Everyday Systems: nosdiet: message 520 of 3212

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On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 03:42:55PM -0000, Kathy <ankhdream@...> wrote:
> True what you say about it not affecting blood sugar levels and having
> no c=
alories, but there is this to be taken into account. . . from
> http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/aspartame.html 
: Aspartame
> itself doesn't have any calories, but basically, one of its ingr=
> edients, the amino acid phenylalanine, blocks production of serotonin,
> a ner=
ve chemical that, among other activities, controls food
> cravings. As you mig=
ht well imagine, a shortage of serotonin will
> make your brain and body screa=
m for the foods that create more of
> this brain chemical—and those are the hi=
gh-calorie,
> carbohydrate-rich snacks that can sabotage a dieter.

I'm afraid you've been misled. You know that the Weston A. Price
Foundation is a conservative health lobbyist group, right? 

Phenylalanine is the last thing you need to worry about in aspartame
(not that there is anything else worth worrying about), unless you are
intolerant of it -- and if you were intolerant of it then you would have
been on a controlled diet since birth.

Compare the following phenylalanine levels with that of a can of 
diet Coke (60 mg):

- Glass of skim milk (300 mg)
- 3 ounces of chicken (1000 mg)
- Bowl of muesli (300 mg)
- Fried egg (720 mg)
- One serving baked/broiled fish (700-1000 mg)
- 25g of cheddar (1320 mg)
- Handful of peanuts (960 mg)
- Peanut butter on toast (1500 mg)

As you can see, we regularly consume quantities of phenylalanine 10-15x
higher than that in a can of diet Coke. That aspartame is unsafe or
counterproductive in dieting because of phenylalanine levels is untrue.
You need phenylalanine -- that's why it's called an essential amino
acid -- and non-PKU individuals don't need to strictly control intake.

> Obviously, =
the more aspartame one ingests, the more heightened the
> effects. 

Sorry, why is that obvious?

> Simply put,=
aspartame appears to muddle the brain chemistry.

That's sufficiently simply put that it is not only impossible to rebut
but meaningless. When I am hungry and eat, I cease being hungry. That
"muddles the brain chemistry" as well, but I'm rather fond of 
that
particular effect. 

> Nutritionist Susan Allen, RD, CCN, at Chicago's Northwestern Center
> for Int=
egrative Medicine, suspects that something additional is
> going on in many of=
her patients who have been using aspartame and
> other artificial sweeteners.=
Allen believes that when they consume
> them, the sweet taste of no-calorie s=
weeteners triggers their
> bodies to release insulin, even though there is no =
food to feed
> the cells.

She.. believes it? Well, she is a scientist, so surely she will
experiment sooner or later. Since her hypothesis disagrees with the
findings of every other aspartame experiment performed thus far, she
will undoubtedly rush to do so, what with the fame she will receive!

But don't you think that insulin release would be of concern to
diabetics? Doesn't it seem odd that a major diabetic institute would
advise its patients that aspartame does not affect blood sugar if
it triggered insulin release? I mean, don't you think they'd *check*?

This isn't magic, it's science. Believing something but not testing it
is a hypothesis; an untested hypothesis doesn't hold much weight, and
an untested hypothesis that runs counter to decades of experimental
results doubly so. Since no-one else has ever been able to detect these
things that Ms Allen "suspects", the burden of proof is hers.

By scaremongering about aspartame you are hindering people's ability 
to transition from poor eating habits to good. You are free to avoid
it because you have a bad hunch -- we all have things that we avoid
because of that -- but your hunch does not stand up to experiment,
so you need to avoid passing on your hunch as fact. The US Food and Drug
Administration, the European Union's Scientific Committee for Food, the
United Nations' Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, and the World
Health Organization have all concluded differently from you, and it
seems to me (but is just my opinion) that this is an inappropriate place
to spread misinformation.

(Disclaimer for the archives: I am not a doctor and the above does not
constitute medical advice.)

-Rich

-- 
Rich Lafferty --------------+-----------------------------------------------
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!
http://www.lafferty.ca/ | http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus.html
rich@... -----------+-----------------------------------------------