Artificial Sweeteners and Their Serious Side Effects

Thank you so much for trying to make the public aware of this epidemic. I myself am a victim of the artificial sweetener side effects. A couple of years ago in an effort to lose weight for my wedding, I started using "diet" products. Within a week, I was experiencing severe headaches, uncontrollable tremors, extreme fatigue, nausea and irritability. Thinking I had become hypoglycemic, I bought a glucose meter and began testing up to 6 times a day. My levels were always normal. At the gym one day, I met a doctor. Explaining my symptoms to her, she asked me if I used artificial sweeteners. I replied that I did and she told me to stop them and see how I felt in a few days. Lo and behold, my symptoms dissipated day by day. She explained that she had written articles on the effects of artificial sweeteners and that honey or natural sugar would be better than ANY artificial sweeteners. She explained that she had a patient that had come to her diagnosed with MS and after she told him to quit the sweeteners, he returned better, able to walk again and was able to cope without his medication for the MS. I am happy to report that 2.5 years later, I am doing much better and refuse to touch anything with artificial sweeteners in it. I try to warn anyone that I know. I've helped friends that had chronic headaches by informing them of the dangers of these sweeteners. Not surprisingly, their persistent headaches ceased. So thank you to everyone sharing their stories and helping to get the word out!!!

Here are my thoughts on Aspertame. I suspect that if someone has Gum Disease, or a leaky Gut, or Diabetes, then a higher concentration of Aspertame is absorbed.

I would guess that the phenyl component might go to fight a fungus, allowing the Methanol to get into the blood and rise sugar levels, creating much more fungus, candida, etc... than it kills.

For "healthy people", or those not afflicted by candida, etc... this may cause no damage. For others, this can cause major problems.
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The idea that sugar causes cancer has been around for a long time. That cancerous cells eat 15x more sugar, and are surrounded by lactic acid, and are anerobic(oxygen deficient), has been known.

Of course there are many types of fungus and different types of cancers, and I am over-generalizing.

Perhaps the candida eats the sugar, and the lactic acid is trying to kill the candida, but if it fails, the cancer has the ability to spread due to the low ph. Perhaps it's friendly bacteria, acidophilus or lactobacillus creating the lactic acid... then again you generate lactic acid through exercise, so perhaps the lactic acid is just a defense mechanism. Unclear.

Gum disease is treated with Chlorhexadine mouthwash. Chlorhexadine also kills ringworm fungus, and has antifungal properties, so I suspect fungus involved there (perhaps Chronic Mucosal Candidaidis).

Anyways, I suspect in some people they absorb much high concentrations of Aspertame, leading to Methanol poisoning and formaldehyde, etc... as you said.

I used to use Equal. I would have these sharp shooting pains in my head and it was frightening. I learned about aspartame and stopped using it. The symptom stopped completely for years.

I noticed that recently I sometimes experience the symptom although not as severe. I wonder if they are sneaking this poison in foods that are supposed to be regular white sugar, although white sugar is a form a poison too. I think I will have to stop consuming foods even with "regular" sugar and maybe even the "no sugar added" ones too. I usually consume low sugars but a little can do a lot of damage for some.

I have accidently consumed low levels of aspartame a few times throughout the years. Whenever I have, the shooting pains start immediately - the same or next day! Please be smart. Don't convince yourself it's okay just because it's on the market and you like the way something tastes and don't want to change your ways.

SIDE EFFECT: 2 years ago I had a Bacardi Breezer and after a short time I experienced a grand mal epileptic seizure. I felt my hearing go and knew I was about to faint. I came to 4-5 minutes later by concerned net-cafe workers who were fanning me. I was completely white and had lost conciousness for several minutes while shaking and jerking.

I just want to warn people of aspartame, I found out it was in the breezer and now I am very weary of this sweetener. It should be taken off the market. I have never had a seizure in my life, and being a traveller it changed my life in terms of travelling, and scared me to the bone. It is totally diregarding people and disrespecting people to keep using this msg and many other food additives. When will we have a say in what we put in us when often times the additives are hidden?

And to Ted, thank you so much for such a great website, you are doing great work and have extensive knowledge. You are helping so many. deep thanks :)

diet soda

recent forgetfulness and is unlike me as am a nurse... drinking diet soda and protein drinks... am aware i am forgeting and is bothersome..so attribute it to aspartame and diet things. am very tired and know i am forgeting calling people anddoing things. so am done drinking all diet things.... same thing happened to me after a week of using the sweet and low .. it is like you are aware you are doing stuff but cant control it ,, very disturbing thank you hope it helps some one out

This afternoon, I visited your site and noted a comment by a reader who said that Ester C made him enraged. It's not the Vitamin C, it's the aspartic acid in the Ester C product. I verified this with an aspartame activist. Aspartic acid is an excitotoxin, a poison that kills brain cells. Yep, it's the same stuff as in aspartame. All of the studies done on Vitamin C were done with sodium ascorbate, which is a type of chemically buffered Vitamin C. It's best to take it as a powder in water, because you can get gastritis if you take too many pills.

