Aspartame

Aspartame

Pronunciation: 'as-p&r-"tAm, &-'spär-"tAm
Function: noun
Etymology: aspartic acid + phenylalanine + methyl + ester
: a crystalline compound C₁₄H₁₈N₂O₅ that is a diamide synthesized from phenylalanine and aspartic acid and that is used as a low-calorie sweetener

Well even though I already knew the word aspartame I thought it would be on topic to put an official definition since today's topic isin factt aspartame.

I don't want to write too much on the topic as there are numerous resources available on the web. But anyway I watched the documentary Sweet Misery, A Poisoned World about aspartame. It tells the stories of some people who have had severe medical conditions that have been caused by or contributed to by their excess intake of artificial sweeteners. Even more interesting is the story around how it became legalised and the politics around this. It is obvious that there was something suspicious going on.

Basically aspartame has effects on the brain. It has caused brain tumours in animals, and the documentary purports that it can be linked to other mental disorders. Relevant to me is that is has been linked to seratonin production. It hasformaldehydee as a by product which as I understand it is a poison that just hangs around and can't be processed by the body.

Here is a really good page opposing aspartame:

Dorway

It states that a recently released study conclusively links aspartame to cancer. You can read the press release here or the entire study here. Both links were taken from the dorway site.

And here is the official aspartame page supporting it:

Aspartame Information Service

So anyway I encourage everyone to have a look and make up their own mind. Like I said yesterday if there's this much controversy and people working very hard to prove this is a harmful chemical to humans then I have decided not to risk it, as I know I'm not getting any health benefits from diet coke anyway and so my health can only improve.

On a completely unrelated topic I was watching Rome again last night (the next episode) and it was GREAT! I am so loving this series. Anyway I remembered one particularly lovely quotation. Lucius is a Roman soldier who has been in Gaul for 8 years away from his wife, he just about to be reunited with her and a fellow soldier Titus Pullo is explaining why Lucius is so scared about going back to his wife: "What if she's lost her teeth? What is she's gone skinny? What if she's let some other man..." well the rest of the sentence isn't appropriate for my blog. But I thought it was so wonderful a man being worried about his wife getting skinny! I was so expecting him to say what if she's got fat? But no he was worried about her getting skinny. How times have changed.