Dear Reader: I've had several conversations with people that have started off something like..."What is healthier, regular (sugar) pop, or pop with aspartame?" The question is dumb ass really, because the premise is one or the other is healthy. Unless one is near starvation, and desperately in need of the sugar boost, neither product is healthy. The question then ought to be, "Which is less unhealthy?"
The basic argument is that sugar is natural and aspartame is artificial and inherently more toxic.
The basic reply is that if we consumed teaspoon for teaspoon sugar and aspartame, aspartame may well be toxic beyond what the body can compensate for. However, only a lab rat or a person with pathological intent would do such a thing. A person drinking diet pop consumes ~140 milligrams of aspartame, which the body can easily contend with, compared with the tables spoons of sugar in the same amount of beverage.
Which then is more toxic to the body, aspartame or excessive sugar consumption?
Repost
The complicated truth behind aspartame
But the European Food Safety Authority has just published research that concludes that consuming the artificial sweetener, which has been used extensively for more than three decades, is perfectly safe for the vast majority of people. The EFSA said that the acceptable daily limit for aspartame is 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Considering that a can of Diet Coke contains about 180 mg of aspartame, and the average adult weighs about 70 kilograms (or 154 pounds), a quick mathematical calculation will reveal that you can drink about 16 cans per day without worry.
Moreover, the EFSA said that aspartame becomes toxic only once you consume 4,000 mg/kg of body weight – or about 1,600 cans of Diet Coke a day.
(The exception is people suffering from a rare medical condition phenylketonuria, or PKU, who must strictly adhere to a diet low in phenylalanine, one of the constituents of aspartame. They should avoid the artificial sweetener altogether.)
This is not to suggest you should guzzle diet drinks at an obscene rate.
But the report provides a welcome reminder that calorie-free diet pop is preferable to sugar-laden regular pop, although that is a bit of a false equation because, truth be told, water is better still, as every dietician (and probably your Mom) will tell you.
Yet, the reality is that many people opt for flavoured and fizzy drinks for a variety of reasons – chief among them taste and habit.
At a time of the year when many people make weight-loss resolutions, it is worth remembering that one of the most effective ways to remove calories from a diet is to eschew sugary drinks. Replace four cans of Pepsi with four cans of diet Pepsi, for example, and you drop 600 calories.
Calories aside, excessive consumption of sugar causes far more health problems than aspartame.
So where does aspartame’s bad reputation come from?
Largely from a lack of understanding (and sometimes wilful misrepresentation) of chemistry.
First and foremost, there is the naturalistic fallacy, the common belief that what is “natural” is inherently good, and that anything man-made is inherently bad. Practically, that leads us to think that “natural” substances like sugar are always better than “chemicals” like aspartame.
We tend to forget that all foodstuffs have chemical components, whether they are fruits or artificial sweeteners.
Aspartame, which can also be identified as E951 on food labels, has three constituent parts: phenylalanine, methanol and aspartic acid. Aside from sounding unappetizing, they can all be toxic at high doses.
This has led some so-called natural health practitioners such as Dr. Joseph Mercola, the high priest of quackery, to describe aspartame as “by far the most dangerous substance added to most food today.” According to Dr. Mercola and his ilk, the food additive causes a dizzying array of health problems, including brain tumours, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease and birth defects, none of which is demonstrated in credible research.
Anti-aspartame crusaders point principally to methanol, which is essentially wood alcohol – both poisonous and a carcinogen at high doses. But dosage is what really matters. Aspartame contains tiny amounts of these chemicals, as do many other foods. In fact, there is more “poisonous” methanol in a banana than in a can of Diet Coke, and neither will do any real harm, in the short or long-term.
The scare-mongering about aspartame has no real scientific basis. The overheated rhetoric serves first and foremost as a means of flogging “alternative” products.
If anything, misplaced concerns about toxicity distracts from much more real and practical problems.
For, while aspartame is not toxic, there is no question it can mess with your head.