Hope that helps,
Christine

"Aspartic acid is an amino acid. Well, amino acids are good for us, right? Don't they keep us healthy ? The answer is yes, amino acids are necessary for good health, EXCEPT when you separate the individual amino acid from its protein chain, and use it as an "isolate" or by itself. (S.Sawada, et al '98)

In aspartame, these become synergistic toxins; one component playing off the other in a dangerous, systemic downward spiral. This eventually gives way to clinical manifestations; "hard-to-diagnose" health complications, and a myriad of medical symptoms and illnesses, which can eventually cause irreversible medical complications and death.

Aspartic acid, in aspartame, is an excitotoxin. An excitotoxin, is a deleterious substance that excites or over stimulates nerve cells. This occurs in the brain, as well as the peripheral nerves, because aspartic acid, in free form, easily crosses the blood-brain barrier. This pathological excitation of nerve cells creates a breakdown of nerve function, as we will see. (L.E.Rosenberg, McGraw-Hill 1991)

I have been consuming about 1 litre a day of diet cola over a three month period. I started getting minor pain in the ankles and lower legs. I put this down to old age etc. In the last 2 weeks the pain became very intense with knees, shoulders and back involved. The pain was now intolerable. I could only crawl around the house. Anti inflamitories had little or no effect. I stopped drinking the aspartame sweetening drink six days ago and the pain has now almost stopped. I am of the opinion that aspartame was the problem. I am of the opinion that the product should be banned.

re: Artificial sweeteners: The blindness thing is real. As a nurse I did my thesis on elderly diabetics. One thing I found that blindness in diabetics, an ongoing issue without artificial sweetners,had become so prevalent that no one with a lick of sense could attribute the increase in blindness to variants of diabetes disease itself. What I did find was that as the use of artificial sweetners increased, so did the incidents of retinal deterioration. The curves when plotted on a graph were almost identical. This means as diabetics steered away from sugared soda, they became more and more blind. Bret

I'm so glad I decided to google artificial sweetners. I am appaled to find out what they turn into in your body. I have been having panic attacks since I started drinking diet soda, I just never saw a conection. I also went to the Dr. last year with what my Dr. thought was an MS episode. I now believe it was from the diet sodas I was consuming. I am not ever touching the stuff again!!!! I've even given the stuff to my toddler on occasion. How could the government allow these products to stay on the market without a warning on the label?

During the early 80's I had an eating disorder. It was not to the point where I would throw up however I could eat a dozen donuts and then go out for pizza. It was like there was no shut off. Then I would fast and run and work out to undo the damage. One Thanksgiving I ran 11 miles in the pouring rain after dinner then went back in and ate half a pie.

I attended a health fair and there was a speaker there-a PHD specializing in anorexia and bulemia. I told her what was going on and she asked how much diet soda I drank a day. It was considerable amount. I drank it instead of eating after a binge. She told me to not use sacharrin again and the problem would go away. It affected the appetite she said.

So I stopped using saccharine and the problem cleared right up.

In hopes of loosing some weight I started drinking diet pop. Before long I noticed that my hips hurt ALOT. I have been on celebrex for years to help with the hip pain, but when I started drinking diet pop the pain was so intense that I was doubling up on the meds as well as taking tylenal to help with the pain.Going to bed was horrible as it hurt so much. Once I stopped drinking pop all together my hip pain went away. I have stopped taking the celebrex and only need tylenal when I have over taxed myself.

Does anyone know which gum or breath mints DO NOT contain Aspartame?

I know all too well the side affects of aspartame. I was addicted to diet coke to the tune of 7-8 cans and sometimes bottles for nearly 10 years. Many of the things on the hit list for side affects I experienced. Headaches, migraines, joint pain in my knees, jitteryness and extreme fatigue. I tried so many times to quit on my own but the withdrawal symptoms were just too much. I broke that habit by accident in 5 days and did it without any withdrawal symptoms at all and I couldn't feel healthier. I have not had one headache, not one migraine, no joint pain, nothing. Read my whole story to find out how I broke this addiction. Thanks,Mike www.dietdrinkaddiction.com

I had a recurring dry cough for over fifteen years until I read that it may be a side effect of artificial sweeteners. I cut way back on Diet Coke (1-2 small glasses per week) and within a couple weeks it disappeared.

I'm a forty year old man who feels like he's in his late fifties. For a long time I just figured it was from being overweight and I still am sure that this contributes. But the sheer level of aches and pains for someone so young seemed extraordinary. Every joint hurts constantly, especially on my left side (I'm a lefty so it figures).

Being overweight, there were two things I did to keep from becoming more so. First, I never liked sweet sodas, so started drinking lemon/lime seltzer. Second, I do like sweet coffee so used a single packet of aspartame in each cup I drink.

One weekend I ran out of seltzer, and being too lazy to get more I just started drinking up my wife's diet orange sodas. By the following Tuesday my aches and pains had worsened so much I considered going to the doctor. Visions of wheelchairs and leukemia were swimming in my head.

I put two and two together and went cold turkey as far as artificial sweeteners go, and about three days later and ever since I have been 100% pain free.

I'm convinced.