Sunday 2 December 2012

ASPARTAME IS LINKED TO LEUKEMIA

  What is Aspartame ??

In this article we will examine what is Aspartame?
Over a billion people consume aspartame in their foods and beverages across the world, believing it to be a safe ingredient, but what they probably don't know is that aspartame currently accounts for over 75% of all side effects complaints received by the FDA's Adverse Reaction Monitoring System (ARMS) for the past 4 years. It is banned by health-conscious countries all over the world, especially where there is a national healthcare system in place.
Aspartame is best known by the brand names NutraSweet, Equal, Sweet One and Spoonful. Aspartame is asynthetic chemical combinationwhich is comprised of approximately 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid, and 10% methanol.  Aspartame is found in thousands of foods, drinks, candy, gum, vitamins, health supplements and even pharmaceuticals. (http://www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/...)...
Each of the three ingredients in Aspartame poses its own dangersand each is well documented as causing a long list of side effects and dangerous health conditions. Watch for the ingredient Acesulfame Potassium, which is just another name for Aspartame.

Phenylalanine: Even a single use of Aspartame raises the blood phenylalanine levels. High blood phenylalanine can be concentrated in parts of the brain and isespecially dangerous for infants and fetuses. Because it is metabolized much more efficiently by rodents than humans, testing and research on rats alone is not sufficient enough to denounce the dangers of Aspartame for human consumption. Excessive levels of phenylalanine in the brain cause serotonin levels to decrease,leading to emotional disorders like depression.
Aspartic Acid: Aspartic acid is considered anexcito-toxin, which means it over stimulates certain neurons in the body until they die. Much like nitrates and MSG, aspartic acid can cause amino acid imbalances in the body and result in the interruption of normal neurotransmitter metabolism of the brain. (http://www.holisticmed.net/aspartam...)
Methanol becomes Formaldehyde (Embalming fluid): The most prominent danger of Aspartame is that when ingested, the methanol (wood alcohol) is distributed throughout the body, including the brain, muscle, fat and nervous tissues, and is then metabolized to form formaldehyde, which enters cells and binds to proteins and genetic material (DNA). Methanol is a dangerous neurotoxin and a known carcinogen, which causes retinal damage in the eye, interferes with DNA processes, and can cause birth defects.
The EPA's recommended limit of consumption of Methanol is 7.8 milligrams per day, but a one liter bottle of an Aspartame-sweetened beverage contains over 50 mg of methanol. Heavy users of Aspartame-containing products consume as much as 250 mg of methanol daily,which is over 30 times the EPA limit.

 
Suspiciously similar to the symptoms of Fibromyalgia and Multiple Sclerosis, Aspartame's long list includes dizziness, headaches, behavioral changes, hallucinations, depression, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, fatigue, irritability, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss, and joint pain. Also, many illnesses can be worsened by ingesting Aspartame, including chronic fatigue syndrome, brain tumors, epilepsy, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, mental retardation, and especially diabetes.
Birth defects: According to Dr. Louis Elsas, Pediatrician Professor of Genetics at Emory University, Phenylalanine can concentrate in the placenta, causing mental retardation of a fetus. Also, formaldehyde in the blood stream of a pregnant woman can cause her immune system to target the fetal tissue as a foreign substance and destroy it, the result being a miscarriage. This can happen before she even knows she is pregnant. (http://www.dorway.com/dr-elsas.txt)

