Italian Study Spells Trouble for Aspartame (NutraSweet) - NYT, 2/12/06

[SOS]

February 12, 2006
The Lowdown on Sweet?
By MELANIE WARNER

WHEN Dr. Morando Soffritti, a cancer researcher in Bologna, Italy, saw the results of his team's seven-year study on aspartame, he knew he was about to be injected into a bitter controversy over this sweetener, one of the most contentiously debated substances ever added to foods and beverages.

The research found that the sweetener was associated with unusually high rates of lymphomas, leukemias and other cancers in rats that had been given doses of it starting at what would be equivalent to four to five 20-ounce bottles of diet soda a day for a 150-pound person...The findings, first released last July, prompted a flurry of criticism from the Calorie Control Council, a trade group for makers of artificial sweeteners that has spent the last 25 years trying to quell fears about aspartame.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration says it has also taken note of the study, which is available online (http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/8711/abstract.html) and is scheduled to be published next month in a medical journal financed by the National Institutes of Health. F.D.A. officials say that they, too, intend to conduct a thorough review.

Documents from the F.D.A. and records from the Federal Register indicate that, in the years before the F.D.A. approved aspartame, the agency had serious concerns about the accuracy and credibility of Searle's aspartame studies. From 1977 to 1985 — during much of the approval process — Searle was headed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is now the secretary of defense; Searle was acquired by Monsanto in 1985. A 1976 report from an F.D.A. task force, for example, found that Searle's studies on aspartame were "poorly conceived, carelessly executed, or inaccurately analyzed or reported." In response to the report, the F.D.A. asked the Justice Department to open a grand jury investigation into whether two of Searle's aspartame studies had been falsified or were incomplete. A grand jury was never convened, however."

Much more on Searle, Rumsfeld, the FDA and the industry-funded "studies" conducted over the years:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/business/yourmoney/12sweet.html

[NVMojo]

1. aw, poor Rummy.

[Ellen Forradalom]

2. Good thing I never got in the diet pop habit

in those years because that stuff gives me horrible headaches.

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. Wow! That always happens to me as well.

I have always stayed away from "diet" drinks of all kinds because I couldn't handle the artificial sweetners. I also thought the taste was horrible as well.

[notadmblnd]

8. I've been begging my mom to give it up for years

I think it's responsible for strokes and her on-setting senility.

[qanda]

3. Why people continue to drink this poison is beyond me

My sisters have all types of health concerns and I have begged them to cut out the excessive use of diet sodas. For some reason they just won't listen to me. I can't come anywhere near the stuff because I get an instant headache, but I guess if it doesn't kill you instantly people don't mind being poisoned.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Buy this book for them.... it will be over by the time they get through

the index....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0929173252/sr=8-1/qid=1139771495/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-3980654-6603155?%5Fencoding=UTF8
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0929173252.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

It is almost a cliche in this day and age for someone to ask the waiter at a Chinese restaurant 'no MSG, please,' as is the waiter's knowing smirk in response. MonoSodium Glutamate (MSG), or 'The essence of taste' (as coined by the Japanese), is used as a 'taste-enhancer' in nearly every form of processed food on the market today, though 'taste addiction' may be a more correct term. But what exactly does it do? And how is it harmful?

Dr. Russell L. Blaylock answers these questions and poses some startling evidence as to the eventual consequences of a heavy MSG-diet in his book _Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills_. In basic terms, MSG (and other, similar agents) pierces the blood-brain barrier and over-stimulates the neurons of a brain to a deadly degree. Habitual intake among animal experiments has shown the development of tumors, memory loss, and a whole host of neurodegenerative diseases as the end result of excess excitotoxin intake, including Alzhiemer's, Parkenson's, Lou Gerhig's etc.

Walk into any gas station in the United States (or grocery store, for that matter) and, upon close investigation, you will find that 75%-90% of the available food has been 'enhanced' to some degree by excitotoxins. The chemical agents are often disguised by such ambiguous terms as 'spice' and 'natural flavors' or, my personal favorite, 'hydrolyzed vegetable protein.' A consumer society must have consumer slaves to keep it functioning; MSG is the crack cocaine of the food industry...and it is legally perpetuated by slush-fund advocates and a pork-glutted FDA. As proven again and again, money talks, ... .

Blaylock's thesis is written in a technical style, but the use of repetition throughout each chapter hammer in his myriad points into the reader with precision and power. An important book for anyone concerned with the health of self and family. You are what you eat---but do you know _what_ it is you are eating, below the surface of taste/fulfillment?

[ecoalex]

5. More studies, what does it take? he FDA protects killers

http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/recent.html

[KittyWampus]

10. It's not just FDA and coporate scientists. It's Organized Science in

general. And then you have the Psuedo-Skeptics who will look at your holistic medicine link and call anything therein "Quackery".

[qanda]

9. Thank you

On Edit: I just ordered this for my sister.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. You are most welcome.... and if you want to help heal her....

www.lef.org

[Avalux]

14. It's addictive

People I know who drink a six pack of diet soda every day just can't quit. I know someone who tried to quit cold turkey and suffered nasty withdrawal symptoms. It's bad stuff.

[KittyWampus]

7. Will the PseudoSkeptics attack THIS? After all, the FDA and corporate

and organized Science community all say the studies condemning Aspartamine are bunk.

[TahitiNut]

11. I don't know that there's ever been a question of aspartame's downside.

ALl the arguments I've ever heard is that the (assumed) "upside" (reduced deaths due to obesity and associated maladies) presented a positive trade-off. I'm not at all convinced, however, that artificial sweeteners have EVER accomplished any reduction in the incidence of obesity and am aware of no studies that would indicate they have. "I'll take a Big Mac and a Diet Coke, please!" If anything, diet soft drinks enable the continued addictions to fatty/sweet foods, an addiction that can only be offset with habituation to different/healthier tastes.

[bedazzled]

13. has anybody noticed they're putting aspartame in regular sugared gum?

like doublemint or juicy fruit? my husband just noticed it the other day.

i wouldn't touch the stuff with a barge pole. searle was testing oral contraceptives at the same time, and the FDA caught them cutting tumors out of the test rats and falsifying information regarding rat deaths. this was back when the FDA was actually worth something...