In our opinion, aspartame is not a good option for children for several reasons. First, one of the components it breaks down into is formaldehyde; second has been linked to migraines and seizures, and third, may lower serotonin levels which can lead to depression.
All of the aspartame articles on this site have been shared by Betty Martini of Mission Possible in Duluth Georgia. To see a complete listing of aspartame articles, please check out their site at: http://www.dorway.com/possible.html.
Russell Blaylock, MD, is arguably the world's foremost authority on the biochemistry of aspartame and its effect on brain function. Dr. Blaylock classifies aspartame alongside monosodium glutamate as an "excitotoxin"-substances that overstimulate brain cells causing cascades of neurological complications. His book, "Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills," is considered by many to be a definitive work in the field of excitotoxicity.
By Russell Blaylock, MD
In 1965, a researcher at G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company inadvertently discovered the artificial sweetener aspartame while working on an anti-ulcer medication. It was discovered that the sweetener was about 150 times sweeter than an equal amount of sugar. Over the next decade, the research staff at the G.D. Searle Company conducted a series of studies in an effort to get the product approved by the FDA.
Over all this consisted of about 11 different studies. In 1974 aspartame was approved for use only in dry foods. Its approval was based on these studies. Yet, even before these studies were being presented to the FDA, the pharmaceutical giant was under investigation for improprieties associated with several of its other drugs.
No basis for reliance
During this investigation, Dr. Adrian Gross was placed in charge of examining these studies and Jerome Bressler was assigned to examine three of the studies. This investigation included a through examination of the pathology laboratory used in the tests, interviews with the scientists and technicians involved and a careful analytic review of the studies themselves.
In a letter to Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Dr. Gross discussed many of their findings in this investigation. He pointed out that at the heart of the regulatory process was the ability of the FDA to "rely upon the integrity of the basic safety data submitted" to the FDA. Further, he says, "Our investigation clearly demonstrates that, in the case of G.D. Searle Company, we have no basis for such reliance now."
He then pinpoints why he had reached this conclusion, when he states:
"Through our efforts, we have uncovered serious deficiencies in Searle's operations and practices which undermine the basis for reliance on Searle's integrity in conducting high quality animal research to accurately determine or characterize the toxic potential of its products."
Who cares about the unborn?
Dr. Gross expressed his disdain at the way teratology experiments were conducted. These are critical tests with any new drug because it determines possible dangers to unborn children when their mothers are exposed to the product during pregnancy. He found that technicians responsible for the tests had no formal training in teratology or toxicology. In fact, they were given some books by the company and trained themselves for three months.
Unlawful carcinogenicity
Of most concern was the way the carcinogenicity tests were conducted. These are tests to see if the product could cause cancer. According to the law, any product intended as a food product cannot have demonstrated cancer-causing ability at a dose 100 times that which is commonly consumed.
Even though the tests were poorly conducted they did demonstrate that aspartame was associated with a dramatic, dose-dependent, increase in a variety of brain tumors-mainly astrocytomas-the type commonly seen in humans. This means that the higher the dose of aspartame the more tumors that were found.
The most appalling findings were by Dr. Bressler's investigation group. They found that in several instances malignant tumors were classified as benign and that in others, tumors were removed from rats and tissue slides and reported as normal.
Neurotoxic ingredients
Dr. John Olney, a neuropathologist and neuroscientist, pointed out to FDA investigators that aspartame contained at least two distinct components that could harm the brain-diketopiperizine and aspartic acid. The former is a suspected carcinogen and the latter an excitatory amino acid. As a world expert on excitotoxicity, a process where amino acids such as aspartic acid and glutamic acid causes brain cells to be excited to death, he understood the real danger to babies and small children. His laboratory studies had demonstrated that high dose aspartame could cause the very same brain injury as other excitotoxins.
The 1974 approval was withdrawn and after the results of these investigations were reviewed privately, aspartame was given approval once again in 1981. Ironically, it was approved using the very same studies that resulted in it being banned as too dangerous for human consumption in 1975.
