Aspartame - does it contribute.....

[Omlette]

What is your feeling on aspartame? I know that many people have very obvious side effects to consuming it, but do you think that it can be more subtle in others? Can it contribute or cause a spiraling effect with insuling to craving sweets?

I know I have seen some info, but I can't remember exactly.

Thanks.

[maxlharris]

I believe:
1- Different people may have different reactions to it. I do not notice any side effects while others I have read (Jimmy Moore, who I don't really trust that much) report very bad headaches and other side effects.

2- Continuing to ingest/imbibe sweet products stands in the way of retraining your palette and retraining your desire for sweet things. That said, I drink SF coke with Aspartame over any of the Splenda products (I do this for taste... I can taste Splenda in pretty much everything but coffee and I do not like the taste at all... I do not discern a real difference in taste between sugar and Equal, at least not until it's too sweet to consume, so, barring side effects, I will continue to use Equal for all things not coffee). I sweeten my coffee and my tea.

3- There is a historical fear of artificial sweeteners dating back to the very first one, in Ancient Rome. The fear of the Roman one was justified. The fears of the more recent ones read more like fear than like informed apprehension. Consider saccarine. First it was safe (1890 - 1970 or so) then it was death in a pink packet (1970 to 1995 or so). Then, more testing show it to be safe again. A funny commonality between all sweetener fears is that they have an effect the brain. While true of the Ancient Roman one (it caused insanity), this brain link has not been substantiated (except for the shoddy study that put saccarine off the market for 20 years) except annecdotally (q.v. Jimmy Moore).

That's my understanding of Aspartame and Sucralose. Use at your own discretion.

[bluejay111]

I agree with Max. Although I usually use liquid Splenda, I will occasionally use sf products like sf jello that contain aspartame. I have noticed no ill effects. Like everything else YMMV.

[Omlette]

Just wanted to report that since I gave up aspartame last Wednesday, I have lost 5 lbs. I have forced myself to continue eating the crap that I eat, but I'm not craving it now. I am going to stop forcing myself to eat it now. I just wanted to experiment to see what aspartame was doing to me.

[Liliana]

Interesting results.

For the past few years I've larged lived overseas where aspartame wasn't available as an artificial sweetener. Acesulfame Potassium (K) is what was used in soft drinks. This was also available in liquid form mixed with saccharin, and I'd started using that to sweeten tea and shakes and so on. I'd been an avid diet coke drinker since it was invented. I had good weight loss and minimal sugar cravings while I was there.

I've been back in the US since early May, and aside from a couple of days of transition, I avoided aspartame for several weeks and I tried soft drinks with Splenda. I learned that in more than very small quantities, Splenda gives me gas and related GI tract distress.

So I've gone back to aspartame. And Snickers bars and M&Ms have been calling my name.

There could well be other factors involved in my experience, as it's been a difficult adjustment on several dimensions, coming back to the U.S. Most notably, I used to rely heavily on fresh mozzarellas and some other soft cheeses for my protein that either or both aren't available and affordable and tasty here.

But I'm going to see how the next week or two goes in terms of weight loss, and if it's not proceeding as rapidly as I'd expect, I'll dump the Aspartame somehow and see what happens.

Does anyone out there know of soft drinks artificially sweetened with neither Splenda nor Aspartame?

[Omlette]

I have just given up sodas all together. They are such an addicition for me, that I am affraid that if I even drink one made with splenda (which doesn't affect me), that I will get caught in the loop of wanting them all the time even with aspartame.

My sis and I were talking last night about the products that coke has overseas made with stevia. It would be nice if they were available here.

[Ammy]

That's so funny! I just found the "coke from Mexico" here at a local grocery delivery company...thought I'd try it, then got a message they were going out of business...
darn it.

[Omlette]

That's so funny! I just found the "coke from Mexico" here at a local grocery delivery company...thought I'd try it, then got a message they were going out of business...
darn it.


That's ashame. My neighbor is in Mexico/south TX right now, wonder if I could get her to bring me some home. LOL

[maxlharris]

I have kicked coke and carbonated bevs twice in my life for nearly a year a piece. I keep coming back. I tolerate aspartame well, hate splenda in soda on flavor, and haven't liked anything with stevia I've ever tried (again, taste). If I have to kick it, I will kick it. I'm more mature than I was the first two times I kicked it, so I can probably stick it now. Getting better at that.

FWIW: when I kicked it, after a few weeks, I didn't want it any more. After a month or two, it tastes horrible. Takes about five or six to reacquire the taste.