Aspartame is known to cause weight gain

Products labeled Diet, Light or Zero most likely contain at least one of the major synthetic sweeteners, and Aspartame is used more widely than the three carcinogenic S's: Sucralose, Sorbitol and Saccharin. Nearly all diet sodas, gum and most candy (not chocolate - yet) are loaded with Aspartame. (http://buildingbodies.ca/diet-pop-d...) Some chewing gum brands contain only synthetic sugars, which are acid creating. The body in turn creates fat cells to store that extra acid, and this is why many people who consistently eat Aspartame will ironically put on weight.
Natural sugar-free alternatives: Xylitol and the Brazilian Stevia leaf (Not Truvia) are natural and do not cause side effects or nerve damage; however, truly effective weight loss starts with organic vegetables and cardio exercise. To be safe, simply avoid all "diet foods" and moderate sugar intake. (http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxif...)
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FDA Lists 92 Symptoms from Nutrasweet (Aspartame)
(including Death!)
Please Note:  Nutrasweet is in Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi
Update: Aspartame - NutraSweet - Is now called AminoSweet
Note:   This information required a Freedom Of Information Act request to pry it from the reluctant hands of the FDA.
Nutrasweet (brand name for Aspartame) was not approved until 1981, in dry foods. For over eight years the FDA refused to approve it because of the seizures and brain tumors this drug produced in lab animals. The FDA continued to refuse to approve it until President Reagan took office (a friend of Searle) and fired the FDA Commissioner who wouldn't approve it. Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes was appointed as commissioner. Even then there was so much opposition to approval that a Board of Inquiry was set up. The Board said: "Do not approve aspartame". Dr. Hayes OVERRULED his own Board of Inquiry.
Shortly after Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., approved the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages, he left for a position with G.D. Searle's Public Relations firm.
Long-Term Damage. It appears to cause slow, silent damage in those unfortunate enough to not have immediate reactions and a reason to avoid it. It may take one year, five years, 10 years, or 40 years, but it seems to cause some reversible and some irreversible changes in health over long-term use.
METHANOL (AKA WOOD ALCOHOL/POISON) (10% OF ASPARTAME) Methanol/wood alcohol is a deadly poison. People may recall that methanol was the poison that has caused some "skid row" alcoholics to end up blind or dead. Methanol is gradually released in the small intestine when the methyl group of aspartame encounter the enzyme chymotrypsin.
The absorption of methanol into the body is sped up considerably when free methanol is ingested. Free methanol is created from aspartame when it is heated to above 86 Fahrenheit (30 Centigrade). This would occur when aspartame-containing product is improperly stored or when it is heated (e.g., as part of a "food" product such as Jello).
Methanol breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body. Formaldehyde is a deadly neurotoxin. An EPA assessment of methanol states that methanol "is considered a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic." The recommend a limit of consumption of 7.8 mg/day. A one-liter (approx. 1 quart) aspartame-sweetened beverage contains about 56 mg of methanol. Heavy users of aspartame-containing products consume as much as 250 mg of methanol daily or 32 times the EPA limit.
The most well known problems from methanol poisoning are vision problems. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication, and causes birth defects. Due to the lack of a couple of key enzymes, humans are many times more sensitive to the toxic effects of methanol than animals. Therefore, tests of aspartame or methanol on animals do not accurately reflect the danger for humans. As pointed out by Dr Woodrow C. Monte, Director of the Food Science and Nutrition Laboratory at Arizona State University, "There are no human or mammalian studies to evaluate the possible mutagenic, teratogenic, or carcinogenic effects of chronic administration of methyl alcohol."
It has been pointed out that fruit juices and alcoholic beverages contain small amounts of methanol. It is important to remember, that the methanol in natural products never appears alone. In every case, ethanol is present, usually in much higher amounts. Ethanol is an antidote for methanol toxicity in humans.
The troops of Desert Storm were "treated" to large amounts of aspartame-sweetened beverages which had been heated to over 86 degrees F. in the Saudi Arabian sun. Many of them returned home with numerous disorders similar to what has been seen in persons who have been chemically poisoned by formaldehyde. The free methanol in the beverages may have been a contributing factor in these illnesses. Other breakdown products ofaspartame such as DKP, may also have been a factor.
In a 1993 act that can only be described as "unconscionable", the FDA approved aspartame as an ingredient in numerous food items that would always be heated to above 86°degrees F (30°Degrees C).
Much worse, on 27 June 1996, without public notice, the FDA removed all restrictions from aspartame allowing it to be used in everything, including all heated and baked goods.
The truth about aspartame's toxicity is far different than what the NutraSweet Company would have you readers believe. In February of 1994, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the listing of adverse reactions reported to the FDA (DHHS 1994). Aspartame accounted for more than 75% of all adverse reactions reported to the FDA's Adverse Reaction Monitoring System (ARMS). By the FDA's own admission fewer then ONE PERCENT of those who have problems with something they consume ever report it to the FDA. This balloons the almost 10,000 complaints they once had to around a million.
However, the FDA has a record keeping problem (they never did respond to the certified letter from the WEBMASTER of this site a major victim!) and they tend to discourage or even misdirect complaints, at least on aspartame. The fact remains, though, that MOST victims don't have a clue that aspartame may be the cause of their many problems! Many reactions to aspartame were very serious including seizures and death.
Those reactions included:
Abdominal Pain
Anxiety attacks
arthritis
asthma
Asthmatic Reactions
Bloating, Edema (Fluid Retention)
Blood Sugar Control Problems (Hypoglycemia or Hyperglycemia)
Brain Cancer (Pre-approval studies in animals)
Breathing difficulties
burning eyes or throat
Burning Urination
can't think straight
Chest Pains
chronic cough
Chronic Fatigue
Confusion
Death
Depression
Diarrhea
Dizziness
Excessive Thirst or Hunger
fatigue
feel unreal
flushing of face
Hair Loss (Baldness) or Thinning of Hair
Headaches/Migraines dizziness
Hearing Loss
Heart palpitations
Hives (Urticaria)
Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)
Impotency and Sexual Problems
inability to concentrate
Infection Susceptibility
Insomnia
Irritability
Itching
Joint Pains
laryngitis
"like thinking in a fog"
Marked Personality Changes
Memory loss
Menstrual Problems or Changes
Migraines and Severe Headaches (Trigger or Cause From Chronic Intake)
Muscle spasms
Nausea or Vomiting
Numbness or Tingling of Extremities
Other Allergic-Like Reactions
Panic Attacks
Phobias
poor memory
Rapid Heart Beat
Rashes
Seizures and Convulsions
