See video.. it is very compaling information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=derZbxZEMcI&feature=player_embedded#!

Worse than High Fructose Corn Syrup

Posted by Dr. Mercola | March 30 2010 | 147,318 views

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  This Common Food Ingredient Can Really Mess Up Your Metabolism

• Headache
• Change in vision
• Convulsions and seizures
• Hallucination
• Nausea and vomiting
• Joint pain

It can cause many, many other problems as well.

Aspartame is the most controversial food additive in history, and its approval for use in food was the most contested in FDA history. In the end, the artificial sweetener was approved, not on scientific grounds, but rather because of strong political and financial pressure. After all, aspartame was previously listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent!

It’s hard to believe such a chemical would be allowed into the food supply, but it was, and it has been wreaking silent havoc with people’s health for the past 30 years.

The truth is, it should never have been released onto the market, and allowing it to remain in the food chain is seriously hurting people – no matter how many times you rebrand it under fancy new names.

The Deceptive Marketing of Aspartame

Sold commercially under names like NutraSweet, Canderel, and now AminoSweet, aspartame can be found in more than 6,000 foods, including soft drinks, chewing gum, table-top sweeteners, diet and diabetic foods, breakfast cereals, jams, sweets, vitamins, prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

Aspartame producer Ajinomoto chose to rebrand it under the name AminoSweet, to “remind the industry that aspartame tastes just like sugar, and that it’s made from amino acids – the building blocks of protein that are abundant in our diet.”

This is deception at its finest: Begin with a shred of truth, and then spin it to fit your own agenda.

In this case, the agenda is to make you believe that aspartame is somehow a harmless, natural sweetener made with two amino acids that are essential for health and present in your diet already.

They want you to believe aspartame delivers all the benefits of sugar and none of its drawbacks. But nothing could be further from the truth.

How Aspartame Wreaks Havoc on Your Health

Did you know there have been more reports to the FDA for aspartame reactions than for all other food additives combined?

In fact, there are over 10,000 official complaints, but by the FDA’s own admission, less than 1 percent of those who experience a reaction to a product ever report it. So in all likelihood, the toxic effects of aspartame may have affected roughly a million people already.

While a variety of symptoms have been reported, almost two-thirds of them fall into the neurological and behavioral category consisting mostly of headaches, mood alterations, and hallucinations. The remaining third is mostly gastrointestinal symptoms.

This video will familiarize you with some of the terrifying side-effects and health problems you could encounter if you consume products containing this chemical.

Unfortunately, aspartame toxicity is not well-known by doctors, despite its frequency. Diagnosis is also hampered by the fact that it mimics several other common health conditions, such as:

How Diet Foods and Drinks CAUSE Weight Problems

In recent years, food manufacturers have increasingly focused on developing low-calorie foods and drinks to help you maintain a healthy weight and avoid obesity. Unfortunately, the science behind these products is so flawed, most of these products can actually lead to increased weight gain!

For example, researchers have discovered that drinking diet soda increases your risk of metabolic syndrome, and may double your risk of obesity – the complete opposite of the stated intention behind these “zero calorie” drinks.

The sad truth is that diet foods and drinks ruin your body’s ability to count calories, and in fact stimulate your appetite, thus boosting your inclination to overindulge.

Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as an acceptable alternative to sugar, which is at best confusing and at worst harming the health of those who take their misguided advice.

Even More Toxic Dangers of Aspartame

Truly, there is enough evidence showing the dangers of consuming artificial sweeteners to fill an entire book — which is exactly why I wrote Sweet Deception. If you or your loved ones drink diet beverages or eat diet foods, this book will explain how you’ve been deceived about the truth behind artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose — for greed, for profits, and at the expense of your health.

As mentioned earlier, almost two-thirds of all documented side effects of aspartame consumption are neurological.

One of the reasons for this side effect, researchers have discovered, is because the phenylalanine in aspartame dissociates from the ester bond. While these amino acids are indeed completely natural and safe, they were never designed to be ingested as isolated amino acids in massive quantities, which in and of itself will cause complications.

