Who are the real villains in today's society? I believe they are the chemical and pharmaceutical companies who knowingly pollute our children's food supply for profit and those in government who aid and abet them.
Who are the real villains in today's society? I believe they are the chemical and pharmaceutical companies who knowingly pollute our children's food supply for profit and those in government who aid and abet them.
Aspartame, also known as NutraSweet and Equal, is arguably the most toxic substance in our food supply today. Aspartame disease has become an epidemic in our world that must be recognized and addressed.
How did we get to this point and what do we do about it?
The one constant in the lives of people around the world is the need for food. Everyone has to eat. The legal drug lords (pharmaceutical and chemical companies) capitalize on this and have stealthily assumed control of our food supply, with the active participation of their consorts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), leaving the poor consumer unprotected and at great risk.
Deaths of lab animals were covered up. Brain tumors, mammary tumors, pancreatic tumors, and uterine tumors went unreported. Discovered as a drug for peptic ulcers in the sixties, aspartame first was approved in 1974. That approval was rescinded before it could get to market, because of the brain tumor issue.
AlternativesHealthy alternatives to aspartame include turbinado sugar, succanat, honey, maple syrup, rice and barley syrups, fruit juice concentrates, fructose and the herbal sweetener stevia. |
Meanwhile, President Reagan's FDA director, Arthur Hull Hayes Jr., approved aspartame for table-top use in 1981, and when it won final approval for use in aqueous solutions in 1983, Hayes quit the FDA and went to work for the NutraSweet public relations firm of Burson Marsteller, for $1,000 a day.
Aspartame is an extremely complex molecule. It is 50 percent phenylalanine, 40 percent aspartic acid, and 10 percent methanol. Each of these substances can be dangerous by themselves and even more dangerous as they work together.
Those with PKU should be aware of all sources of phenylalanine in their diets. Human testing has shown that phenylalanine levels in the blood were increased significantly in subjects who chronically used aspartame. (Wurtman and Walker, "Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function," Proceedings of the First International Meeting on Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function, Washington, Dd.C., May 8, 1987).
According to Dr. Louis Elsas, head of genetics at Emory University in Atlanta, the phenylalanine in aspartame can quadruple on the side of the placenta during pregnancy, thereby causing a possible 10 percent drop in I.Q. scores of children born under these conditions.
Disease MimicAspartame not only causes individual symptoms, it can mimic entire syndromes. The CFIDS (chronic fatigue and immune deficiency syndrome) Newsletter calls it the "sweet poison, NutraSweet," because it can mimic the symptoms of CFIDS. It can also cause grand mal seizures. According to H.J. Roberts, M.D., it can cause decreased vision, pain in the eyes, decreased tears, ringing in the ears, hearing impairment, headache, dizziness and unsteadiness, confusion, memory loss, drowsiness, sleepiness, slurring of speech, numbness and tingling, tremors, depression, irritability, aggression, anxiety, insomnia, phobias, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, high blood pressure, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, itching, hives, menstrual changes, weight gain, hair thinning and hair loss, urinary burning and frequency, excessive thirst, fluid retention, bloating, increased infection, and even death. It also can mimic epilepsy, brain tumors, fibromyalgia, systemic lupus, Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, multiple sclerosis, Lyme Disease, Graves' disease, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and heart ailments.
Products Containing AspartameAspaartame is now found in over 5,000 products worldwide. It is difficult to provide any listing of these, as the list is in a constant state of flux. Many products vacillate between having it in their formula one week, and not having it the next, or vice versa. The best action to take is to read the labels closely. |
Why no action...?"Eighty-five percent of all complaints registered with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concern aspartame's adverse reactions." |
Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, a professor of neurosurgery at the Medical University of Mississippi, writing in "Excitotoxins: The Tastes that Kills", details the damage that is caused by the ingestion of excessive aspartic acid from aspartame. According to Blaylock, excess free excitatory amino acids such as aspartic acid are causing serious chronic neurological disorders and myriad of other acute symptoms.
Very simply, methanol is wood alcohol and is toxic. It is well-known in the literature for doing damage to the eyes, liver, brain, and other organs of the body. Any product that contains methanol should send up a red flag in our minds.
The absorption of methanol into the body is hastened when free methanol is ingested, and free methanol is created from aspartame when it is heated to above 85 degrees F (30 C). This would occur when an aspartame-containing product is improperly stored or is heated.
Methanol breaks down into formaldyhyde (embalming fluid), formic acid (ant sting venom), and diketopiperazine (DKP). All are highly toxic. DKP may just be the most problematic of all, because it has caused brain tumors in lab tests.
John W. Olney, a professor in the department of psychiatry at Washington University's School of Medicine and a neuroscientist and researcher, noticed that DKP, when nitrosated in the gut, produced a compound similar to a powerful brain tumor-causing chemical.
Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen and causes retinal damage and birth defects and interferes DNA replication. Aspartame can exceed the Environmental Protection Agency's standards for safe levels of formaldehyde ingestion.
One of the arguments that the sweetener industry uses to refute much of this is that the amino acids found in aspartame are natural and are broken down by the body. However, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, when produced synthetically in the lab, do not behave in the same manner as when found in nature. They have been shown to cross the brain's blood barrier. In their natural state, these amino acids are found in perfect balance with all the other ameliorating amino acids. Methanol, when found in nature, is always accompanied by ethanol, which neutralizes its toxic effect. There is no ethanol in aspartame, only methanol.
Aspartame is a prescription for disaster.
For US $5 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope, Ms. Stoddard will provide a copy of the aspartame newsletter. Write to the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network Inc., P.O. Box 780634, Dallas, TX 75378; Phone 214-352-4268; Email marystod@airmail.net. A comprehensive manual on aspartame, The Deadly Deception, is available for US $25 (US $35 outside the United States) at the above address or at 1-800-969-6050. ACSN's website is http://www.web2,airmail.net/marystod.