Nutrasweet/aspartame

[bean]

Has anyone ever heard of problems with aspartame? Our school psych was pretty negative about it--calls it a neurotoxin. I did some research and it can cause lots of problems.
I'm a diet soda/tea nut and have been having a lot of morning pain that reminds me/sounds like fibromyalgia or a morning arthritis.

Am throwing out all aspartame to see if it makes a difference. Today was day 2 of NO diet dew/diet tea/etc. I'm surviving thanks to tons of water and my share of just plain black coffee

Anyone else deal with nutrasweet? Can it wreak as much havoc as I read?

I'm too young to feel crappy in the morning. It's not the beer, either Although, it could be the 5 to 8 miles a day I am presently walking during my summer job....

thoughts?

[Historian]

I don't know for sure. I know that rumors to this effect have been around for a long time. My mother got my dad to stop drinking it some time ago, because of an article she read that there was some suspicion that providing lots of diet sodas to the military during the Gulf War–where the aspartame sat in extreme heat for a long time–had caused issues. Naturally I have no way of knowing if that's accurate. Aspartame discussions tend to be wildly heated. But several people did claim that the military "admits" that it caused issues, based on their research. http://www.wnho.net/aspartameandgulfwar.htm. I'm always leary of this kind of thing, though, because there aren't good peer-reviewed studies, and the idea seems to be based on a logical fallacy: Big business is evil, ergo they're trying to poison me with soda.

Of course, the websites touting the safety are equally biased. This doctor is the closest thing I've found to unbiased: http://www.raysahelian.com/aspartame.html

He seems to have compiled a fair number of actual professional studies.

My personal opinion and experience on the whole issue is just a general feeling that if it's a chemical created in a lab, I'm not sure that I want to fill my body with it. I'm ok eating/drinking it once in a while, especially as a rare treat or if someone serves it to me. I'm not going to say no and get all high and mighty on them. But I prefer not to, and I find that when I eat all food I've made myself from fresh ingredients I feel much better over the course of a week than if I eat food pre-packeged with a lot of artificial ingredients and preservatives. However, I know people who eat nothing but pop tarts, diet soda, hot dogs and donuts and seem to feel just fine! So I imagine it depends on lot on the individual person's sensitivity makeup. I'd say that if you go off it and feel better, then go for it–stay off it.

[dramaturge]

I kind of feel, at this point, that a lot of the anecdotal issue with aspartame have to do with individuals developing an intolerance to it over time/due to quantity over time rather than aspartame itself being innately bad for anyone. I've never known anyone personally who had issues, but I have heard of the reported issues. I'm with Historian, if you feel better off the aspartame, then there you go. It's likely that your body just developed a dislike of the chemical reactions aspartame has with your body.

[Phatchick]

I don't drink the stuff because I hate the taste. I can taste the stuff and it's nasty. IMO, anything that leaves that kind of funky taste on the back of your tongue CAN'T be very good for you.

[bean]

Good advice all.
Well, I'm going to avoid the crap for a couple weeks and see how it goes. Chemicals can't be real good for us. And anything that encourages me to drink more water has to be good. Yesterday I had probably 3-4 liters while working (outside in 88 degrees and humid)...felt good all day.

[pastor's wife]

I drink Diet Coke - a lot. I don't like either tea or coffee and don't drink alcohol. My mom warns me a lot about aspartame, but I like Diet Coke so much and am so used to having it that I haven't been able to give it up.

Also I grow tired of the continual furor over this or that food being bad for us. The scientific or health community (or maybe just the way the media reports things) seems to me a little like the boy who cried wolf - creating huge furors over everything that later they retract or amend. Of course, this time their warning may be true - aspartame may be bad for me. But then I get a little fatalistic, and start thinking how everything's bad for us: cellphones, high power lines, eggs, homogenized milk, hormone-laden meat. The list of things that can potentially harm us is getting longer and longer, and I just don't want to live the type of life I'd have to in order to avoid them all. I know that's not an entirely reasonable position to take, but part of me just feels that what is going to happen is going to happen - I'm going to get old and die someday anyway - and I feel like enjoying my life not fearfully obsessing over every harmful thing that media is harping about now.

Of course, I could live peacefully and still give up Diet Coke. But I like it. I went to see "The Dark Knight Rises" last night, and the popcorn wouldn't have been the same without Diet Coke to drink it down with.

This is just me reflecting on my own choices and attitudes in life, probably out of a bit of guilt that I'm not self-disciplined enough to give up my favorite beverage. I do not feel that other people who stop ingesting aspartame are media-hounded scaredy-cats. They're probably wise. I just really, really don't want to give up Diet Coke. Water is so blah.

[Historian]

(07-21-2012 08:53 AM)pastors wife Wrote:  Water is so blah.

PW you're a WILD WOMAN.

[greg]

My son had occasional "spells" that appeared to be seizures, I have taken him to several doctor's and after many tests and no one has been able to tell us the reason for this. I did alot of research and found that aspartame could cause seizures in some people. We took him off all sodas and anything else containing aspartame, and he's had no more seizures. ...Thank God!!

[laurat99]

Not a fan of aspartame; the aftertaste gets me every time. Good for you, Bean, for trying to give up diet soda, I know lots of people like PW that are addicted and don't care.

Plain, black coffee is my caffeine delivery system of choice; IV caffeine hasn't been invented yet, and I'm not a fan of needles anyway.

[bean]

That is good news, Greg. Glad you got some answers!
Laura, I love my caffeine. It helps me focus. Think I will stick to that and see what this experiment leads to.