Aspartame and brain tumors
In 1981, Arthur Hull Hayes was appointed commissioner of the FDA and in 1983 he approved aspartame for use in beverages. Three months later her left the FDA and accepted a position as the Senior Medical Advisor to Searle's PR firm of Burson-Marstellar.
Despite the objections of Dr. Olney and other neuroscientists and pathologists, the product was given approval, essentially for all foods and beverages.
In 1992, Dr. Olney published a study that suggested that the significant rise in human brain tumors was related to the widespread use of aspartame, since it began after the approval of aspartame in foods and beverages. In Searle's original study Dr. Olney found that there was a 47-fold increase in brain tumors in the rats exposed to high dose aspartame. Even Searle's figures showed a 25-fold increase in brain tumors.
Using existing data, Dr. Olney and his co-authors found a 65-percent increase in brain tumors in humans since aspartame was approved by the FDA. Dr. H.J. Roberts also reported a similar rise in a rare form of brain cancer associated with aspartame use.
Brain tumors in lab rats-and people
And a recent study by one of Europe's most prestigious oncology groups (a million dollar study) found a non-statistically significant increase in brain tumors in 1,800 rats tested using aspartame. The control animals, which received no aspartame, developed no brain tumors, whereas the aspartame exposed animals developed 10 malignant gliomas, 1 medulloblastoma and 1 malignant meningioma. I have had contact with a number of young women who have developed brain tumors (astrocytomas) following heavy use of aspartame products. When we combined the experimental studies with the clinical data it is obvious that aspartame is strongly linked to brain tumors and most likely lymphomas and leukemias.
Of great concern is the study by Trocho and his co-workers from the University of Barcelona, which found that aspartame was absorbed and then broken down into its component parts, including methanol and the methanol was further broken down into formic acid and formaldehyde. Using sophisticated radioactive labeling techniques he proved that the formaldehyde from the aspartame attached itself to the DNA, RNA and proteins of cells and that it was very difficult to removed. Further, they showed that the formaldehyde caused breaks in the DNA.
This has major implications in humans, since DNA damage, as was seen in their study, causes a multitude of cancers in humans as well as worsening of autoimmune diseases, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's dementia, Parkinson's and ALS. It also causes concern because DNA breaks in the DNA in sperm and ova can cause increased cancer risk and developmental problems in the offspring of mothers and fathers consuming aspartame products.
In the Bressler examination of the Searle tumor study they found that the female animals exposed to aspartame had a very high incidence of uterine polyps, which were rare in rats not exposed. In fact, at even moderate doses, there was a 15-fold increase in uterine polyps. In addition, they found several ovarian tumors, breast fibroadenomas, several pituitary adenomas, several lymphomas and pancreatic tumors.
Contemporary confirmation
The new million-dollar study by Dr. Morando Soffritti and co-workers found a dramatic increase in malignant lymphomas and leukemias in female rats consuming even low doses of aspartame-doses known to be consumed by millions of children, pregnant women and others. Their carefully done study concluded that most likely it was the formaldehyde breakdown product from the aspartame that was causing the cancers, which confirms what Trocho and co-workers had found earlier. Formaldehyde is known to be a powerful toxin and carcinogen, even in low concentrations.
WARNING for pregnant women
Of great concern was the finding by Trocho, that formaldehyde tends to accumulate in the DNA and is difficult to remove. This means that drinking even a single diet cola sweetened with aspartame can eventually produce significant DNA damage to raise one's risk of cancer and other diseases. Today, over 5,000 products contain aspartame. It is also important to appreciate that we are exposed to a number of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, which can add to aspartame's toxicity.
There are sufficient studies on the effect of aspartame on the developing fetus to draw serious concern about the safety of this product. For example, it has been shown that aspartame in the dose accepted as safe by the FDA (50 mg/kg/day) can produce phenylalanine levels in a large number of women and their babies during pregnancy-large enough to produce abnormal development of the baby's brain. This is because phenylalanine interferes with the normal migration and connections of the developing brain. In my estimation, pregnant women should never consume foods containing aspartame at any level, for the reasons I have discussed. The aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol are all known to produce abnormal development of a baby's brain.
