by Chris Wheeler (Healthy Options Magazine - www.healthyoptions.co.nz)

A report of the BBC News (14 July '05) focused attention back to the questionable safety of the world's most popular diet sweetener, aspartame, consumed by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and found in over 6000 products including soft drinks, chewing gum, sweets, yoghurt and pharmaceutical products.

Close to home, aspartame has become New Zealand's top-selling diet sweetener at the same time that a consensus is developing among independent researchers worldwide that this officially regulated and permitted toxin is probably the hidden factor in a huge range of neurological and toxin-induced medical problems ranging from the increased rates of depression, seizures, vision problems, suicides and erratic behaviour in teenagers, to a range of cancers, including a steady increase in the rate of brain tumours which uncannily parallels the rising curve of aspartame use since 1981.

Morando Soffritti and colleagues of Italy's European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, Bologna, drew attention to the results of a very detailed study (1) employing 1800 rats who were fed aspartame over the course of their lifetime (a rat can live up to three years). At death, each rat was thoroughly examined and the researchers noted a significant increase in cancers - specifically lymphomas and leukaemias - in rats fed dose ranges of aspartame at concentrations comparable to those consumed by humans.

Although the researchers were cautious in declaring the results of their study, the also pointed to evidence in their rat study of an increase in malignant brain tumours in rate fed aspartame. This particular result highlights the significance of Professor JW Olney's 1996 report pointing to an increase in brain tumours in humans paralleling the increase in consumption of aspartame in 1982 (2).

The significance of the Soffritti study is that it was carried out in Italy, a country relatively independent of the powerful international corporates controlling the aspartame market, and a country where research is still pursued according to traditional academic standards, relatively free from commercial bias.

The Ramazzini Foundation, in particular, has specialised in extremely careful rat studies using a particular breed of rat (Sprague-Dawley), which the Foundation have reared and studied for decades. Hence the researchers had access to decades of data on the natural incidence of cancer for the specific type of rat in their aspartame study as well as having a parallel control group on an aspartame-free diet as part of their study.

This care over the purity of the data and the research group’s close adherence to the standards of pure scientific research mean their study findings will be doubly hard to demolish by the international food and beverage corporates for whom aspartame represents a multi-billion dollar market. The study also poses a challenge to New Zealand’s food regulators, the NZ Food Safety Authority (NZFSA), who have been defending the safety of aspartame using data from the aspartame industry itself, backed by a recent supportive report from a science committee of the European Union which was stacked with industry ‘scientists’.

Any review of aspartame data demonstrates a huge rift between the data supporting safety presented by aspartame industry scientists and the data presented by independent researchers, which invariably demonstrates a problem with the product. Professor Ralph Walton of Northeastern Ohio University’s College of Medicine pointed out on the popular US TV programme “60 Minutes” (29 Dec 1996) that he had done poor reviewed research showing that, of 90 INDEPENDENT studies on aspartame, 83 out of 90 of 92 per cent identified a problem. Of the seven non-industry studies attesting to aspartame’s safety, six were studies from the FDA and one was from a literature review almost exclusively dealing with industry-sponsored research. Dr Walton noted at the time that, “As the role of the FDA in the question of aspartame safety has been controversial and allegations were made of a conflict of interest on the part of the FDA Commissioner at the time of aspartame’s approval, one could argue that the FDA studies should not be considered truly ‘independent’. If these studies are excluded, along with the literature review focusing only on NutraSweet ™ (Aspartame) industry-funded research then 100 per cent of the truly independent-funded research demonstrated some type of adverse reaction to NutraSweet ™ (3).

During a recent year spend in Wellington assisting Alison White of the Safe Food Campaign on food additive issues, I attended all the Food Safety Authority’s Consumer Forum meetings where we brought up this same issue of being industry-bias in aspartame safety reports without any response from the NZFSA other than that they were completely satisfied with the quality of research coming out of the industry. What became clearer to me at this point was something I’d discovered a decade before while dealing with government departments (whose function is primarily to serve the public) – they were long ago approached by the chemical/pharmaceutical and food industries whose controlling international corporates can afford to keep expensive lawyers and lobbyists in full-time employment ensuring that whoever is in power, Labour or National, is kept safely in the pro-industry camp.

It will be interesting to see how the NZFSA copes with the Italian researchers’ final comment in their report on aspartame’s potential hazard: “Since the results of carcinogenicity bioassays in rodents, mainly rats and mice, have been shown to be a consistent predictor of human cancer risk, the first results of our study call for urgent re-examination of permissible exposure levels of APM (aspartame) in both food and beverages, especially to protect children.”

Diet beverages containing aspartame are top-selling items in New Zealand supermarkets, and as aspartame-containing logo diet drink can be seen swinging at the fingers of every second Kiwi teenager on the street …

(1). Morando Soffritti, Fiorella Belpoggi, Davide Delgi Esposti, Luca Labertini; Aspartame induces lymphomas and leukaemias in rats. Eur.J.Oncol, 10:2, 2005. In Press.
(2). John W Onley, et al.; Increasing Brain Tumour Rates: Is There a Link to Aspartame? Journal of Neuropathology And Experimental Neurology, 55:11, 1115-1123, November 1996.
(3) Walton, RG; Survey of Aspartame Studies: Correlation of Outcome and Funding Source, outlined on 60 Minutes (29 Dec 1996), provided to Ed Metcalfe for the purposes of his story “Sweet Talking”, published in The Ecologist, 30:4, June 2000.

