http://www.sweetremedy.tv

Those movies are highly recommended. Please send them to everyone you know!

The whole concept of EATING MORE food to counteract the effects of a diet soda is an oxymoron.

People drinking diet soda typically wash down their cheeseburger and fries with it. They’re already eating a diet low in folate to begin with, which means diet soda would only complicate these problems.

It’s unfit for human consumption, period.

If Aspertaam would be that dangerous wouldn’t it be likely that more credible voices would have been raised?

Not to say Aspertaam is completely innocent since it is an unknown substance to our biology but to say it is poisonous is a bit harsh. People claiming deaths by Aspertaam are usually not educated enough to make that statement (and no, scientists don’t get to cut up body’s at their whim).

The only fact about Aspertaam that you can state is that it is uknown what the effect is on the long run. Another fact is that every human being will get cancer but right now most people still die of old age before that happens. And how are rats a control group anyhow? There are not exactly like humans, are they? The real control group can only be humans (or maybe pigs since they are the closest to us in genetic make up).

Pseudo scientists stand on both sides of the line as it seems.

I was wondering along the same lines along which your last comment noted. I was aware that metabolism of caffeine produced formaldehyde.

So I was thinking that if people who were so very concerned about aspartame switched to caffeinated soft drinks, or even coffee or other caffeinated drinks or foods, they would (if aspartame really did trigger symptoms) be expected to have no appreciable change in symptoms?

Furthermore, given a cup of coffee has about 125mg of caffeine, how would this compare (in metabolic formaldehyde creation) to a 20oz diet Coke or Pepsi?

My thinking being that IF people are folate deficient, or believe that aspartame causes the variety of symptoms listed, which is the worse of two evils – drinking a normal sized coffee or a 20oz bottle of pop (which has 50 or so mg of caffeine if caffeinated, in addition to whatever amount of aspartame)?

I am saying that aspartame is perfectly safe. You and all bodies need 400 micrograms/day of folate. This is really a very small amount. Aspartame (from its methanol and actually methanol produced formaldehyde) does deplete some slight amount of your folate, but so does the methanol from apple and tomato juice and so does any alcoholic beverage (acetaldehyde). Many things adversely affect folate or even its intestinal (bug-based) biosynthesis including various antibiotics, so the best way to deal with deficiency is folate supplements.

While I cannot recall the specific source of hand, one of the folate deficiency papers claimed part of the explanation for continued folate deficiency is the anticarb craze deterring people from eating the very products that are folate enriched, like sweet rolls, etc.

As to your second paragraph-yes the proper controls were not used in all aspartame rodent experiments. Given that folate deficiency causes the very tumors and cancers reported, proper folate supplementation would likely see no tumors. This and/or the shorter duration of some studies may also explain the papers not finding tumors/cancers.

As to your third paragraph. The methanol from aspartame is hydrolyzed to formaldehyde. It is actually the formaldehyde that reacts with the folate, just as acetaldehyde from ethanol reacts with folate too. But formaldehyde reactions are not all bad; they play an important role in much essential biochemistry. Overconsuming ethanol causes a greater incidence of breast cancer in women; folate supplementation amongst overconsumers lowers tumor incidence, presumably by replacing lost folate. As to the symptom issue, most of the purported symptoms are not substantiated by controlled science. While a good portion of the claimed issues (leukemia, lymphoma, breast cancer, etc) are linkable directly to folate deficiency or insufficiency, there are other valid explanations that involve various related issues. Many people have altered folate enzymes (called folate polymorphisms) that increase or decrease their susceptibility to folate issues. They can actually make some people less susceptible to leukemia for instance, but more susceptible to cardiovascular disease. Actually one polymorphism might even explain the so-called aspartame headache, for this has actually been connected to headache separately. In those people these other headache issues can be prevented by folate supplementation, so perhaps headache from aspartame is a symptom of a direct or indirect folate issue?

Here is more on the aspects of the issue. For folate deficiency issues see for example http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/117/4/1418. However many cancers and tumors are also driven by folate deficiency http://www.ebmonline.org/cgi/reprint/229/10/988. For 453 references on this go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez and type “folate deficiency,cancer” (without the quotes) in the search line and explore the listings.

FYI, I favor diet caffeine free Pepsi, but that is a taste thing for me. I used to favor the diet Pepsi with caffeine (black cans), but caffeine metabolism is reduced and becomes an issue as you age. FYI caffeine metabolism produces two formaldehydes per molecule and most all adverse effects of caffeine can be prevented with folate too.

John E. Garst, Ph.D. (Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, and Toxicology)

Are you also saying that in order to do a proper study, one would need to have a third study group of rats which consumed aspartame and were also given an appropriate and reasonable dose of folic acid added to their diet?

Also, what about all the other chemicals that aspartame breaks down into? You’ve theoretically covered the methanol… what about the formaldehyde? Lastly, can you attribute the entire list of 90-something symptoms to the folate deficiency or could some of these items be attributed to one of the other chemicals?

And of course, you haven’t told us what soda YOU drink.