Diet Drinks: America's Passion for Poison
By Charles Foerster
Global Research, February 1, 2012
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29029
There
is a great controversy raging between good and evil at the soda
fountain or pop machine but the general public does not seem to be aware
of it. The consequences of the dietary changes that have occurred since
the introduction of artificial sweeteners into our lives since the
early 1980's has likely increased dramatically but in many cases,
silently. However, there is a coterie of medical doctors and research
scientists that are aware of the effects and have published volumes.
Unfortunately, their voices are largely drowned out by the industry.
As in politics and other endeavors where mind-control
plays a prominent role, advertising and propaganda are the most
effective tools of those who are pitching a program or a product. The
reasons for large infusions of cash could be to cover corporate
wrongdoing, agency corruption, incompetency or just to hide plain
carelessness but usually, profit motive is the driving force.
Ethical business practices should promote periodic
reviews but it appears that the only aspartame reviews have been on the
annual reports. Of course, there are reports of side effects but why
would that not have triggered an ongoing review by the agency
responsible for approval in the first place? The FDA says that they
monitor scientific literature for indication of potential health issues
but they are not aware of credible evidence at this time to reverse the
approval of aspartame. Perhaps they have not heard of Dr. Morando
Soffritti?
On April 23, 2007, Morando Soffritti, MD was honored
with the Collegium Ramazzini's third Irving J. Selikoff Award at the
Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, USA. Dr. Soffritti was
recognized for his "outstanding contributions to the identification of
environmental and industrial carcinogens and his promotion of
independent scientific research.”
The attitude of the FDA and industry would present
the case that the only credible scientific evidence comes from
government agencies or from corporate sources. Danger signs anyone?
Could it be that we are so taken in by the all-encompassing custodial
nature of total government that we have lost the ability to think and
act on matters that concern our most vital possession, our health?
On a personal level there is no in-between on diet
drinks, either you like them or you hate them. No matter what the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) says or what any critical medical study
shows, people are fiercely loyal to their diet drinks. There are also
unimaginable numbers of other products that contain aspartame besides
diet drinks but these products do not generate the intense loyalty as
the fizzy cola thirst-quenchers. Included in these unnecessarily altered
products are medicines, toothpaste, yogurt, baked goods and other
specialty drinks.
Commercialism forges ahead of good science and
another man-made substance of questionable value has been added to the
food chain. The detractors don't buy it but those addicted purchase it
with an irrational compulsion. Like those with a narcotic habit, they
don't seem to mind paying to satisfy the craving. And pay they do, to
the tune of billions of dollars a year.
Just what is this magical potion, aspartame? It is a
combination of methanol and two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic
acid. In 1965, James Schlattler, a chemist working at G.D. Searle
discovered the substance quite by accident while working on a drug for
another medical purpose. It was found to be many, many times sweeter
than sugar but without the calories.
The chemistry of aspartame as it breaks down in the
human body is well documented but acceptance of the science depends on
one's alliance with the industry or with the skeptic side. Regardless of
one's position on the subject, metabolism of aspartame in the human
body and the side-effects, or lack thereof, continues to be a intensely
controversial subject.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) describes a
metabolite as any substance produced during metabolism (digestion or
other bodily chemical processes). In medical terms, a metabolite usually
refers to the product that remains after the drug is broken down
(metabolized) by the body.
Virtually all industry funded studies discount any
adverse effects of aspartame metabolites. Typical “friendly” clinical
reviews of aspartame toxicity will most likely find the authors are
closely related to the producers of aspartame. Conversely, and almost
without fail, independent studies claim serious and deleterious
consequences as result of aspartame consumption.
A similar parallel could be drawn from the life-cycle
of a popular non-food product. The Model 35 Beech Bonanza airplane was
fast, comfortable, sexy and was immediately recognizable with its unique
v-tail. Together, these attributes made it an easy sell to eager
post-war consumers. It quickly became the darling of those who could
afford the luxury and prestige of traveling in their own Rolls-Royce
with wings. It was also very deadly.