Great article!!! Great research!!!

After hearing on & off about problems with AS, I'm now in the process of weaning myself to stevia - no equal, no splenda, no sweet & low.
Hope they don't find any adverse effects of stevia next !! If they do, I'm going back to sugar !

I love a good conspiracy, and who would guess it would be the un-corruptible Italians to the rescue.

Personally, I use only sugar for the little bit of sweetener I use and what I buy for my familiy. I avoid HFCS and all artificial sweeteners

I read a long article on aspartame sometime ago, it seemed that politics played a large role in aspartames approval in US. Donald Rumsfeld (Iraqi Freedom) was the president of Montsanto the company that discovered aspartame was sweet and marketed it. They couldn't get approval of aspartame until Ronald Reagan took office in 1980 and appointed the FDA commisioner. Montsanto had hired outside contractors to do the initial safety studies on aspartame. The researcher was getting negative results so Montsanto started over doing the studies in house. The initial researcher went public with his results. Its illegal to pick and choose which data you present to the FDA. The FDA commisioner resigned when an investigation was launched about aspartames approval. He became a consultant for Montsanto.

Oh man! Is there no END to the unsavory political coating of EVERY aspect of our lives?? I find it so frustrating when I read/discover things like this! It makes me feel like we can't trust ANYONE or any GROUP......so disappointing, to say the least.

I didn't let my kids have it when they were growing up. I knew a couple of women who had trouble with their periods while using it....I couldn't imagine what it might do to a developing girl's reproductive organs! Better be safe than sorry....so they didn't get it.

I also read that aspartame was only given GRAS status for gum....chewing gum....and then next thing it was being added to all kinds of foods! I remember when it first hit the market! It was kinda creepy....especially when you hear stories from friends....or read "fringe" articles about the negative aspects! People complain about splenda's advertising????? Aspartame, equal was at least double! And it was in just about every low cal or "dietetic" food! And so many geared to the kids!!!!

Stevia has been used by the Chinese for something like 1000 years so I'm pretty sure you should be fine with it. I've made the same switch


Wow I hadn't heard that! Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me. Personally, I get sore around my lower back and lower waist (where my kidneys are!) if I have more than about three cups of aspartame soft drink per week. A friend of mine was a total diet drink nut until I showed her links with MS symptoms. She tried an experiment and went without for two weeks. Her knuckles actually reduced in size and it doesn't hurt now to clench her fists.... and the weird thing is, these aren't just urban legends - it's me and a friend from work. How many others have weird things like this happen? That's if you've put the two together...

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While stevia is heavily used in some countries in the East, it is recent usage.
From: http://res2.agr.gc.ca/london/faq/stevia_e.htm
Stevia, as it is commonly known, is native to valley of the Rio Monday in North Eastern Paraguay and is found on the edges of marshland on acid infertile sand or muck soils. The conquistadors had reported stevia to the Spanish during the 16th century but it remained in obscurity until it was again brought to the attention of Europeans in 1888 by M.S. Bertoni. Prior to any European discovery, it had had long to been known to the indigenous Guarani peoples native to that region. The Guarani called it caá-êhê, meaning sweet herb and used it to sweeten bitter drinks such as mate

More info on stevia
http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/dhp...eets/Stevia.pdf
http://res2.agr.gc.ca/london/faq/st...ev_e.htm#SAFETY

The political macinations:
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/s...tame2-0039.html
http://www.dorway.com/jwstevia.txt

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1999/699_sugar.html
http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia4506.html

I wonder, what consumption level do they think we have? Seems like that would vary a lot from person to person.

And consider that since aspartame is 200x sweeter than sugar, you are ingesting a minute amount of it in a can of soda pop. And on top of that, isn't aspartame simply a dipeptide if two amino acids? Granted they are in opposite chirality of the normal ones (L vs D). I have a hard time believing ANY single study.

There have been a LOT of things changed since 1981. They make that sound so sinister and meaningful. Big whoop.

Finally, saying there was a conspiracy to put a carcinogenic mateiral in the food supply is typical paranoia. What Reagan did, is allow companies to do what they should be allowed to. So many useful things get blocked indefinitely because of the sea of red tape that is required, it is pitiful.

Feel free to cease consumption all AS, it will bring the price down for me.

Maybe ceasing consumption of phosphoric acid in the soda relieved your symptoms? Or the caramel coloring? Biased interpretation of results of limited observations, is the basis for many urban legends.

Did you read the original post?

The original post about the cancers observed in rats few aspartame? I read the post, haven't looked at the research data yet. I was replying to bsheets subsequent post where she reports a correlatoin with kidney function (soreness of lower back) and MS-like symptoms. Neither of which has to do with cancer.

But getting back to the original work, I wonder what sort of diet they feed the rats? As we know, the wrong diet can set you up for all sorts of allergy and inflammation problems. I mean, fat is a villain if you superimpose it on a high carb diet. Carbs cause a state of inflammation as well and make people more susceptible to environmental allergens and such. Maybe the rats aren't being fed what they were adapted to eat either.

If there is such clear-cut evidence that aspartame causes cancer, why do we not already have epidemiological evidence of its similar effect in humans? Its been around long enough. Or is that info being suppressed by the combination of right wing conspiracy and big chemistry?

I'm being cantankerous.