Slurring of Speech
Swallowing Pain
Tachycardia
Tremors
Tinnitus
Vertigo
Vision Loss
Weight gain
Aspartame Disease Mimics Symptoms or Worsens the Following Diseases
Alzheimer's Disease
Arthritis
Birth Defects
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Diabetes and Diabetic Complications
Epilepsy
Fibromyalgia
Lupus
Lyme Disease
Lymphoma
Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS)
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Parkinson's Disease
How it happens:
Methanol, from aspartame, is released in the small intestine when the methyl group of aspartame encounters the enzyme chymotrypsin (Stegink 1984, page 143). Free methanol begins to form in liquid aspartame-containing products at temperatures above 86 degrees F. also within the human body.
The methanol is then converted to formaldehyde. The formaldehyde converts to formic acid - ant sting poison. Toxic formic acid is used as an activator to strip epoxy and urethane coatings. Imagine what it does to your tissues! (Note from Stephanie Relfe - Even the Australian Cancer Council says that there are NO safe levels of formaldehyde).
Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, 90% of aspartame, are amino acids normally used in synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods we eat. But when unaccompanied by other amino acids we use [there are 20], they are neurotoxic.
That is why a warning for Phenylketonurics is found on EQUAL and other aspartame products. Phenylketenurics are 2% of the population with extreme sensitivity to this chemical unless it's present in food. It gets you too, causing brain disorders and birth defects! Finally, the phenyalanine breaks down into DKP, a brain tumor agent.
In other words: Aspartame converts to dangerous by-products that have no natural countermeasures. A dieter's empty stomach accelerates these conversions and amplifies the damage. Components of aspartame go straight to the brain, damage that causes headaches, mental confusion, seizures and faulty balance. Lab rats and other test animals died of brain tumors.
Despite the claims of Monsanto and bedfellows:
1. Methanol from alcohol and juices does not get converted to formaldehyde to any significant extent. There is very strong evidence to confirm this fact for alcoholic beverages and fairly strong evidence for juices.
2. Formaldehyde obtained from methanol is very toxic in *very small* doses as seen by recent research.
3. Aspartame causes chronic toxicity reactions/damage due to the methanol to formaldehyde and other break down products despite what is claimed otherwise by the very short, industry-funded experiments using a test substance that is chemically different and absorbed differently than what is available to the general public. "Strangely enough", almost all independent studies show that aspartame can cause health problems.
4. A common ploy from Monsanto is to claim that aspartame is "safe" yet a few select people may have "allergic" reactions to it. This is typical Monsanto nonsense, of course. Their own research shows that it does not cause "allergic" reactions. It is there way of trying to minimize and hide the huge numbers of toxicity reactions and damage that people are experiencing from the long-term use of aspartame.
Given the following points, it is definitely premature for researchers to discount the role of methanol in aspartame side effects:
1. The amount of methanol ingested from aspartame is unprecedented in human history. Methanol from fruit juice ingestion does not even approach the quantity of methanol ingested from aspartame, especially in persons who ingest one to three liters (or more) of diet beverages every day. Unlike methanol from aspartame, methanol from natural products is probably not absorbed or converted to its toxic metabolites in significant amounts as discussed earlier.
2. Lack of laboratory-detectable changes in plasma formic acid and formaldehyde levels do not preclude damage being caused by these toxic metabolites. Laboratory-detectable changes in formate levels are often not found in short exposures to methanol.
3. Aspartame-containing products often provide little or no nutrients which may protect against chronic methanol poisoning and are often consumed in between meals. Persons who ingest aspartame-containing products are often dieting and more likely to have nutritional deficiencies than persons who take the time to make fresh juices.
4. Persons with certain health conditions or on certain drugs may be much more susceptible to chronic methanol poisoning.
5. Chronic diseases and side effects from slow poisons often build silently over a long period of time. Many chronic diseases which seem to appear suddenly have actually been building in the body over many years.
6. An increasing body of research is showing that many people are highly sensitive to low doses of formaldehyde in the environment. Environmental exposure to formaldehyde and ingestion of methanol (which converts to formaldehyde) from aspartame likely has a cumulative deleterious effect.
7. Formic acid has been shown to slowly accumulate in various parts of the body. Formic acid has been shown to inhibit oxygen metabolism.
8. The are a very large and growing number of persons are experiencing chronic health problems similar to the side effects of chronic methanol poisoning when ingesting aspartame-containing products for a significant length of time. This includes many cases of eye damage similar to the type of eye damage seen in methanol poisoning cases.
Note: It often takes at least sixty days without any aspartame NutraSweet to see a significant improvement. (Note from Stephanie Relfe: Drink plenty of good water. Preferably water filtered by reverse osmosis. If not that, spring water. Not tap, distilled or mineral water).
Check all labels very carefully (including vitamins and pharmaceuticals). Look for the word "aspartame" on the label and avoid it. (Also, it is a good idea to avoid "acesulfame-k" or "sunette.") Finally, avoid getting nutrition information from junk food industry PR organizations such as IFIC or organizations that accept large sums of money from the junk and chemical food industry such as the American Dietetic Association.
If you are a user of any products with aspartame, and you have physical, visual, mental problems take the 60-day no aspartame test. If, after two months with no aspartame your symptoms are either gone, or are much less severe, please get involved to get this neurotoxin off the market. Write a letter to the FDA, with a copy to Betty Martini (for proof of how the FDA doesn't keep proper records). Write your congressmen. Return products containing aspartame to the point of purchase... for a FULL refund. Make a big stink if they WON'T give you a full refund! Tell all your friends and family... and if they stop using aspartame and also "wake up well"... get them involved in the same way.
Aspartame is an "approved sweetener" because of a few greedy and dishonest people who place profits above human life and well-being. With the FDA and our Congress culpable, only an INFORMED and ACTIVE public will affects its reclassification from "food additive" to TOXIC DRUG, and removed from the human food chain.
From Stephane Relfe:  Note that Michael J. Fox, who was spokesperson for Pepsi, has an old man's disease (Parkinson's Disease) at only 30 years old!
Also Note: Aspartame has one use that I know of - it makes an EXCELLENT ant poison. Put a few tablespoons on a nest of fire ants and see how long before they disappear.
Sources for this article include