From its initial debut in 1947, to its end of
production in 1982, the plane had suffered about 250, in-flight
structural failures which resulted in hundreds of deaths of its pilots
and innocent passengers.
An engineering ethics study done at the University of
Texas found that depending on year model, either the wings separated or
the v-tail assembly failed. In 1952, the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) conducted a 12-year study and found out what they
already knew; the airplane had an unusually high incidence of in-flight
structural failures. No further action was taken and the study was
terminated.
As compared to the aspartame controversy a similar
triumvirate of players were involved; the designer/manufacturer, the
government agency that certified the design and the consumer. In the
aviation example, Beech presented their design to the FAA; the FAA did
their certification which assured the public that the product was
airworthy and the aviation community quickly made it one of the most
successful private airplanes ever produced. Never mind it also produced
an inordinate number of fatalities.
Concerning the lethal attributes of this airplane,
the manufacturer could say the design was approved by the FAA so it was
certified safe, therefore any crash must have been due to pilot error.
The FAA said that it followed routine design certification procedures so
they could find no reason to ground the airplane. Someone has to be
culpable so it was necessary to shift the blame to the last one holding
the controls. And so it was for about 35 years.
After the introduction of the Model 33 and later, the
Model 36 (same airframe except both of these models had the more
conventional straight tails), it was found that the v-tails had 24 times
the number of in-flight structural failures. So much for the
engineering ethics and invincibility of manufacturers and government
agencies. Admitting mistakes and correcting deficiencies comes hard for
these two groups. Now, back to the controversial aspartame story.
The diet food and drink industry is a multibillion
dollar industry and the ravenous consumption by the thirsty public
defies comprehension. As in the airplane example, success and profit
motives are not necessarily bad things but any industry can be its own
worst enemy if its ethics are less than scrupulous.The story of
aspartame, its evolution and time-line from its discovery to FDA
approval is replete with political maneuvering, suspected malfeasance
and intrigue. It is rather difficult not to suspect wrong-doing when all
the parts of the puzzle are laid on the table.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as the
final authority to control the introduction of certain additives into
the food chain should have exercised the most extreme caution in
blessing this product which could conceivably effect the lives and
health of millions of people. Many of these people are children and
other trusting or unsuspecting individuals incapable of exercising
caution. However, in all fairness, this is indeed exactly what they did
from the mid-sixties until 1983, when greed, ego and politics triumphed
over sound judgment, good science and ethics.
As we have seen before, sometimes as little as five
thousand dollars worth of potential personal gain can trigger an
unethical act, especially if it is thought that no one is watching. When
potential profits range in the neighborhood of hundreds of millions of
dollars the temptation for concealing critical information about one's
products might become too much to resist.
When greed, gain and other human frailties are
considered, a cynical person could suspect therein exists a possible
root-cause for wrongdoing. A colossal industry is at stake and it is
only natural for those companies that manufacture it or those that use
it in their products to protect their industry and cash flow, even when
their products have the potential to harm untold numbers, including
children.
Early testing was conducted in the fall of 1967 when
Dr. Harold Waisman, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin, led
aspartame safety tests on infant monkeys on behalf of the Searle
Company. Of the seven monkeys that were being fed aspartame mixed with
milk, one died and five others had grand mal seizures. The entire file
can be found online at dorway dot com/raoreport.pdf.
On January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan's
inauguration, Searle re-applied to the FDA for approval to use aspartame
in food sweeteners, and Reagan's new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes
Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the
board of inquiry's decision. It soon became clear that the panel would
uphold the ban by a 3-2 decision, but Hull then installed a sixth member
on the commission, and the vote became deadlocked. He then personally
broke the tie in aspartame's favor. Hull later left the FDA under
allegations of impropriety, served briefly as Provost at New York
Medical College, and then took a position with Burston-Marsteller, the
chief public relations firm for both Monsanto and G.D. Searle. Since
that time he has never spoken publicly about aspartame.