Revealing side study
There is also evidence from the studies done by Dr. Ralph Walton, indicating that depressed people are especially sensitive to the toxic effects of aspartame and that this is especially true of those with suicidal tendencies. In a separate study he has shown that virtually all of the independently conducted studies done on aspartame safety have found problems with the product, yet not a single study funded by the makers of aspartame (now Monsanto) reported even minor problems.
This is especially puzzling when you consider that among all the food-related complained registered by the FDA, 75 percent to 85 percent are related to aspartame. This alone should tell us there is a problem.
There are sufficient independent studies to show that aspartame is a dangerous product and that it should have never been given approval. In fact, it was approved using the same shoddy studies alluded to by Dr. Adrian Gross in his letter to Senator Howard Metzenbaum.
References
1. Letter to Senator Howard Metzenbaum from Dr. Adrian Gross, dated October 30, 1987.
2. Jerome Bressler, The Bressler Report, 4/25/77 to 8/4/77
3. Olney JW. Excitotoxins in foods. Neurotoxicology 1994;15:535-544.
4. Olney JW, et al. Brain damage in mice from voluntary ingestion of glutamate and aspartate. Neurobehavoral Toxicolology 1980; 2: 125-129.
5. Reynolds WA. Et al. Hypothalamic morphology following ingestion of aspartame or MSG in the neonatal rodent and primate: a preliminary report. Environmental Health 1976;2: 471-480.
6. Brunner RL, et al. Aspartame: assessment of developmental psychotoxicity of a new artificial sweetener Neurobehavioral Toxicology 1979;1: 79-86.
7. Wurtman RJ. Aspartame: possible effect on seizure susceptibility. Lancet 1985;9
8. Maher TJ, et al. Possible neurologic effects of aspartame, a widely used food additive. Environmental Health Perspectives. 1987;75: 53-57.
9. Walton RG, The possible role of aspartame in seizure induction. In, Wurtman RJ, Ritter-Walker E. (eds); Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function. Birkhauser, Boston, 1988, pp 159-162.
10. Changes in physiological concentrations of blood phenylalanine produce changes in sensitive parameters of human brain function. In, Wurtman RJ, Ritter-Walker E. (eds); Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function. Birkhauser, Boston, 1988, pp187-195.
11. Christian B, et al. Chronic aspartame affects T-maze performance, brain cholinergic receptors and Na+, K+-ATPase in rats. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 2004;78:121-127.
12. Nakao H, et al. Formaldehyde-induced shrinkage of rat thymocytes. Journal of Pharmacological Science 2003; 91: 83-86.
13. H.J. Roberts. Does aspartame cause human brain cancer? Journal of Advancement in Medicine 1991; 4: 231-240.
14. Trocho C, et al. Formaldehyde derived from dietary aspartame binds to tissue components in vivo. Life Sciences 1998;63:337-349.
15. Scoffritti M, et al. Aspartame induces lymphomas and leukemias in rats. European Journal of Oncology 2005; 10: (in press)
16. Sabelli HC and Javaid JI. Phenylaethylamine modulation of affect: therapeudic and diagnostic implications. Journal of Neuropsychiatry 1995; 7: 6-14.
17. Scharma RP, et al. cerebrospinal fluid levels of phenylacetic acid in mental illness: behavioral associations and response to neuroleptic treatment. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1995; 91: 293-298.
18. Robain O, et al. Experimental phenylketonuria: effect of phenylacetate intoxication on number of synapses in cerebellar cortex of rats. Acta Neuropathol (Berl) 1983; 61: 313-315.
19. Matalon R, et al. Aspartame consumption in normal individuals and carriers of phenylketonuria. In, Wurtman RJ, Ritter-Walker E. (eds); Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function. Birkhauser, Boston, 1988, pp41-52.
20. Monte WC. Aspartame: methanol and public health. Journal of Applied Nutrition 1984; 36: 52.
21. Walton RG, et al. Adverse reactions to aspartame: double-blind challenge in patients from a vulnerable population. Biological Psychiatry 1993; 34: 13-17.
22. Olney JW, Farber NB, Spitznagel E, Robins LN. Increasing brain tumor rates: is there a link to aspartame? J Neuropathology Experimental Neurology. 1996;55:1115-23.