[laughingW]

Omlette, I've been waiting for and have never seen research for your exact question. So all we can do is experiment on ourselves.


IA funny commonality between all sweetener fears is that they have an effect the brain. ... this brain link has not been substantiated (except for the shoddy study that put saccarine off the market for 20 years) except annecdotally (q.v. Jimmy Moore).
Max, the research is a little farther along than anecdotes and unsubstantiated fears. There are recent studies on sweeteners' effect on the brain.

Here are just two from a quick search:

http://www.dukehealth.org/HealthLibrary/News/10267



Their findings about the brain's dopamine-reward system may help shed light on why many people who drink diet sodas still gain weight. A mismatch between artificially sweet taste and zero calorie content may lead to some kind of rebound eating that may in part be explained by these results: the brain is wired to respond to both calorie content and sweetness.
For years, scientists have known that when mammals, including humans, taste sweet foods, dopamine levels increase in the ventral striatum, a brain region related to reward and reinforcement.

Sucrose activates human taste pathways differently from artificial sweetener



Animal models suggest that sucrose activates taste afferents differently than non-caloric sweeteners. Little information exists how artificial sweeteners engage central taste pathways in the human brain. We assessed sucrose and sucralose taste pleasantness across a concentration gradient in 12 healthy control women and applied 10% sucrose and matched sucralose during functional magnet resonance imaging. The results indicate that (1) both sucrose and sucralose activate functionally connected primary taste pathways; (2) taste pleasantness predicts left insula response; (3) sucrose elicits a stronger brain response in the anterior insula, frontal operculum, striatum and anterior cingulate, compared to sucralose; (4) only sucrose, but not sucralose, stimulation engages dopaminergic midbrain areas in relation to the behavioral pleasantness response. Thus, brain response distinguishes the caloric from the non-caloric sweetener, although the conscious mind could not. This could have important implications on how effective artificial sweeteners are in their ability to substitute sugar intake.
PMID: 18096409 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18096409?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

[maxlharris]

I wouldn't exactly call any of that brain damage or brain cancer or mental incapacitation. A dopamine response (or lack thereof) isn't exactly an abnormal response to a sweet tasting stimulus.

The fear of saccharine was that it caused brain tumors the size of footballs.
The fear that Jimmy Moore promotes of "Nasty-tame" is about cancer, head aches, and other major health concerns.
The fear (well founded) in the grape based artificial sweetener of the Romans was "madness".

There is something about artificial sweeteners that make people fear for their minds. Maybe you consider a dopamine response (or lack thereof) a legitimate fear for your mind. Fine. I don't think so.

Still, if you want to quit coke until they make a Stevia version, or altogether, good for you. If it works for you, fine. There are plenty of people who have had to kick diet soda to get to goal. There are plenty of people who didn't have to go to that length.

PS- 12 healthy control women? You and they are kidding, right? For such a simple intervention (granted, fMRI's aren't free), 12 seems like a very small number.

[maxlharris]

I want to be very clear here. I've been drinking diet coke and other aspartame things since they hit the market in the late 80's. It is 20 years later and I am tumor free. I may be a jerk, but it's not a brain tumor that makes me one. I have been a very heavy user of the stuff. Now, granted, this is a sample size of one, but when I say it doesn't mess with me, I'm pretty sure.

I also want to be clear. If you want to quit soda, that's probably a noble goal. Good luck with it. It's actually not that hard, but if you're a heavy user, the first three weeks are harder than carb withdrawal. I'd suggest going with coffee in it's place, but you'd have to take it either black or light, but not sweet, to get the caffeine (hard habit to break, possibly not worthwhile), while dumping the AS. I speak from experience on this. It is easy once you get over the hump. But it's a big hump. Now, I don't have an addict's dopamine response, so it might be harder for others (W, I'm looking at you), but it's very doable and probably very sustainable if you are dilligent.

Last thing: I don't mean to minimize other people's fears by suggesting that there is a deeper zeitgeist effect. I do believe that a lot of the brain fears surrounding AS are hyped because of a zeitgeist effect, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you and just because you're egotistical doesn't mean you aren't great. So, yeah, everything Jimmy Moore reports about aspartame, everything that others report about Splenda, about Sugar Twin, about Sweet n Low and inevitably about Stevia could actually be true.

[Omlette]

Max - I don't have a paranoia about tumors and such, since most anything can cause cancer, but I have wondered if aspartame was causing me to have subtle changes that I just was blaming on something else, or my own weaknesses.

