Aspartame safety

Aspartame and Safety

A. de la Hunty, S. Gibson, M. Ashwell
This review has shown that using foods and drinks sweetened with aspartame instead of those sweetened with sucrose is an effective way to maintain and lose weight without reducing the palatability of the diet.
Arthur S. Leon, MD; Donald B. Hunninghake, MD; Catherine Bell, MBA; David K. Rassin, PhD; Thomas R. Tephly, MD, PhD
These results further document the safety of the long-term consumption of aspartame at doses equivalent to the amount of aspartame in approximately 10 L of beverage per day.
Susan S. Schiffman, Ph.D., C. Edward Buckley III, M.D., H.A. Sampson, M.D., E.W. Massey, M.D., J.N. Baraniuk, M.D., J.V. Follett, M.D., and Z.S. Warwick,B.S.
It was concluded that in this population, aspartame is no more likely to produce headache than placebo.
James Rowan, *Bennett A. Shaywitz, Linda Tuchman, Jacqueline A. French, Daniel Luciano, and *Colleen M. Sullivan
Aspartame, in acute dosage of ~50 mg/kg, was found to be no more likely than placebo to cause seizures in individuals who reported that their seizures were provoked by aspartame consumption.
B. A. Shaywitz, MD, G. M. Anderson, PhD, E. J. Novotny, MD, J. S. Ebersole, MD, C. M. Sullivan, MSN, and S. M. Gillespie, MSN
The findings of this study indicate that, in this group of vulnerable children, APM does not provoke seizures.
James G. Gurney, Janice M.Pogoda, Elizabeth A. Holly, Stephen S. Hecht, Susan Preston-Martin
This review revealed little biologic or experimental evidence that aspartame is likely to act as a human brain carcinogen.
Paul A Spiers, LuAnn Sabounjjan, Allison Reiner, Diane K Myers, Judith Wurtman, and Donlad L Schomer
Large daily doses of aspartame had no effect on neuropsychologic, neurophysiologic, or behavioral functioning in healthy young adults.
Bernadene Magnuson, Ph.D., Cantox Health Sciences International, for the Aspartame Expert Work Group (2008)

Aspartame is a dipeptide molecule produced by joining phenylalanine and aspartic acid. Aspartame itself does not occur naturally but is a manufactured substance. When aspartame is consumed, it is completely broken down by the enzymes in the digestive system (esterases and peptidases) into the two amino acids and a type of alcohol called methanol. The amounts of these are much less than found in foods. For example, a serving of non-fat milk provides about six to nine times more phenylalanine and 13 times more aspartic acid than the same amount of beverage sweetened with aspartame. A serving of tomato juice provides about four to six times more methanol than the same amount of aspartame-sweetened beverage.More

Anne Raben, Tatjana H Vasilaras, A Christina MØller, and Arne Astrup
Overweight subjects who consumed artificial sweeteners did not have increased energy intake, body weight, fat mass and blood pressure after 10 wk.
Presented by the ADA Evidence Analysis Library®
Sugar substitutes refer to substances that have little to no calories or other nutrients. You may be familiar with various product names for example Equal® (which can contain aspartame), or Splenda® which contains sucralose, or Truvia™, which contains stevia. We are going to review the sugar substitute ingredients approved by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA), the agency that regulates our food safety. More about the approval process, adverse effects, and recommended intake limits will be covered later. Right now,let’s review some characteristics of the sweetener ingredients.