Russell L. Blaylock, M.D., Neurosurgeon (retired). Visiting Professor of Biology Belhaven College, Jackson, Mississippi
He can be seen in the aspartame documentary, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. He has a monthly newsleletter: The Blaylock Wellness Report: http://www.blaylockreport.com.
On autism On brain problems Excitotoxins, Neurodegeneration and Neurodevelopment
Miami Herald Letter, Exposing Calorie Control Council, front group
Media contacts through Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum., Founder, Mission Possible Intl, 9270 River Club Parkway, Duluth, Georgia (770) 242-2599 BettyM19@mindspring.com, http://www.dorway.com, Aspartame Information List
Letter to the Alabama Board of Education
By Dr. Betty Martini
July 12, 2005: To the Alabama Board of Education and Press:
Suppose someone offered you this deal: "Let us feed your children products that trigger learning and behavioral problems, cause obesity, interact with drugs and vaccines, precipitate diabetes, trigger brain fog, blindness, retardation, seizures and produce 92 symptoms including death, by FDA report? Would you consent? And by the way an ingredient is an addictive narcotic that hooks them for life, and shortens it. Student athletes will suddenly drop dead when it damages their cardiac conduction systems. It also is a chemical hypersensitization agent. No member of the Board would allow such an atrocity.
But what if they offer you money? What is a fair price for the lives and health of your children? This question is before you now, and the soft drink vendors are right outside the door with their checkbooks. Am I telling the truth? Listen to these authorities:
The long National Soft Drink Association petition to Congress against the approval of aspartame was published in the May 7, 1985 Congressional Record: "Searle has not met its burdens under section 409....to demonstrate that aspartame is safe and functional for use in soft drinks...The extensive deficiencies in the stability studies conducted by Searle to demonstrate that aspartame and its degradation products [methyl alcohol, formaldehyde, formic acid, diketopiperazine, etc] are safe in soft drinks intended to be sold in the United States, render these studies inadequate and unreliable.
"There have been hundreds of reports from consumers around the country suggesting a possible relationship between their consumption of NutraSweet and subsequent symptoms including headaches, aberrational behavior, slurred speech, etc. ... Aspartame has been demonstrated to inhibit the carbohydrate-induced-synthesis of the neurotransmitter serotonin (Wurtman affidavit). Serotonin blunts the sensation of craving carbohydrates and thus is part of the body's feedback system that helps limit the consumption of carbohydrate to appropriate levels. Its inhibition by aspartame could lead to the anomalous result of a diet product causing increased consumption of carbohydrates, causing obesity!"
Read the entire protest at http://www.dorway.com/nsda.html
Dr. Louis Elsas, Professor of Genetics and Pediatrics at Emory University, in Congressional testimony stated: "I have considerable concern for the increased dissemination and consumption of the sweetener aspartame in our world food supply. This artificial dipeptide is hydrolyzed by the intestinal tract to produce L-phenylalanine which in excess is a known neurotoxin. ... In the rapidly growing post natal brain (children of 0-12 months) irreversible brain damage could occur."
Dr. H. J. Roberts, F.A.C.P., F.C.C.P., named the "best doctor in the country" by a national medical publication in his paper "Warning School Children at Risk": "Aspartame induced disorders in children include headache, confusion, convulsions, irritability, depression, intellectual deterioration, antisocial behavior, rashes, asthma and unstable diabetes. Addiction to aspartame products has also become a problem."
Dr. Roberts authored three medical texts on aspartame toxicity, including "Aspartame Disease, and Ignored Epidemic," 1,038 pages.
Today I was in contact with Certified Neurodevelopmentalist Kay Ness, (ICAN) who warned: "All my work is trying to help children overcome attention and learning problems. A big part is basic nutrition to help them function better. It is no myth that improved nutrition improves brain function. Parents try hard to improve the diets of their children and despair when they have easy access to junk food and soda pop at schools. One principal, while drinking a diet soda, told me it meant $6,000/year in cash for the school, so he'd keep the machine. So we have the spectacle of children on psychoactive medications, parents trying to help them, and schools undermining the best interests of the children. If the school board truly cares for the children they will eliminate these chemicals, especially since the only motive for keeping these machines is money."