The preceding three paragraphs were reported by the National Institute of Science, Law, and Public Policy, Washington, D.C.
While the components of the additive are well known,
the team that pushed the approval process were perhaps not quite as well
known. Donald H. Rumsfeld was Chief Executive Officer at G.D. Searle
from 1977 to 1985 which was during the aspartame approval process. As a
hard-driving business executive at Searle he was awarded the
"Outstanding Chief Executive Officer" in 1980 and 1981 for his efforts
to reshape the company. He may have helped reshape America too with the
help of the FDA and the diet food and drink industry. Cronyism scored a
direct hit.
Since 1983, when the FDA approved aspartame for human
use in diet drinks, the public has taken the bait for an easy fix to
get rid of a flabby gut and extra pounds. Why not drink yourself out of
obesity? It would seem, at the onset, a completely rational thing to do;
watch the pounds float away by drinking a sugar-free can or bottle of
pop, many times a day.
Ka-ching, ka-ching, the profits roll in on a mix of
carbonated water, caramel flavoring and coloring, sweetened with a white
crystalline powder called aspartame. The FDA says it's safe so every
day millions of people drink, eat and brush their teeth with concoctions
laden with aspartame. As noted earlier, many medications even contain
the substance. A Massachusetts pharmacist created a list of about 150
aspartame-containing drug products of which many are targeted for
children (not including generics).
The retailers wrap the package with usual advertising
gimmickry and the campaign rolls on with insidious get-thin quick
implications. It even goes to war; we supply our troops with a
refreshing drink of home, never mind that it has been reported to
trigger aggressive behavior and anger. On the other hand, maybe a little
bottled road-rage on the battlefield is desirable? Not to worry, any
long-term medical consequences to our best and brightest can be shoved
over to the Veterans Administration where the budget is already strained
to the breaking point.
It is unfortunate that studies like the following
have to be done after and not before the genie gets out of the bottle.
Studies such as those done by the Ramazzini-Soffritti group in Italy and
by P. Humphries, E. Pretorius and H. Naudé at the University of
Pretoria, South Africa, show that aspartame is a potent neurotoxin and
endocrine disruptor. The latter study was published in European Journal
of Clinical Nutrition in 2008. A neurotoxin is like rattlesnake venom or
poison from a black widow spider. Endocrine glands include the thyroid,
adrenal and pituitary glands.
On the pro-aspartame side, company scientists report
that certain fruits contain more methanol than does aspartame. While
this fact may be true, what they don't say is that ethyl alcohol is also
found in natural fruits which is the antidote for methanol. On the left
side, independent medical doctors, scientists and chemists say that is
an essential and critical difference. When consumed alone, methanol
(wood alcohol) is extremely dangerous and can cause blindness and even
death.
According to the U. S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), animal data and human historical epidemiological
information show that methanol may produce acute toxicity. Casarett and
Doull's Toxicology (Klaassen et al 1986) points out that whenever access
to ethanol had been restricted (e.g., during Prohibition in the 1920s),
the incidence of methanol poisoning has increased. “The characteristic
results of an epidemic are that a third of those exposed to methanol
recover with no residues, a third have severe visual loss or blindness,
and a third die. Thus in sufficiently high doses methanol has profound
systemic effects."
The General Foods study by Roak-Foltz and Leveille,
found that the average adult will ingest approximately 87 mg of methanol
on a daily basis when substituting artificial sweeteners in their food.
Since this date was gathered in 1977-1978, it is likely the amounts
have increased substantially.
