Yes, Aspartame Is a Carcinogen

Splenda sent me to the hospital with a liver swelled up twice its normal size... hubby took a sip of flavored Dasani w/out realizing they added Splenda to it... 'course he noticed right after he took a sip... but that got his heart racing, he broke out in a sweat and had a hard time catching his breath. We've noticed that since we have moved away from sugar so much that when we do have some (like jelly beans from the Easter bunny) we really notice the effects in our bodies. We'd never really noticed it before when we were eating sugar all the time... I posit that it is because we are closer to an actual healthy normal functioning body. That we are not naturally meant to process that load of sugar we have available today... so now our bodies are more used to the way it is supposed to be. Introducing sugar back into the diet in a big way.. wow... the effects are immediately noticable. I see how/why I used to be such a consumate grouch all the time.. as I tend to become so again if I have a lot of sugar, my patience goes way down, I'm more tired, more prone to being anxious about something... big changes. I don't like it. So it is like we get used to a 'normal' that isn't really a 'normal' at all.

The artificial crutch to 'satisfy a sweet tooth' is even worse. I remember trying and trying to get on the bandwagon of NutraSweet when it came out (taste factor was just nasty).. and I look back and see.. how badly I bombed on my school work, how crappy I felt, how sick I would get all the time. Now I avoid it like the plague of course.. and articles like this just make me mad. Mad at the people that are pushing this toxicity into our population at younger and younger ages... touting it as a 'healthy' choice, making it seem so good for the diabetic. *shakes head* Hubby was diabetic and all it did was make it harder to control his glucose levels and he felt like absolute crap. Crap I tell you. And hubby *was* diabetic.. we made new choices in our lives.. it wasn't a diet.. it was a concious shift to just be merciful to our bodies and fuel it with what it is really asking for. Real food. Real sweets... aka... honey, agave, stevia, etc... and using those sparingly.

Folks.. honestly we DO NOT NEED a dessert type item ALL DAY. Or even once a day. Or even once a week. They were called 'treats' for a reason. Just because they *are* readily available does not mean we need to indulge readily. It's a choice. That gallon gulp of soda is just not needed.. the twinkies, the candy bar, the cakes... it is not the 'treat' that is such a problem.. it is our reluctance and defiance to realize that the definition of a treat is 'something we indulge in ON OCCASION', not a daily component to our diets.


Ok.. rant over for now... *breathes deeply*. My point is.. that because of our defiance to let go of this obsession with eating all things sweet and our thought that if sugar itself is not such a good choice then one *must* have a chemical alternative... well that alternative is in even worse idea. It's your body... the only one you have. Having a change of heart and eating in a healthy way is a choice of life.. it is not a deprivation. The deprivation is in making life stealing choices. Ain't nobody in your noggin but you making your choices.

*hugs*






'Yes, Aspartame Is a Carcinogen'
Francesca Colombo*

BOLOGNA, Apr 15 (Tierramérica) - The Italian scientist Morando Soffritti has revived the debate about the safety of aspartame, an artificial sweetener used in many popular products, including diet softdrinks made by Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. After studying 1,800 rats over eight years, his research team concluded that aspartame could have carcinogenic effects.

The results, first released in July 2005 and published in March in the U.S. Department of Health's journal, "Environmental Health Perspectives", contradict other studies financed by the company that created the sweetner, G.D. Searle & Company, which assures aspartame poses no risks to human health.

For the past 25 years, the product has been authorised by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for human consumption.

The sale of aspartame, with only four calories per gram and 200 times sweeter than sugar, is sold under the trademarks NutraSweet and Equal, bringing in 570 million dollars a year. It is estimated that some 350 million people around the world, many in hopes of losing weight, consume aspartame daily through 6,000 kinds of foods and beverages. In Europe alone, 2,000 tonnes of the sweetener are sold annually.

Soffritti's investigation was conducted at the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Centre, of the European Ramazzini Foundation in Bologna, which he heads. This institution, founded in 1971, won international credibility when it uncovered the cancer-causing properties of the gasoline additive MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether), which led to its ban in 21 U.S. states.

Tierramérica spoke with Soffritti in Italy. Following are excerpts from that dialogue:

Q: What are the results of your investigations conducted between 1997 and 2005 about the effect of aspartame?

A: The results indicate that aspartame is a multi-potential carcinogen, even consumed daily at 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. That is a lower quantity than the maximum recommended by the FDA (50 mg/kg of body weight) and the European Union (40 mg/kg).

Article continued HERE