What happens when pop and vending machines are removed. A 2002 report from the Feingold Association's True Facts newsletter reveals:
"In Appleton, Wisconsin, a revolution has occurred. It's taken place in the Central Alternative High School. The kids now behave. The hallways aren't frantic. Even the teachers are happy. The school used to be out of control. Kids packed weapons. Discipline problems swamped the principal's office. But not since 1997. What happened?
"In 1997 a private group called Natural Ovens began installing a healthy lunch program. Fast food burgers, fries and burritos gave way to fresh salads, meats prepared with old-fashioned recipes and whole grain bread. Fresh fruits were added to the menu. Good drinking water arrived. Vending machines were removed.
"As reported in a newsletter called Pure Facts: Grades are up, truancy is no longer a problem, arguments are rare, and teachers are able to spend their time teaching."
Pure Facts is published by The Feingold Association, part of its mission to generate public awareness of the potential role of foods and synthetic additives in behavior, learning and health problems. Feingold banned aspartame.
The report continues: If what happened in Appleton, Wisconsin takes hold in many other communities across America, perhaps the ravenous corporations who invade school space with their vending machines and junk food will be tossed out on their behinds. It could happen. And perhaps ADHD will become a dinosaur. A non-disease that was once attributed to errant brain chemistry. And perhaps Ritalin will be seen as just another toxic chemical that was added to the bodies of kids in crazed attempt to put a lid on behavior that, in part, was the result of a subversion of the food supply."
Why even think of allowing our children to drink products that break down to a brain tumor agent, DKP, which triggered brain tumors in original studies, as well as pituitary, testicular, mammary, ovarian, pancreatic and thyroid tumors. The Calorie Control Council, a front group for the aspartame industry, wrote The Miami Herald which published the letter pushing aspartame on pregnant women and phenylketonurics, who are specifically prohibited from aspartame.
Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock responded to this propaganda: "Fully a third of all babies born to PKU carrier mothers consuming aspartame foods and drinks risk varying degrees of brain damage. It is also known that the amount of toxic phenylalanine reaching the baby is twice as high as that in the mother's blood because the placenta concentrates the toxin. In addition, numerous metabolic breakdown products of aspartame are known to damage the developing infant's brain, including methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid, diketopiperizine and phenylacetate. Aspartame has been shown by several studies to damage DNA, which can lead to cancer and degenerative brain disorders later in life. The risk of increased brain tumors in such a child would be enormous. Similar mechanisms of damage would be expected in those with liver disease. Studies on aspartame safety have shown that the product increases tumors throughout numerous organs, especially the brain. It was shown that brain tumor incidence increased over 47 times in animals exposed to aspartame.
"With the public concern over childhood obesity and diabetes, few are being told of the overwhelming evidence that early exposure to excitotoxins (as found in aspartame) consistently produce gross obesity and insulin resistant diabetes, just as we are seeing in our youth. The promoters of aspartame use have been lying from the beginning and continue to use their money and political clout to cover up the real and present dangers of this toxic product."
Have there been studies on young children and aspartame? After 25 years of knowing how deadly aspartame is, nobody would ask children to sign up for a study on sweet arsenic. But a study was accidentally done by Dr. Miguel Baret Daniel in the Dominican Republic. Working with a pediatrician they decided to remove milk from the diet of 360 children because it can precipitate diabetes. Instead he provided juice laced with aspartame. The pediatrician noticed that most of the children were having what he called a kind of "brain allergy" showing abnormal restlessness, lack of concentration, irritability and depression. Dr. Baret then removed the aspartame and within 4 days all the 360 children went back to normal.
Why was aspartame approved by the FDA? For 16 years FDA not only refused to approve it, but asked to have G. D. Searle indicted under Title 18, Section 1001 for "their willful and knowing failure to make reports to the FDA required by the Act 21 USC 355 and for concealing material facts and making false statements in reports of animal studies conducted to establish the safety of aspartame."
