Acceptable daily intake of Aspartame

[Radioguy]

Dr Steve, how much is "too much" aspartame consumption?

I believe there remains controversy over it as being a carcinogen and having an effect on women's menstruation, but is all of that based on small quantities over time? Is there a heightened risk if one consumes diet soda or tea on a daily basis? (especially often to satisfy a sweet tooth)

Thanks in advance.

[Radioguy]

Dr Steve, how much is "too much" aspartame consumption?

I believe there remains controversy over it as being a carcinogen and having an effect on women's menstruation, but is all of that based on small quantities over time? Is there a heightened risk if one consumes diet soda or tea on a daily basis? (especially often to satisfy a sweet tooth)

Thanks in advance.

Hope the second time is the charm...

[Dr Steve]

Dr Steve, how much is "too much" aspartame consumption?

I believe there remains controversy over it as being a carcinogen and having an effect on women's menstruation, but is all of that based on small quantities over time? Is there a heightened risk if one consumes diet soda or tea on a daily basis? (especially often to satisfy a sweet tooth)

Thanks in advance.

We did a long piece on apartame paranoia on Weird Medicine one night...since I am TERRIBLE at indexing topics on the show, I'll have to search to find which one it was.

Aspartame is toxic, if taken in large enough doses, and the "Acceptable Daily Intake" (ADI) is adjusted to be around 10% of the toxic dose (if I remember correctly). The ADI of aspartame is 50 mg/kg of body weight per day (22 cans of a diet soft drink for a 175 pound man; 15 cans for a 120 pound woman; 6 12-oz. cans for a 50-pound child).

Obviously, if you're drinking that much soda, you have other problems.

Aspartame is a "dipeptide", a linking of two amino acids. Massive polypeptides are called "proteins". Aspartame is broken down into its component amino acids in the stomach. One of the byproducts of aspartame metabolism is formaldehyde...this is a fact that has been used by the anti-aspartame lobby to vilify aspartame; the problem with this is that ANY protein has formaldehyde as a byproduct...it's part of the normal metabolism of the human body and the cells can take care of it with no problem whatsoever.

If you want me to go over the anti-aspartame arguments point by point, let me know.

If you have particular questions about aspartame, also let me know. I am not a fan of aspartame, but I'm less a fan of anti-scientific fear-mongering which is all over the internet on this topic.

your pal,



steve

[Radioguy]

I usually drink it by the bottle, and do it for caffeine, as well as satisfying a sweet tooth and just to slake my thirst. Breaking that down can by can I don't think it crosses that line, but at worst I did end up drinking three 2-liters in one day (and I think I skipped a meal).

I'm sure that's not good, but if I had actually crossed that line (let's say I got lost in the desert and found a pepsi truck), what symptoms would I notice if I had?

Also, what specifically makes you not a fan? (compared to the anti-aspartame folks)

Thanks Dr. Steve. :)

[Dr Steve]

I usually drink it by the bottle, and do it for caffeine, as well as satisfying a sweet tooth and just to slake my thirst. Breaking that down can by can I don't think it crosses that line, but at worst I did end up drinking three 2-liters in one day (and I think I skipped a meal).

I'm sure that's not good, but if I had actually crossed that line (let's say I got lost in the desert and found a pepsi truck), what symptoms would I notice if I had?

Also, what specifically makes you not a fan? (compared to the anti-aspartame folks)

Thanks Dr. Steve. :)

Ah, ok, if you DID drink beyond the toxic dose, what would you experience?

First, if you drank that many sodas, you'd have more symptoms from the extra water intake than anything else. Water in that amount is more toxic than the aspartame; remember "Wee for a Wii"? Several things happen: 1) you lose the salt gradient in your kidneys, abolishing their ability to concentrate urine resulting in gross abnormalities in serum salts (bad) 2) all this fresh water in the bloodstream rushes into the salty brain, causing brain swelling, coma and possibly death (really bad) 3) all the carbonation makes you fart and belch like crazy (more amusing than anything else).

So let's forget about the sodas and think about what would happen if you just ate toxic amounts of aspartame powder. First off, since aspartame is really just a little tiny protein, nothing much will happen to you. However, the LONG TERM effects have been postulated to include lymphomas, leukemias, bladder cancer, and other carcinomas. So I did a literature search of the medical databases and found this review article:

Ann Oncol. 2004 Oct;15(10):1460-5.

Artificial sweeteners--do they bear a carcinogenic risk?

Weihrauch MR, Diehl V.

Department of Internal Medicine I of the University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
martin.weihrauch@uni-koeln.de

Artificial sweeteners are added to a wide variety of food, drinks, drugs and
hygiene products. Since their introduction, the mass media have reported about
potential cancer risks, which has contributed to undermine the public's sense of
security. It can be assumed that every citizen of Western countries uses
artificial sweeteners, knowingly or not. A cancer-inducing activity of one of
these substances would mean a health risk to an entire population. We performed
several PubMed searches of the National Library of Medicine for articles in
English about artificial sweeteners. These articles included 'first generation'
sweeteners such as saccharin, cyclamate and aspartame, as well as 'new
generation' sweeteners such as acesulfame-K, sucralose, alitame and neotame.
Epidemiological studies in humans did not find the bladder cancer-inducing
effects of saccharin and cyclamate that had been reported from animal studies in
rats. Despite some rather unscientific assumptions, there is no evidence that
aspartame is carcinogenic. Case-control studies showed an elevated relative risk
of 1.3 for heavy artificial sweetener use (no specific substances specified) of
>1.7 g/day. For new generation sweeteners, it is too early to establish any
epidemiological evidence about possible carcinogenic risks. As many artificial
sweeteners are combined in today's products, the carcinogenic risk of a single
substance is difficult to assess. However, according to the current literature,
the possible risk of artificial sweeteners to induce cancer seems to be
negligible.

So far, that's the best we can come up with; researchers have an open mind...if there's a risk found in good, scientific studies, it'll get reported.

As for me, I'm just not a fan because I think the whole idea of "soda pop" is just stupid. Why we think we have to drink polluted water is beyond me. When CocaCola actually had cocaine in it, I could imagine it. With Caffeine and artificial caramel coloring I don't get it. But that's just me. My family raised me weird.

Beer, now, is a magical substance...

:drunk:

[Radioguy]

Thanks Dr Steve. Where do I send the co-pay?

[Dr Steve]

Thanks Dr Steve. Where do I send the co-pay?

ha! HERE (http://www.cafepress.com/weirdmedicine)is fine. :-)

[~Katja~]

I usually drink it by the bottle, and do it for caffeine, as well as satisfying a sweet tooth and just to slake my thirst. Breaking that down can by can I don't think it crosses that line, but at worst I did end up drinking three 2-liters in one day (and I think I skipped a meal).

I'm sure that's not good, but if I had actually crossed that line (let's say I got lost in the desert and found a pepsi truck), what symptoms would I notice if I had?

Also, what specifically makes you not a fan? (compared to the anti-aspartame folks)

Thanks Dr. Steve. :)
a spoon full of nutella and gallons of water should take care of that!
A few cups of coffee will get ya the caffeine you will need.

[Radioguy]

a spoon full of nutella and gallons of water should take care of that!
A few cups of coffee will get ya the caffeine you will need.

Nutella is way too sweet for me. Also, I don't care for coffee except for iced, and I end up having to throw in some sweet & low and fat free milk. Soda is the path of least resistance. ;)

http://www.pepsiproductfacts.com/caffeine.php

Pepsi Max ftw.