Both the U.S. Air Force magazine "Flying Safety" and
the U.S. Navy magazine, "Navy Physiology" published articles warning
about the many dangers of aspartame including the cumulative deleterious
effects of methanol and other reactions. The articles note that the
ingestion of aspartame may make pilots more susceptible to seizures and
vertigo (U.S. Air Force 1992). Many pilots appear to be particularly
susceptible to the effects of aspartame ingestion, probably because of
trying to stay hydrated in a low-humidity atmosphere. They have reported
numerous serious toxicity effects including grand mal seizures in the
cockpit. A grand mal seizure is caused by abnormal electrical activity
throughout the brain. If it is not a good idea to see a pilot at the
controls experience a grand mal seizure one would assume it would be
equally disturbing to see a passenger at 30,000 feet undergo the same
physical incapacitation.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information
(NCBI) published a study done by the Department of Experimental
Physiology, Medical School, University of Athens, Greece, on the the
effect of aspartame metabolites on human erythrocyte membrane
acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity. It is concluded that low
concentrations of ASP (aspartame) metabolites had no effect on the
membrane enzyme activity, whereas high or toxic concentrations partially
or remarkably decreased the membrane AChE activity, respectively.
Additionally, neurological symptoms, including learning and memory
processes, may be related to the high or toxic concentrations of the
sweetener metabolites.This was a short-term study done on healthy
adults. It is therefore not difficult to predict the same or even more
dramatic effects when infants and children consume diet products
throughout their formative years.
The same information was published by the EPA at
their Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO) website. Their
stated purpose is to provide an easy way to view the scientific
literature behind EPA science assessments. HERO is an EVERGREEN database
which means that scientists can keep abreast of new research. There are
more than 300,000 scientific articles from peer-reviewed literature and
new studies are continuously added. HERO is part of the open government
directive to conduct business with transparency, participation and
collaboration. Through HERO, the public can participate in the
decision-making process. One would assume that the FDA and the EPA would
share or coordinate scientific studies.
Need we go further? The academic and medical
community apparently thought yes, the safety of aspartame must be fully
explored since it is being offered in a wide variety of food and drink
products which are consumed by the general public and heavily used by
children.
An aspartame study by C. Trocho et al, was conducted
by the staff of the Biology Department at the University of Barcelona.
It clearly shows that aspartame which was labeled with carbon 14 isotope
was transformed into formaldehyde in the bodies of the living specimens
and that when they were examined later, the radioactive tagged
formaldehyde was found throughout the vital organs of their bodies.
This conclusively proves that aspartame does indeed
convert to formaldehyde in the bodies of aspartame consumers, and that
many of the symptoms reported by victims of aspartame toxicity are
indeed those associated with the poisonous and cumulative effects of
formaldehyde.
Merriam-Webster describes formaldehyde as a
colorless, toxic, potentially carcinogenic, water-soluble gas, CH 2 O,
having a suffocating odor, usually derived from methyl alcohol by
oxidation: used chiefly in aqueous solution, as a disinfectant and
preservative, and in the manufacture of various resins and plastics.
What would renowned French Chef Julia Child have had to say about this
metabolite of aspartame? You can be assured it would not have been “bon
appétit”. Beyond Ms. Child, the International Agency for Research on
Cancer, an intergovernmental agency part of the United Nations World
Health Organization classifies formaldehyde as a Group 1 carcinogen.
In a study at the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research
Center of the European Ramazzini Foundation it was demonstrated for the
first time that aspartame is a multipotent carcinogenic agent when
various doses are administered with feed to Sprague-Dawley rats from 8
weeks of age throughout the life span. In the second Ramazzini-Soffritti
study it was concluded that the results reinforced the first study and
when life-span exposure to aspartame begins at fetal life, its
carcinogenic effects are increased.
When considering what should have been done to
protect the public there is little doubt in many minds that the ethics
of the FDA and its safety net for the general public were severely
compromised at best, non-existent at worst.
Some of the adverse symptoms that have been reported
include the following: impotence, reduced female response, numbness,
tingling nerves, aggressive behavior, spontaneous anger, anxiety,
aggravation of phobias, depression, grand mal seizures and a combination
of symptoms that mimic a heart attack. Since another aspartame
constituent (phenylalanine) tends to inhibit serotonin process in the
human body, it might be important to examine another
phenylalanine/serotonin imbalance. That imbalance shows cause for
concern.
