I think you guys are making a big deal out of nothing. Most of us are traders on this board correct? Let's think about this for a second and apply some basic logic. Aspartame is in diet soda, coffee, apples, lots of other foods and medications. I would say close to 100% of our population (300 million people) takes in aspartame on some level. Diet soda drinkers alone make up about 60% to 70% of our population not to mention coffee drinkers. Now, considering how many people take in aspartame, not to mention the amount we take in (for some of us staggering amounts), where are all the problems? How come we have not seen an epidemic? This product has been around for 50 years. If we used a placebo, I'm sure you would see the same percentage of headaches, weight gains, and other issues. Just think about it for a second and do the numbers.
Yeah, except it gave me a headache -every time. Perspective? Some people get nauseous even thinking of seafood etc. The only real difference, is that its very far from a natural food, and even if it is the best thing since white sliced bread (which ironically, is a nutritional disaster) the public , i think, should be damned suspicious. Butter is good for you/butter is bad for you , sure, take with a grain of salt. Unless salts bad for you.......
Who's to say that aspartame isn't one of the contributors to the weight problem in this country? (there are obviously many contributors, or we would have found and squashed the one cause by now) I have done enough "testing" on myself to convince myself that aspartame causes some pretty severe headaches for me. I can eat something and within an hour tell you if it had asparame in it. I have eaten a few things in the last few years that I forgot to check the ingredients in, then gotten headaches and gone back and looked at the ingredients, and sure enough! Aspartame. It obviously doesn't do this to everyone. I have a similar problem with MSG, but aspartame is worse.
Oh and as far as helping you lose weight, diet sodas are the WRONG PATH. This study from the University of Texas is pretty enlightening. "What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. <B>"What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher." </B> In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas. <B>"There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day,"</B> Fowler says. http://www.webmd.com/content/article/107/108476.htm
Sure, thats why soft drinks are served with junk food, simple sugars can, and do act as an appetite stimulant. Interesting to see though, someone else did get headaches from it. Not normal headaches, either.........
I also get headaches and my fingers swell. My wife gets "panicky" long term. And my 44 year old boss's prostate problem relaxed after quitting aspartame. This was done on a doctor's advice. He shared this story with me, and added that the doc saw that in women, some went hyper. Got my wife to kick the diet soda and she calmed down an order of magnitude. We stick with spring water and coffee now.
You are right....we are traders, not doctors or scientists....& there are experts with opinions going both ways on aspartame. I know you can't believe everything you read on the web, but it seems that the FDA approval of aspartame was suspect, & there have been several class actions lawsuits filed against several food/beverage companies because of aspartame side effects. Maybe it is OK, maybe it is bad, maybe it depends on the person...I am avoiding it to be safe & also telling my family, especially for the kids. FDA approval http://www.rense.com/general33/legal.htm Tons of info http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C237252.html http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html Lawsuits http://www.feingold.org/aspartamesuit.html
I think sugar is a far more greater concern for obesity then aspartame because it spikes your insulin levels and instructs your body to start storing fat. Sugar also rots your teeth. Look, I'm sure aspartame is not as healthy for you as broccoli, but how many of you guys smoke? How many of you guys drink alcohol? Those toxins are much more dangerous then aspartame. And btw, somebody better tell doctors to stop recommending an apple a day to keep the doctor away. Aspartame is found readily in apples. Of course no one on ET smokes, drinks, or eats fruit. That what I love about this place!!!!!!
LOL Sometimes there's nothing like the REAL thing...I like the ones with the chocolate icing !!! Plus, look at this, the fake stuff can confuse the body according to this.... http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/history/topic/11943-1.html "Another problem with artificial sweeteners is a reflex that occurs when the brain reacts to sweet taste. The jargon used is "cephalic phase response". When sweet taste stimulates the tongue, the brain programs the liver to prepare for acceptance of new energy--sugar--from outside. If it is indeed sugar that stimulates the response, the effect on the liver will be the proper regulation of that sugar which has entered the body. However, if sweet taste is not followed by real nutrient availability, an urge to eat will be the outcome. It is the liver that produces the signals and the urge to eat. The more sweet taste that stimulates the taste buds without the accompanying calories, the more there is an urge to eat--overeat. The effect of cephalic phase response to sweet taste has been clearly shown in animal models with the use of saccharin. Using aspartame, several scientists have shown a similar urge to overeat in humans. Blundel and Hill have shown that non-nutritive sweeteners (aspartame in solution) will enhance appetite and increase short-term food intake. They report: "After ingestion of aspartame, the volunteers were left with a residual hunger compared with what they reported after glucose. This residual hunger is functional, it leads to increased food consumption." Another group of researchers, Tardoff and Friedman, have shown that this urge to eat more food after artificial sweeteners can last up to 90 minutes. They showed that even when blood levels for insulin achieved normal levels (a high reading of insulin is believed to be the cause of hunger), test animals consumed more food than the control batch. What this means is that the "brain" retains for a long time the urge to eat when the taste buds for sugar are stimulated without sugar having entered the system. " It's been about 24 hours without the aspartame for me...I have a slight headache & I feel thirsty....withdrawal ??? Who knows, maybe, maybe not.