Both U.S. Prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statute of limitations expired. But Don Rumsfeld, who was CEO of G D Searle, said he would call in his markers and get aspartame approved even though the FDA said no. He was on President Reagan's transition team. The incredible story of how he accomplished this is told by Washington, D.C. attorney, James Turner in the documentary on aspartame called "Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World." You can get a copy from http://www.docworkers.com but here is a clip where you can see and hear Attorney Turner tell one of the most incredible stories of political clout in getting a deadly chemical, a neurotoxic drug marketed for human consumption.
See the clip on Rumsfeld & aspartame
We are taking case histories of aspartame brain tumors for litigation in New York, New Jersey, Madison County, Illinois and Mississippi. Does any parent want their children consuming a brain tumor agent?
Psychiatrist Ralph Walton, M.D., in a paper said: "The neurochemical impact of aspartame on the brain is fairly complicated. Not only does it decrease the availability of the building block for serotonin (L-tryptophan), but one of the two amino acids that comprise aspartame, phenylalanine, is a precursor for another very important neurotransmitter, norepinephrine. Papers which I published in 1986 and 1993 discuss what I believe is the clinical impact (accentuating depressive illness) of altering the balance between these 2 neurotransmitters (norepinephrine and serotonin). "There is evidence that the therapeutic effect of antidepressants can be blocked by parachlorophenylalanine - a form of phenylalanine- one of the major constituents of aspartame. Administration of this substance has also been associated with aggression and bingeing.
Dr. Walton continues by discussing the association of aspartame use and weight gain: "Food-seeking behavior and satiety are driven by an area of the brain known as the hypothalamus. Stimulation of the medial hypothalamus in a laboratory rat leads to eating. Stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus leads to satiety and cessation of eating. Placing a lesion in the lateral hypothalamus produces an obese rat. The lateral hypothalamus is driven by serotonin. There are many papers in the current literature demonstrating that antidepressants which increase serotonin (but not antidepressants which act on other neurotransmitters) are useful in treating binge eating disorders. I believe that consuming large amounts of aspartame decreases the availability of serotonin and is thus analogous to placing a lesion in the lateral hypothalamus. Although much of this work is recent, clinical suggestions that aspartame can lead to a paradoxical increased appetite date back to Blunder's work of 1986.
An evolving view in modern psychiatry is that although depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, impulse control disorders and eating disorders have historically been viewed as separate entities, in fact they should be viewed as a continuum of disorders all involving some degree of dysregulation of serotonin. I believe that at this time there is overwhelming evidence that aspartame contributes to this dysregulation.
For the entire report go to: http://www.dorway.com/walton2.txt and read his research on scientific peer reviewed studies and funding which was discussed on 60 Minutes when Dr. John Olney made world news on the aspartame brain tumor association in l996 (http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.html ) Schools should have Doctors H. J. Roberts and Russell Blaylock's books which explain the dangers aspartame presents to the brains of our children, and show the documentary Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World - Once this knowledge is known no school with a conscience would allow anything with aspartame.
There is an epidemic of obesity in America, and we've known that diet pop with aspartame and in other products has caused it. And now it has been shown by a new study and 7 to 8 years of data by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio: (Diet Soda Drinkers Gain Weight).
In this Fowler says it shows that "Something linked to diet soda drinking is also linked to obesity." How true! That product is aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal/Spoonful/Canderel, E951).
An earlier study found weight gain among 78,694 women using artificial sweeteners: Stellman SD, Garfinkel L. Artificial Sweetener Use and One-Year Weight Change Among Women. Prev Med l985; 15: 195 - 202.
Another toxin, Splenda, is a chlorcarbon: The Lethal Science of Splenda
Stevia, found in health food stores, helps metabolize sugar and is ideal for diabetics. It's a natural herb, has been used for centuries.
Children should be warned about gum because Wrigley's now puts aspartame in their products. It is particularly dangerous because like nitroglycerin, goes through saliva straight to the brain. Several have had grand mal seizures on aspartame-laced gum. Dr. Roberts has an excellent report on http://www.wnho.net
Listerine Strips also have aspartame and there are many reports of seizures from them.