Additionally this will also increase dopamine levels in your brain. This can lead to symptoms of depression because it distorts your serotonin/dopamine balance. It can also lead to migraine headaches and brain tumors through a similar mechanism.

The aspartic acid in aspartame is a well-documented excitotoxin. Excitotoxins are usually amino acids, such as glutamate and aspartate. These special amino acids cause particular brain cells to become excessively excited, to the point that they die.

Excitotoxins can also cause a loss of brain synapses and connecting fibers. A review conducted in 2008 by scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo found that consuming a lot of aspartame may inhibit the ability of enzymes in your brain to function normally, and may lead to neurodegeneration.

According to the researchers, consuming a lot of aspartame can disturb:

• The metabolism of amino acids
• Protein structure and metabolism
• The integrity of nucleic acids
• Neuronal function
• Endocrine balances

Furthermore, the ester bond in aspartame breaks down to formaldehyde and methanol, which are also toxic in their own right. So it is not surprising that this popular artificial sweetener has also been found to cause cancer.

One truly compelling case study that shows this all too well was done by a private citizen named Victoria Inness-Brown. She decided to perform her own aspartame experiment on 108 rats over a period of 2 years and 8 months.

Daily, she fed some of the rats the equivalent (for their body weight) of two-thirds the aspartame contained in 8-oz of diet soda. Thirty-seven percent of the females fed aspartame developed tumors, some of massive size.

How to Ditch Artificial Sweeteners, and Satiate Your Sweet Tooth

If you suffer from sweet cravings, it’s easy to convince yourself you’re doing the right thing by opting for a zero-calorie sweetener like aspartame. Please understand that you will do more harm than good to your body this way.

First, it’s important to realize that your body craves sweets when you’re not giving it the proper fuel it needs.

Finding out your nutritional type will tell you exactly which foods you need to eat to feel full and satisfied. It may sound hard to believe right now, but once you start eating right for your nutritional type, your sweet cravings will significantly lessen and may even disappear.

Meanwhile, be sure you address the emotional component to your food cravings using a tool such as the Meridian Tapping Technique (MTT). More than any traditional or alternative method I have used or researched, MTT works to overcome food cravings and helps you reach dietary success.

And, if diet soda is the culprit for you, be sure to check out Turbo Tapping, which is an extremely effective and simple tool to get rid of your soda addiction in a short period of time.

Non-Acceptable Alternative Sweeteners

I have written a few articles on fructose earlier this year, and I will be writing many more, so please be aware that I am absolutely convinced that fructose ingestion is at the core of our obesity epidemic.

And I’m not only talking about high fructose corn syrup, which is virtually identical to table sugar. The only major difference between the two is HFCS is much cheaper so it has contributed to massive increase in fructose ingestion, far beyond safe or healthy.

Please understand you need to keep your fructose levels BELOW 25 grams per day. The best way to do that is to avoid these “natural” sweeteners as they are loaded with a much higher percentage of fructose than HFCS.

• Fruit Juice
• Agave
• Honey

Please note that avoiding these beyond 25 grams per day is crucial, even if the source is fresh, raw, and organic. It just doesn’t matter, fructose is fructose is fructose…

Acceptable Alternative Sweeteners

For those times when you just want a taste of something sweet, your healthiest alternative is Stevia. It’s a natural plant and, unlike aspartame and other artificial sweeteners that have been cited for dangerous toxicities, it is a safe, natural alternative that’s ideal if you’re watching your weight, or if you’re maintaining your health by avoiding sugar.

It is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar and truly has virtually no calories.

I must tell you that I am biased; I prefer Stevia as my sweetener of choice, and I frequently use it. However, like most choices, especially sweeteners, I recommend using Stevia in moderation, just like sugar. In excess it is still far less likely to cause metabolic problems than sugar or any of the artificial sweeteners.

I want to emphasize, that if you have insulin issues, I suggest that you avoid sweeteners altogether, including Stevia, as they all can decrease your sensitivity to insulin.

Lo han is another sweetener like Stevia. It’s an African sweet herb that can also be used, but it’s a bit more expensive and harder to find.

So if you struggle with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or extra weight, then you have insulin sensitivity issues and would benefit from avoiding ALL sweeteners.