Research has shown that drinking diet pop can actually increase the likelihood a person will overeat and gain weight, and can increase your risk of developing diabetes.
How can that be if these drinks contain no calories?
The principal problem is that people who opt for diet drinks (and other low-calorie foods that contain aspartame such as yogurt, sweeteners, flavoured water and gum) often engage in what scientists describe as “cognitive distortion” – meaning that they compensate for calorie-free foods by splurging elsewhere. The classic example of this what researchers call the Big Mac and Diet Coke phenomenon.
Sweeteners like aspartame – which is about 200 times sweeter than sugar – can also confuse the body’s responses. When you consume sweets, the body expects calories to follow; but sweeteners don’t deliver the payoff.
That can actually lead to people seeking out more sweets. Many big diet-drink consumers describe themselves as having an insatiable sweet tooth and that is borne out in observational studies.
So, what are we to take from all this?
Basically, that aspartame is not a dangerous chemical. But nor is it a panacea for what ails our sugar-obsessed society
.......
Another article in comparison of what is more dangerous, sugar or aspartame.
Globe and Mail, February 7, 2014 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/four-more-groups-urge-ottawa-to-set-sugar-limits/article16760827/
Four more groups urge Ottawa to set sugar limits
By CARLY WEEKS
In wake of report linking sweets to heart disease, CMA and others question whether federal government is too close to food industry
The federal government needs to establish daily sugar intake guidelines and set limits on the amount of sugar that can be added to food, leading health associations across the country say.Ottawa has come under increasing pressure to regulate sugar since the publication of a study in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine that concluded people who get 25 per cent or more of their daily calories from added sugar are three times more likely to die of heart disease.
Earlier this week, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada announced it will unveil new recommendations on sugar consumption as early as this spring and called on the federal government to set broad guidelines.
Now, the Canadian Medical Association, the Childhood Obesity Foundation, the Canadian Institute for Health Research and the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta are adding their voices to the call.
Canada has no standard for how much sugar people should limit themselves to in a day.
On Friday, a spokesman for Health Minister Rona Ambrose said the department will review the JAMA study, but ruled out setting limits on sugar added to food or adopting consumption guidelines.
"We're talking about the leading risk for death and disability and [the federal government is] doing nothing," said Norm Campbell, who holds a research chair in hypertension prevention and control.
The government urgently needs to take action in light of mounting research, said Dr. Campbell, who is also a professor of medicine at the University of Calgary and a member of the Libin institute.
"At the end of the day, I think we know what we need to do," said Louis Hugo Francescutti, president of the Canadian Medical Association. "We don't need any more studies, but we need to develop a fairly robust national strategy."
Tom Warshawski, pediatrician and chair of the Childhood Obesity Foundation, said Health Canada is too close to the food industry and appears reluctant to take action to help improve the nutritional quality of the food companies sell. He wants the government to convene a high-level panel of experts to review the evidence and make a recommendation. "I think Health Canada is not really doing their job," Dr. Warshawski said. "They look for industry to self-regulate."
The food industry can add as much extra sugar as it wants to pop, juice, cereal and other products, which is contributing to an epidemic of obesity and chronic disease that is putting lives in jeopardy and pushing the health care system to the brink, Dr. Campbell said.
The Canadian Beverage Association declined a request for an interview. In a statement, the Canadian Sugar Institute said it disputes the link researchers have made between sugar and disease.
The average Canadian consumes 26 teaspoons of sugar a day, which accounts for more than 20 per cent of total calories, according to Statistics Canada. While sugar occurs naturally in fruits and milk, Statistics Canada estimates that more than one-third, or 35 per cent, of the sugar Canadians consume is added by manufacturers to foods.
The Institute of Medicine, an influential independent group that helps set health policy in Canada and the United States, says sugar that is added to food should make up no more than 25 per cent of daily calories. The World Health Organization says added sugars, plus those found naturally in fruit juice, honey and syrups, should make up no more than 10 per cent of calories. The organization is reported to be considering reducing it to 5 per cent.