New Aspartame report just out

A new report , for those to consider, who wish to: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070626/hl_nm/cancer_aspartame_d c_2;_ylt=AgjKVBRzX6c61NPQchrsOkME1vAI Sandy R

no more for me. thanks

on a lesser level, i have read that aspartame reduces serotonin levels in the brain, causing moodiness, anxiety and depression. i alway do better when i am not using it. i notice a big difference. thanks for posting this.. hugs, sally

May be a stupid question, but is aspartame in Splenda?  Are there any sweetners you can use that are safe?

nope.  aspartame is commonly marketed as nutra-sweet , and splenda is sucralose, which is essentially sugar processed with chlorine and other chemicals.  it's relatively new and although it is assumed to be safe now, who knows what will come out in a few years. from personal experience, i have fewer negative side effects with splenda than i do with aspartame.

Nice timing, I just recently made the decision to stop artificial sweeteners in my diet because there is no value add to me.  Thanks for the article.

I can't keep avoiding this...i have to quit my sweet n lo! What a bummer. They don't mention splenda though. I've heard some not so good things about Splenda as well. Any thoughts on how to sweeten my coffee? Other than spike it with Brandy ? ;-) thanks for sharing -zippi

Try stevia it is a natural sweetner. SweetLeaf is a brand I use ( Vitamin Shoppe has their own label made by Sweetleaf) and has fiber in their product. It has it's place. Not good in everything - but works in coffee and protein shakes. But, you have to stir as you add it to your cup otherwise it will clump. Splenda causes my husband troubles and we have stayed away from aspartame for a while now. Good Luck. Carolyn

Guys!!! Please read the entire study!!!  Aspatame is fine in reasonable quantities, per the FDA and many, many US srudies! The rate in these studies ingest many more times what we ingest.    Please re-read the areas I have highlighted below in red., before you decide for yourselves what to do In my original post at the top here, i purposely did not add what I started to type "So it seems to me that Aspartame is fine. " But I would suggest we not let our kids have many sodas, fot this and other reasons. THEY could have a "lifetime of higher doses of aspartame, and could possibly have ytouble.. " The diet sodas kids are allowed are a major facot in the terrible epidemic of childhood obesity in kids. I wanted to abstain from a comment so people could make up their own minds, but it looks as if some might not have read the whole thing...? SAndy R FDA says unmoved by aspartame/ cancer report

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Tue Jun 26, 3:09 PM ET

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. consumer group called for an urgent Food and Drug Administration review of the safety of aspartame on Monday, but the FDA said there was no immediate need to do so despite a new study showing the sweetener may cause cancer.

ADVERTISEMENT (sorry about the ad - I can;t seem to get rid of it!  Funny that it's one of ther very few meds bandsters should avoid if possible ! - Sandy )

   

Italian researchers published a new study last week that showed aspartame -- widely used in soft drinks -- might cause leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats.

"This is the second study by the same lab showing that aspartame causes cancer in rats," Center for Science in the Public Interest executive director Michael Jacobson said in a telephone interview.

Aspartame is used mostly in soft drinks but is also sold in packets to use in coffee, tea or on food. "People can easily avoid products using Nutrasweet or Equal and keep these products away from kids," Jacobson added.

Morando Soffritti of the Ramazzini Foundation in Bologna, Italy and colleagues tested aspartame in rats, which they allowed to live until they died naturally.

Their study of more than 4,000 rats showed a lifetime of eating high doses of the sweetener raised the likelihood of several types of cancer.

"On the basis of the present findings, we believe that a review of the current regulations governing the use of aspartame cannot be delayed," Soffritti's team wrote in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, which is published by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

"This review is particularly urgent with regard to aspartame-containing beverages, heavily consumed by children."

FDA spokesman Michael Herndon said the agency had not yet reviewed the study.

"However, the conclusions from this second European Ramazzini Foundation are not consistent with those from the large number of studies on aspartame that have been evaluated by FDA, including five previously conducted negative chronic carcinogenicity studies," Herndon said in an e-mail.

"Therefore, at this time, FDA finds no reason to alter its previous conclusion that aspartame is safe as a general purpose sweetener in food."

Jacobson said researchers in previous studies all killed rats at the age of two years. Allowing the rats to live longer may have been a better way to assess the natural risk of cancer, he said.

The CSPI said the Acceptable Daily Intake of aspartame in the United States is 50 mg per kilogram of body weight, equivalent to a 50-pound (20 kg) child drinking 2.5 cans of diet soda a day, or a 150-pound (68 kilogram) adult drinking about 7.5 cans a day. (An equivalent anount for a 300 # person would be 15 or more cans per day -  Anyone having this much daily?            Sandy )

The Italian researchers found a cancer risk at the very highest doses -- double the U.S. Acceptable Daily Intake.

A spokesman for Coca-Cola was not immediately available for comment.

Merisant, which makes Equal, has this statement on its Web site: "The safety of aspartame has been confirmed by regulatory authorities in more than 100 countries, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada, and the European Commission's Scientific Committee on Food, as well as by experts with the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization and World Health Organization."

Jacobson said people should avoid the product for now.

"People shouldn't panic, but they should stop buying beverages and foods containing aspartame," he advised.

if you want people to make up their own minds...why are you adding more to the post once you see that they aren't coming to the conclusion that you apparently wanted them to?