But for everyone else, if you are going to sweeten your foods and beverages anyway, I strongly encourage you to consider using regular Stevia or Lo han, and toss out all artificial sweeteners and any products that contain them.
Related Links:

Aspartame: Killing You By Degrees

Aspartame, Brain Cancer and the FDA

DR. MERCOLA

Sweet Poison

For the next hour and a half, we watched in horror and disbelief as the story unfolded, telling how the artificial sweetener aspartame has poisoned millions of people in the 20 years since it’s been on the market, crippling many (like Cori Brackett) and killing others.

One of those people could have been me. I’d always felt good about drinking diet colas, knowing that I was cutting calories by avoiding the sugar in other soft drinks. It was like getting something for free, and while I didn’t consume a lot, it had become my favorite social drink—something to hold at cocktail parties, since I rarely chose alcohol. I never imagined that it could literally be pickling my liver, putting me at risk for brain cancer, and possibly giving me wild mood swings.

It turns out that my nonalcoholic drink of choice is highly toxic, filled with substances that turn to alcohol in my body. And not the pleasant kind that gives you a buzz, which is ethyl alcohol, but the kind drunks die or go blind from: methyl alcohol, more commonly known as wood alcohol.

Aspartame, marketed as Nutrasweet, Equal and Spoonful (UK), is a peptide consisting of two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, both normally supplied by the protein-rich foods we eat….

Aspartic acid and phenylalanine occur naturally in foods that we eat in small quantities. Both of these amino acids are known excitotoxins, which can cause neurons to become overexcited to the point of burnout and death. Monosodium Glutamate (MS), another legal food additive, also falls into this category.

Another neurological link is that both peptides are involved in neurotransmitter function. Phenylalinine is the building block of norepinephrine, which increases in the brain when you take aspartame into your body. This can throw off the ratio of norepinephrine to serotonin, another neurotransmitter that regulates mood.

The impact of all this unbalancing in neurotransmitter ratios can be panic symptoms, mood disorders, and, for some people, altered seizure thresholds, leading to convulsions…

As if this weren’t enough, attached to the end of the aspartic acid and phenylalanine is a third component, a methyl-ester group that breaks off easily to become methanol in the body. Methanol is also a naturally occurring substance found in foods that you and I consume. But the key word again is food, because when you eat an apple, for example, methanol is carried through your body by the natural apple fiber (known as “pectin”) and easily eliminated. Alone, methanol is wood alcohol, a known poison, which causes blindness in those desperate enough to drink it.

And it gets worse: Methanol is broken down in the liver to produce an even more toxic substance, formeldahyde. This is known to most people as the fluid used by undertakers to embalm corpses….formaldehyde has been listed as a carcinogen by the EPA, and the reference book clearly states that ingestion of this substance in large doses can cause death….

Sweet Misery (the movie) went on with astounding but increasingly plausible information about how rashes, terrible headaches, and over 40 other symptoms could be traced to aspartame use….

Even more alarming, we learned that the National Cancer Insititue reported an increase in rates of brain cancer since 1985, very possibly linked to aspartame use…In 1984, 6.9 million pounds of aspartame were consumed by Americans…doubled the next year and continues to climb.

Two years after aspartame was introduced the brain tumor rate jumped 10 percent in the U. S., while incidents of brain lymphoma, an aggressive and unusual type of tumor, jumped 60 percent. This huge increase wasn’t due to innovative scanning and diagnostic procedures, as some claimed; other forms of cancer remained the same during that time period.

How in God’s name did the FDA, the country’s largest watchdog agency for protecting consumers in their food and drug choices, let this slip by?

The story of how aspartame got approval by the FDA has some scary political undertones. For 16 years, the laboratory that produced the food additive, G.D. Searle and Co, had petitioned the FDA for approval, but they failed to show that it was safe, and no FDA commissioner would approve it. Then, just days after President Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, a new FDA commissioner was appointed and given the authority to ignore a law that said food additives must test conclusively for safety in order to receive approval.

Politics, economics, and special interests at play? Perhaps. But aspartame was in under the door, and Nutrasweet, the best-known product containing aspartame, came on the market. According to the FDA, aspartame is the most complained-about substance in their history, with over 10,000 official complaints reporting a range of side effects, including neurological ones.

