Toxicology Lesson 1: Aspartame

Okay, just to share a little snippet

of what I learnt today in my toxicology module.

It's about food additives.

The reasons I want to share this are many,

but mainly it's to rectify any misconceptions

that the public, and you, may have about them.

Overall, the info may be overwhelming

so I'll split them into several parts over a couple of days!

(Just to make your learning that much easier)

Any questions, comments, whatever -feel free to comment! :)

Okay, here we go!

Number one on the list is aspartame.

We all know of this one -the famous low-calorie sweetener.

Found in your local coffee bar, in diet drinks, even in candy and gum.

Aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sucrose (i.e. sugar)

but is low-calorie, and does not affect blood glucose levels.

Hence, even diabetics can take foods/ drinks with aspartame.

There is no "aspartame" in our blood, because

aspartame is broken down into 3 components in our intestines:

aspartate, methanol and phenylalanine.

(Hence people with phenylketonuria, a genetic condition

making them unable to handle phenylalanine, should avoid it.)

Aspartate and phenylalanine are amino acids.

They are part of proteins, and are part of many foods we eat.

Our body does not handle them any differently,

and is perfectly capable of getting them through our system.

How about methanol?

Yes, methanol is damaging, but only at very high doses.

In order to experience such damage,

one would have to drink about 
41 litres of diet soft drinks in one sitting.

Highly unlikely, won't you agree?

and get this:

compared to a glass of soft drink sweetened 100% with aspartame,

1) a glass of milk has 6 times more phenylalanine and 13 times more aspartic acid

2) a glass of tomato juice has about 6 times more methanol.

but why are we not worried about these?

because they are found from natural sources,

and aspartame is synthetic (i.e. man-made).

so regrettably, these are often disliked by some paranoid individuals

added to hype from the media = synthetics cast in a bad light.

but does our body discriminate between them

after they are broken down? NO.

Conclusion: Aspartame is completely safe at the current level of consumption.

So put your feet up and ignore your nagging mum

go ahead, have that bottle of diet cola :)