry, I read that grain alcohol cancels out formaldehyde in the body. So my solution is to drink a Diet Coke, drink a Bud Light, drink a Diet Coke, drink a Bud Light...
Yeah, whatever. I'm really against junk science being passed off by people who have no idea what the hell they're talking about.
Then FDA set up a Public Board of Inquiry that revoked the petition for approval because it had not been proved safe and causes brain tumors. Hayes overruled the PBOI and let slip the hounds of disease, disability and death on an innocent unwarned population. Soon he became a consultant for the NutraSweet Co's public relations outfit on a 10 year contract at $1,000/day. Hayes then refused to talk to the press.(source Here)
This is just more of the same crap from the toxic terrorists/food Nazi's who have absolutely no training in biochemistry, physiology or food science. These people are more dangerous than any food ingredients you fear. Look at the source of this letter you linked us to. Her name is Dr. Betty Martini. I always wonder where the "Dr." comes from so I looked her up. Is this the same Betty Martini? Her formal education consists of an honorary doctorate in Humanities. ROFLMAO!!!!!!!
She's uniquely unqualified to be offering anyone advice that requires a very sophisticated understanding of biochemistry and physiology. I can't believe anyone pays attention to anything she has to say.
DORway.com Now there's a credible source for information. This is yet another example of why the internet is a good place for those who want to believe. Thankfully, more rational people are making decisions about our food and drug supply.
As for your other "facts"....
The ingredients in aspartame are aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methyl alcohol. Methyl alcohol is a chemical that breaks down in high temperatures and turns into formaldehyde and DKP (diketopiperazine), two chemicals known to cause problems in the nervous system.
Again for the umpteenth time, how much formaldehyde do you have to consume before it can cause the claimed afflictions to the human body? Do they say or are they embarrassed by the amount you would have to consume and know that there is no way you could ever consume enough aspartame to make that happen? DKP is a cyclic compound. Do they say what temperature it has to be heated to for this happen? By making these kinds of statements it's obvious these guys are hiding a great deal of information and preying on an ignorant public to swallow this drivel hook, line and sinker.
When bacon is cooked too much, a nitroso compound is formed between the reaction of nitrite and proline. This, at least up until a few years ago, was the most potent carcinogen known to man. Have people quit eating bacon because of this? Has the FDA banned all bacon consumption for this reason?
I noticed that one of the links claimed aspartame was dangerous because it was an eye irritant. Have you ever poured sugar (sucrose) into your eye?
Finally, you've proven that you can look up methanol, formaldehyde and formic acid. Do you know anything about these compounds and how they interact with the body? This is the root of the problem. People mindlessly link to sites on the internet because they don't have enough knowledge to understand what all this crap really means. I guess I just don't understand why people believe things they don't understand and can't explain in their own words.
It's a genetic disease that is passed on recessively. In most cases the enzyme that breaks down phenylalanine is not working properly or is nonexistent.
The human brain has a unique metabolism and if it is subjected to chronically high levels of phenylalanine, it can cause brain damage.
People who suffer from this affliction really have it tough since some phenylalanine is absolutely required by the body to grow. Those who suffer from PKU must regularly check their blood levels and monitor what they eat.
I'm not sure of the symptoms but they can be severe. Being genetic, you would have known, most likely, a long time ago if you suffered from this.
This is one of the main issues with aspartame. People think that if they don't suffer from PKU that phenylalanine can be very harmful because, when it comes from aspartame, it gets to the brain faster and in larger quantities than from consuming proteins.
I have never seen any research proving this. For this to be true though, one would have to assume that the body is unable to control the amount of nutrients in its system. Healthy cells are very good at allowing in only what they need. A healthy body is very adept at eliminating what it doesn't need. The amount of phenylalanine in a diet soda is extremely minute. There is no way you can consume enough aspartame from diet soda, or from protein, for a healthy body to be unable to metabolize it and allow it to cause harm.
It's this kind of fear, based on junk science, that if allowed to go unchallenged, will give these control freaks more opportunity to take away our freedom. Be very suspicious of these people and always questions their knowledge of science and their motivations.
They use too much in diet soda -- I'm back to the Nutrasweet varieties. In general, I use about 1/3 less Splenda than I would use sugar. (For thickening, you need to add something like xantham gum anyway, so proportions don't throw off recipes that much.)
I would give anything to drink diet soda instead of the sugar-sweetened kind, but I just can't get past the taste. The closest thing I've found so far is diet Dr. Pepper, but even that leaves a strange aftertaste.
If use aspertame, when I die I won't need to be embalmed.
You are right. You can control the amount of Splenda in your own drinks and baking (which I don't so). Splenda would be fine in diet drinks but, as you indicated, too much is put in the sodas. Supposedly the amount is determined by taste tests. Who are the testers? 10 year olds? I find that the Nutrasweet-sweetened diet drinks are also too sweet, and with some after taste, although better than Saccharin.
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