Sweet Misery ended on a poignant and disturbing note with an interview of a woman held in a federal prison. Diane Fleming is serving a 50-year prison sentence in Virginia for poisoning her husband, who died of cardiac arrest after exercising vigorously in hot weather and drinking large quantities of an aspartame-laced sport drink.

In the interview, this tearful, sympathetic woman described how an attending physician suspected poisoning, and upon doing the autopsy, found the body full of formaldehyde that had literally pickled the internal organs. At the trial, the defense incorrectly stated that such a condition could only be explained by someone slipping a methanol-containing product, such as windshield-wiper fluid, into the poor man’s drink. The most likely suspect was his wife, whom the jury found guilty, condemning her to a lifetime in prison, where she is today.

The credits rolled and I clicked off the DVD player. Nancy and I sat in front of the darkened screen, stunned and speechless. Finally I turned to Nancy and said, “Do you think she murdered her husband? My guess is no way! ”

I agree!” Nancy exclaimed. “Plus, she had no motive. Her husband had been drinking large quantities of diet soda for years, and on the day he died he was chugging that diet drink poison instead of water.”

“God… if one person can die of an overdose, then all the toxic side effects are plausible,” I said.” I hadn’t realized that there’s a methanol-generating side chain on the end of aspartame!” I mentally vowed to check out the scientific facts as soon as I got back to Washington, already regretting that in my lectures I’d often used aspartame as an example of a simple dipeptide.

Aspartame Disease: An FDA-Approved Epidemic

By, H. J. Roberts, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.C.C.P.

(Our note; Equal & Nutrasweet are made from Aspartame)

“Diet” products containing the chemical sweetener aspartame can have multiple neurotoxic, metabolic, allergenic, fetal and carcinogenic effects. My database of 1,200 aspartame reactors–based on logical diagnostic criteria, including predictable recurrence on rechallenge–is reviewed.

The existence of aspartame disease continues to be denied by the FDA and powerful corporate entities. Its magnitude, however, warrants removal of this chemical as an “imminent public health threat.” The use of aspartame products by over two-thirds of the population, and inadequate evaluation by corporate-partial investigators underscore this opinion.

As said by Senator Howard Metzenbaum (1):

“We had better be sure that the questions that have been raised about the safety of this product are answered. I must say at the outset, this product was approved by the FDA in circumstances that can only be described as troubling.”

I have devoted more than two decades to analyzing aspartame disease, a widespread but largely ignored disorder. Its existence continues to be reflexively denied by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American Medical Association (AMA), and many public health/ regulatory organizations.

An Overview of Aspartame Disease

As far back as 1988, seven years after the initial release of aspartame, 80 percent (!) of complaints volunteered by consumers to the FDA about supplements involved aspartame

For orientation about the gravity of this public health dilemma, I shall mention just a few of the published associations in aspartame reactors. They include the initiation or aggravation of diabetes mellitus, hypoglycemia, convulsions, headache, depression, other psychiatric states, hyperthyroidism, hypertension and arthritis; the simulation of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and lupus erythematosus; increasing aspartame addiction; an apparent causative role in brain tumors; a neurologic condition in overweight young women known as pseudotumor cerebri; and even the carpal tunnel syndrome.

In my opinion, lack of awareness of aspartame disease has resulted in gross miscarriage of justice. Examples include attributing the symptoms of weight-conscious women consuming considerable amounts of aspartame to silicone breast implants in expensive litigation, and imprisonment for the alleged methanol poisoning of a deceased spouse who consumed large amounts of aspartame.

For complete article, click below;

http://www.mercola.com/2004/jan/7/aspartame_disease.htm

How Does Aspartame Damage Your Brain?

Consuming a lot of aspartame may inhibit the ability of enzymes in your brain to function normally, according to a new review by scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo.

The review found that high doses of the sweetener may lead to neurodegeneration. It has also previously been found that aspartame consumption can cause neurological and behavioral disturbances in sensitive individuals.