I want to give just a touch of history. I didn't do "sugar free" foods until '99 when I first started protein power. I have continued doing them and drinking Dt. Coke since that time. Prior to that, I weighed between 170 and 185 for most of my adult life. I was no more active than I am now, and I ate what I wanted. Once I went off plan, I crashed and burned. I started eating what I wanted when I wanted again. I blamed the beginning of the end on me finishing my master's, because I am a stress eater. However, by the end point, I have gained 100 lbs. I would have expected to gain back what I lost and maybe 10 or 20 more, but not 70+ more than I lost.

Aspartame was the one thing that changed, and I did not change it back when I went off plan.

Believe me, my mom and I have gone rounds this week about it. She says that she has no problem with aspartame, yet, if she sits down and thinks about it, she has had medical issues that could or could not have come from it. I see no harm and the stopping of ingesting a chemical.

I never thought I would be able to kick dt. coke. I have been 8 days without so far, and without much trouble. I am drinking tea for my caffiene. I only drank between 16 and 24 ozs most days, but there were cumulitive products that I ingested that contained aspartame. I have stopped all of those except for gum (1 piece per day).

In these 8 days I have noticed improvement in these areas:

1. 5 lbs lost with no other change to my diet
2. More energy
3. Not getting winded walking up stairs.
4. Few cravings

So, for me, I have an initial belief that aspartame was causing or at least aggrivating my issues.

[maxlharris]

Well and good.

Rebound to much higher than start is not uncommon. You adjust your body to a low carb threshold and then you return to carbs, probably with a vengeance. You now lack the enzymes to properly process carbs.

The first time I did Atkins, I started at a weight of 245 and got down to 205. It took 4 months. The next time I did Atkins, after my Masters, I started at 265. I was probably higher, in the 270's during my Masters. Was it the aspartame? I dunno. And really, you don't either. Is it possible it was, yes. But there was more change than you are letting on. You changed from a diet to ad lib. You changed from regular eating to stress eating. I could go on. Doesn't make a difference.

It is ENTIRELY possible that your account is the correct account. It is also entirely possible that your account is not the correct version of the underlying events.

I am curious to see how the experiment continues, but will remain skeptical of anything widely stated, just as my lack of tumors should not convince anyone that aspartame doesn't cause them. Small sample, poorly controlled, anecdotal at best. But, I am still curious to see how it plays out over the long haul. And I encourage you to continue. Clearly, there is no real nutritional benefit to the stuff. So, at best, it does no harm. At worst, it's very bad stuff.

One last thing:
4 results: 5 lbs lost - good.
Easier to get up stairs - not entirely unrelated to not lugging 5 extra lbs up. Considering force multipliers, it's probably more like 10-50 lbs less force required at critical joints.
More energy - again, hard to separate from the weight loss.
few cravings - the diet works like that for most people.

Again, not saying none of it is real. Just saying it's something to keep an eye on.

And, as I was saying, since it has never been shown or claimed to have any nutritional benefit, the best it can do is no harm. Generally, we eliminate such things from our lives.

[Omlette]

Max, I wanted to say one more thing. No, I do not believe that aspartame affects all people in adverse ways. I do believe that some people are sensitive to it. Just like lactose, I can drink my weight in milk and have no problems, yet others can't drink even a few ozs without having isses.

You are right, I had many things going on that contributed to my massive weight gain. No one thing will be able to be pinpointed, because they all worked together. However, I do believe that aspartame was a contibuting factor.

One thing: Where I said I have fewer cravings, I have forced myself to continue eating the sugary crap I was eating before dropping aspartame, just to see if it was promoting or at least assisting the craving.

Now, that I have proven to myself that I it was contributing to my cravings, I will start eating more to plan.

I need to add one more thing to my list of improvements for the week: my bs has be more under control. Yes, you can say that it is due to my 5 lbs weight loss, but I would not have had that weight loss if I had not given up the aspartame, as I have not given up the full fledge starbuck lattes, banana nut loafs and chocolates this week.

Yes, it may be anecdotal, but it is my quest.

[laughingW]

I wouldn't exactly call any of that brain damage or brain cancer or mental incapacitation. A dopamine response (or lack thereof) isn't exactly an abnormal response to a sweet tasting stimulus.
Whoa, down boy. When you said, "fears that sweeteners have effect on the brain are unsubstantiated" I took it literally - ie, any effect. I wasn't even thinking of the whole wild world of brain damage or brain cancer or mental incapacitation.

I too have only seen anecdotal evidence of that either. But I'm with Omlette on the possibility of subtle effects for certain people.