The Health Risks of Aspartame

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We all like a bit of sweetness in our lives, but when it comes enjoying the sweeter tastes, too much could be dangerous to our health. With the carbohydrate phobia that has ensued over the past decade, natural sweeteners like sugar and honey have received a lot of bad publicity. Sugary foods have been blamed for all sorts of evils, from weight gain, to behavioural disorders and immune system dysfunction. This scare has led to a multi-billion dollar “sugar-free” and “diet” industry that promotes the consumption of alternative and artificial sweeteners. But are we actually doing ourselves any justice by consuming these products?

The most widely used artificial sweetener, and perhaps the most controversial, is aspartame, which is marketed in 6000 products in 90 countries as a low calorie sugar alternative. The anti-aspartame contingency is large, and according to U.S. doctor, Dr. Joseph Mercola (www.mercola.com), aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. According to Mercola, some of these symptoms include headaches, dizziness, seizures, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss, and joint pain.

Aspartame Does Not Necessarily Aid Weight Loss

One of the main reasons aspartame first entered the market was as a weight-loss aid. A review study, which appeared in The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine in 2010 entitled Gain Weight by “going diet?” challenges the notion that artificial sweeteners help you lose weight. Researchers at Yale University tracked the use of artificial sweeteners (like saccharin, cyclamate, aspartame, acesulfame-K, sucralose and neotame) and compared this against obesity rates in the United States. Results showed that as the percentage of people consuming artificial sweeteners and the amount of products containing them grew, so did obesity rates. Commenting on these observations, Australian doctor and author of The Liver Cleansing Diet, Dr Sandra Cabot believes that aspartame is the artificial sweetener mostly responsible. She explains how the liver breaks aspartame down into what she refers to as “toxic” compounds (namely phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol). This process, explains Cabot, requires a lot of energy from the liver, which makes less available for fat and sugar metabolism.

In 2010, researchers in Hungary fed a mixture of artificial sweeteners (including aspartame) at the amount of maximum Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) and compared this to controls who received just water. Results, published in Acta Physiologica Hungarica showed that rats consuming the artificial sweetener mix gained more weight than the group fed water. There have been other studies that have shown that aspartame may benefit weight loss, but no randomized, controlled, prospective clinical follow-up studies have been done since 1997.

Health Effects of Aspartame

The link between aspartame and cancer has been a contentious issue over the years, especially since studies linking aspartame to cancer were done using exceptionally high doses of the sweetener. Fear was sparked in 2006 after the work of an Italian research team, led by Morando Soffritti and published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that aspartame caused carcinogenicity in rats at a dose level close to the acceptable daily intake for humans. In 2011 another group of Italian researchers demonstrated in The American Journal of Industrial Medicine that aspartame could cause angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation) in vitro.

There is also some concern that aspartame may affect brain function. According to Mercola, aspartame increases the amount of free aspartate and glutamate in the body, which then act as neurotransmitters in the brain. He explains that in excess, these components can kill neurons by over “exciting” them. He explains that although our blood brain barriers can protect us from these components, in excess some still pass through. The risk is particularly high in children, whose blood brain barriers are not yet fully developed.

A review study published by scientists in South Africa in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2008 examined the effects of phenylalanine (a main constituent of aspartame) on the brain. The review, which was supported by more than 50 scientific references, found that aspartame was able to disrupt brain chemistry by lowering key neurotransmitters levels, which could affect mood, behaviour and appetite. It was also reported that aspartame and its breakdown products can “excite” nerve cells, which indirectly causes a very high rate of neuron depolarization.

The Pro-Aspartame Contingency

Despite the mounting evidence on the ill effects of aspartame, review studies on its safety have been published and the sweetener continues to be the most widely used word-wide. The latest review on aspartame safety, published in Critical Reviews and Toxicology was put together in 2007 and funded by the Burdock Group, a food ingredient approvals company. The authors of this industry-funded study conclude that they could find no credible evidence that aspartame is carcinogenic or that it effects brain function in any way. One of the big arguments is that rat studies that have shown a positive link between aspartame and cancer, were done using huge doses of aspartame, way above what normal human intake would be. According to Leigh-Ann Silber, a representative dietician for Canderel, “part of the basis for consensus on safety is that in order to reach the ADI for aspartame, a 68kg person would have to consume 97 packets of tabletop sweetener per day”. However, the Burdock Group also funded studies that criticized the work of Soffritti. Silber also adds, that although the review was industry-funded, an independent expert panel from 10 universities and medical schools conducted the study. The panel was led by Bernadene Magnuson, who currently consults to the coca-cola company.

Natural Alternatives

Scares related to the use of artificial sweeteners, like aspartame, have led people back to natural sweeteners, like sugar. As long as we don’t abuse natural sweeteners, it seems the health risks are probably minimal. Nutritive or caloric sweeteners, like sucrose and fructose as well as sugar alcohols are generally regarded as safe (GRAS) by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however according to the America Dietetics Association, dietary quality suffers at 25% of total energy intake. According to the Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA), we should be aiming to keep our sugar intakes below 10% of daily intake.

Even when eaten alone, sugar (or sucrose) has no greater effect on blood glucose levels than commonly eaten carbohydrate foods, like breakfast cereals and potatoes. This phenomenon has to do with the GI (Glycemic Index) of carbohydrates, which is a score that assesses the impact of a sugar or starch on actual blood glucose levels. Sucrose actually has a relatively moderate GI when compared to most breakfast cereals and potatoes, for example. Fructose, or fruit sugar, provides the same amount of kilojoules gram for gram as sucrose. It has a lower GI, which is why many people favour it over sucrose. However, there are concerns over the safety of fructose. A 2010 report in Nutrition looked at studies linking both fructose and high fructose corn syrup to the development of obesity, diabetes and dyslipidemia in rodents and increased triglyceride levels and insulin resistance. The authors point out, however, that the same effects can be seen with any diet high in sucrose or fat.

Other low glycemic index sweeteners have started to gain popularity as healthier alternatives. Polyols (or sugar alcohols), such as xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol and maltitol occur naturally in fruits, but are also manufactured commercially. They are often used in “diet” and “diabetic” products due to their minimal effect on blood sugar and their lower kilojoule content when compared to other nutritive sweeteners (their kilojoule content is about 40% less than sucrose). Xylitol has recently received a lot of good press as a sugar alternative due to its very low GI content and its ability to ward off dental caries.

Stevia, a sweetener derived from a plant that grows in the rainforests of Brazil, has been marketed as a health food due its being both a natural substance and kilojoule free. Stevia was approved as a safe food additive by the FDA in December 2008.

Sweetener use should be an informed choice, weighing up between enjoyment and individual health concerns. It seems that moderation is the key when it comes to enjoying sweeter tastes, no matter what the sweetener of choice turns out to be.

 

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