Specifically, the review found a number of direct and indirect changes that occur in your brain as a result of high consumption levels of aspartame, including disturbing:

The metabolism of amino acids

Protein structure and metabolism

The integrity of nucleic acids

Neuronal function

Endocrine balances

Further, the breakdown of aspartame causes nerves to fire excessively, which can indirectly lead to a high rate of neuron depolarization.

Despite these growing concerns, neither the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have changed their guidelines regarding the safety of the ingredient or intake advice.

Sources:

Food Quality News April 6, 2008

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2008, 62, 451–462

For more info. on artificial sweeteners visit; http://www.healthmyths.net/view_learning.php?learning_id=14

By Dr. Janet Hull

“We’ve done a great job of redefining sweetness, and it’s great to see it pay off,” says Anne Rewey, Splenda marketing director for Ft. Washington, Pennsylvania-based McNeil Corp. “We’re committed to the leadership position in this market.”

Sucralose (Splenda®) is a chlorocarbon and is more accurately compared to ingesting tiny amounts of chlorinated pesticides. The chlorocarbons have long been known for causing organ, genetic, and reproductive damage. It should be no surprise then, that the testing of sucralose reveals it causes up to 40% shrinkage of the thymus: a gland that is the very foundation of our immune system. Sucralose also causes swelling of the liver and kidneys, calcification of the kidney, fertility issues in male rates, and gastrointestinal problems in pregnant rats. If you experience kidney pain, cramping, swelling, an irritated bladder, or blood in your urine after using sucralose in Splenda, stop use immediately.

Sucralose (trichlorogalactosucrose) was approved by the FDA in 1988 as a tabletop sweetener and for use in a number of desserts, confections, and nonalcoholic beverages. Splenda is approximately 600 times sweeter than sugar. But the sweetness is forced, not like a natural sugar the body uses for fuel. People forget that sweetness is a by-product of foods; a bonus so to say. Forced sweetness, revved-up sweetness, and ‘super-sized’ artificial sweetness – all altered foods – are a trap for people to get addicted to sweeter tastes. People with eating disorders, children who are just learning about food, and those with illnesses are being sold yet another “bill of rubbish.”

I took the following information directly from a statement from the manufacturer of Splenda:

“Sucralose is made from sugar, but is derived from sucrose (sugar) through a process that selectively substitutes three atoms of chlorine for three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sucrose molecule. No artificial sweetener made in the laboratory is going to be neither natural to the body nor safer than unprocessed sugar,” they claim.

Corporate researchers also claim that the chlorine atoms in Splenda have been altered to be so tightly bound, they create a molecular structure that is exceptionally stable under extreme pH and temperature conditions.

I do not agree that the presence of chlorine is safe in any form, and feel this “concept” of altering foods is dangerous to human health any way you slice it.

The corporations say sucralose is safe. They said the same thing about aspartame, and look at the rampant disease and obesity taking over America since aspartame was put into the food supply over twenty years ago.

Over the past twenty years of aspartame research, I have learned to value independent research results above those that are funded by the corporations. If you had the luxury of selecting which research results to submit as final payment for your laboratory study, would you submit the good or the bad results? Aspartame research is the symbol of proof this predicament exists today, and history appears to be repeating itself with Splenda.

Any animal that eats chlorine (especially on a regular basis) is at risk of cancer. The Merck Manuel and OSHA 40 SARA 120 Hazardous Waste Handbook states that chlorine is a carcinogen and emergency procedures should be taken when exposed via swallowing, inhaling, or through the skin. Currently, the safety of chlorine added to our public water supply is questioned as a cause of cancer. Now chlorine is being marketed to children in diet colas, sweetener packets, ice creams, yogurts, processed foods, gums, candies, and mints.

It is important to remember that an individual’s reaction to sucralose, as with aspartame, depends upon how much is used and how often. Age, present and past health status, overall dietary habits, and the degree of other toxins present inside the body also influence individual health responses to toxic chemicals in foods.

Corporate researchers claim sucralose has been thoroughly tested. Actually they have stated that sucralose is the most tested food additive in history. I quote, “…more than 100 studies on the safety of sucralose designed to meet the highest scientific standards have been conducted and evaluated over the course of 20 years.”