Professor Michele Ernandes and colleagues at the
University of Palermo offer an explanation of the relationship of
reduced brain serotonin synthesis and behavioral consequences. In their
studies the reduced brain serotonin synthesis was brought on by a
specific dietary imbalance. Could it be that a similar dietary imbalance
occurs when large amounts of aspartame are introduced into the diet?
Ernandes states that serotonin deficiency involves several behavioral
consequences such as tendency towards aggressive behavior, increase of
intraspecific competition, increase of magic thought or religious
fanaticism. The professor focuses on cereals utilized for human feeding.
His target is maize which has a very low “trp/LNAAs” value
(tryptophan/Large Neutral Amino Acids ratio).
Maize was firstly and largely utilized by Native
American peoples and this is particularly interesting in the study of
the Aztec human sacrifice/cannibalism complex. Historical data reveal
that cannibalism occurred in period of the year when maize dependence
was greater, supporting the hypothesis of Ernandes and his associates
that serotonin deficiency among the Aztecs might have accentuated their
religious and aggressive behavior patterns on the one hand, and on the
other it might have led them unconsciously, towards anthropophagy in
order to attenuate it (rising “trp/LNAAs” value by means of human
proteins) when it became too strong.
It would seem that the study by the Ernandes group
would have a correlation with many of other studies that show adverse
behavioral consequences of aspartame consumption.
There are also numerous other neurological symptoms
that have been reported. If any of these conditions are present, would
it not be beneficial to eliminate consumption of any product that
contains aspartame? It will take some label-reading but it is a
cost-free endeavor. After a few months of abstention from all products
that contain aspartame you may feel like a new person or perhaps your
mate will feel like you're a new person. If not, you've possibly lost
nothing but a few pounds. Could it be that the low pH of soft drinks
(around 3.0) causes the body to retain fluids trying to re-balance the
body's natural pH balance of 6.5 or so?
The Harvard School of Public Health reports that a
eight-year study conducted by Department of Medicine, Division of
Clinical Epidemiology, The University of Texas Health Science Center at
San Antonio, Texas, found that of nearly 3,700 residents of San Antonio,
Texas, those who averaged three or more artificially sweetened
beverages a day were more likely to have gained weight over an
eight-year period than those who didn't drink artificially sweetened
beverages. Although this finding is suggestive, keep in mind that it
doesn't prove that artificially sweetened soft drinks caused the weight
gain.
The San Antonio study group went on to say that their
findings raise the question whether AS (artificial sweeteners) use
might be fueling--rather than fighting--our escalating obesity epidemic.
If you are a regular or long-time consumer of
artificially sweetened products and have not yet experienced any side
effects of aspartame and its metabolites, perhaps you are just lucky or
have a natural immunity to carcinogens and/or neurotoxins. If however,
you don't like the odds or have doubts about natural immunity or about
the controversial science, there might be an easy way to protect
yourself.
For fundamentalists there is a long-term, pragmatic
approach; simply drink water. God created it to be used for human
consumption about the same time he created man, some 6,000 years ago.
For those who believe in the Big-Bang theory of evolution, water has a
phenomenal record of satiating the thirst of man, beast and fowl for
millions of years.
For the person climbing the corporate ladder or for
an individual on the fast-track to the top of the class, there are some
sheik, expensive and exotic waters from many parts of the world that
will make a statement on fashion or status while at the same time
quenching one's thirst.
By choosing clear, uncontaminated natural waters as
your favorite thirst-quencher you just might be rewarded with serene
composure, vitality, good mental and physical health, strength and
stamina, a steady hand and freedom of pain.
Stay thirsty my friends! But remember, "caveat
emptor” is the catch-phrase when reading the labels on products that you
intend to introduce into your body.
Charles Foerster is a former Naval Aviator and professional pilot. jcfoers@msn.com