They stated, verbatim, the same thing about aspartame. Consumers are witnessing the same state of affairs in many ways. As with NutraSweet – no human studies were done, corporate pay rolled researchers were responsible for the results submitted to the FDA, to the media, and to AMA journals, only selective research results were reproduced, millions of dollars have been spent on advertising, and the lack of ‘government involvement’ is clearly documented amid the thousands of consumer complaints.

I don’t drink from my swimming pool, fish tank, or public tap. Do you?

Visit www.splendaexposed.com for extensive info. on Splenda

And, WATCH THIS!! http://www.sweetdeception.com/

Splenda contains a potential poison

Splenda contains the drug sucralose. This chemical is 600 times sweeter than sugar. To make sucralose, chlorine is used. Chlorine has a split personality. It can be harmless or it can be life threatening.

In combo with sodium, chlorine forms a harmless “ionic bond” to yield table salt. Sucralose makers often highlight this worthless fact to defend its’ safety. Apparently, they missed the second day of Chemistry 101 – the day they teach “covalent” bonds.

When used with carbon, the chlorine atom in sucralose forms a “covalent” bond. The end result is the historically deadly “organochlorine” or simply: a Really-Nasty Form of Chlorine (RNFOC).

Unlike ionic bonds, covalently bound chlorines are a big no-no for the human body. They yield insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides – not something you want in the lunch box of your precious child. It’s therefore no surprise that the originators of sucralose, chemists Hough and Phadnis, were attempting to design new insecticides when they discovered it! It wasn’t until the young Phadnis accidentally tasted his new “insecticide” that he learned it was sweet. And because sugars are more profitable than insecticides, the whole insecticide idea got canned and a new sweetener called Splenda got packaged.

To hide its origin, Splenda pushers assert that sucralose is “made from sugar so it tastes like sugar.” Sucralose is as close to sugar as Windex is to ocean water.

The RNFOC poses a real and present danger to all Splenda users. It is risky because the RNFOC confers a molecule with a set of super powers that wreak havoc on the human body. For example, Agent Orange, used in the U.S Army’s herbicidal warfare program, is a RNFOC. Exposure can lead to Hodgkin’s lymphoma and non-Hodgkins lymphoma as well as diabetes and various forms of cancer! Other shocking examples are the war gas phosgene, chlordane and lindane. (2) The RNFOC is lethal because it allows poisons to be fat soluble while rendering the natural defense mechanisms of the body helpless.

A poison that is fat soluble is akin to a bomb exploding internally. It invades every nook and cranny of the body. Cell walls and DNA – the genetic map of human life – become nothing more than potential casualties of war when exposed. Sucralose is only 25% water soluble. (3) Which means a vast majority of it may explode internally. In general, this results in weakened immune function, irregular heart beat, agitation, shortness of breath, skin rashes, headaches, liver and kidney damage, birth defects, cancer, cancer and more cancer – for generations! (1)

McNeil asserts that their studies prove it to be safe for everyone, even children. That’s little assurance. Learning from the Vioxx debacle (and many others highlighted in my book Health Myths Exposed) which killed tens of thousands, we know that studies can be bought and results fabricated.

Some things are worth dying for. Splenda is not one of them. What people think of as a food is a drug or slow poison – little distinction there. It wouldn’t be wise to bet your health on it. If safe, sucralose would be the first molecule in human history that contained a RNFOC fit for human consumption. This fact alone makes sucralose questionable for use as a sweetener, if not instantly detrimental to our health. Only time will tell. Until then, Ill stick to the safe and naturally occurring stevia plant to satisfy my occasional sweet tooth in 2007.

Be forewarned though, as long as drugs can be legally disguised as sweeteners, watch out for drugs being disguised as vitamins…Oh wait, they are already doing that – think Lipitor.

Shane “The People’s Chemist” Ellison has an MS in organic chemistry and has first hand experience in drug design and synthesis. He is an internationally recognized authority on therapeutic nutrition and the author of Health Myths Exposed, The Hidden Truth About Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs and The AM-PM Fat Loss Discovery.

For more info. on artificial sweeteners visit; http://www.healthmyths.net/view_learning.php?learning_id=14