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Aspartame is linked to Leukemia and Lymphoma in new Landmark Study on Humans


4.2/5 (84%) 10 votes


As few as one diet soda daily may increase the risk for leukemia in men and women, and for  multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in men, according to new results from the longest-ever running study on aspartame as a carcinogen in humans. Importantly, this is the most comprehensive, long-term study ever completed on this topic, so it holds more weight than other past studies which appeared to show no risk. And disturbingly, it may also open the door for further similar findings on other cancers in future studies.

The most thorough study yet on aspartame - Over two million person-years

For this study, researchers prospectively analyzed data from the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study for a 22-year period. A total of 77,218 women and 47,810 men were included in the analysis, for a total of 2,278,396 person-years of data. Apart from sheer size, what makes this study superior to other past studies is the thoroughness with which aspartame intake was assessed. Every two years, participants were given a detailed dietary questionnaire, and their diets were reassessed every four years. Previous studies which found no link to cancer only ever assessed participants' aspartame intake at one point in time, which could be a major weakness affecting their accuracy.




One diet soda a day increases leukemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphomas

The combined results of this new study showed that just one 12-fl oz. can (355 ml) of diet soda daily leads to:

- 42 percent higher leukemia risk in men and women (pooled analysis) - 102 percent higher multiple myeloma risk (in men only) - 31 percent higher non-Hodgkin  lymphoma risk (in men only)

These results were based on multi-variable relative risk models, all in comparison to participants who drank no diet soda. It is unknown why only men drinking higher amounts of diet soda showed increased risk for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Note that diet soda is the largest dietary source of aspartame  (by far) in the U.S. Every year, Americans consume about 5,250 tons of aspartame in total, of which about 86 percent (4,500 tons) is found in diet sodas.


Confirmation of previous high quality research on animals



This new study shows the importance of the quality of research. Most of the past studies showing no link between aspartame and cancer have been criticized for being too short in duration and too inaccurate in assessing long-term aspartame intake. This new study solves both of those issues. The fact that it also shows a positive link to cancer should come as no surprise, because a previous best-in-class research study done on animals (900 rats over their entire natural lifetimes) showed strikingly similar results back in 2006: aspartame significantly increased the risk for lymphomas and leukemia in both males and females. More worrying is the follow on mega-study, which started aspartame exposure of the rats at the fetal stage. Increased lymphoma and leukemia risks were confirmed, and this time the female rats also showed significantly increased breast (mammary) cancer rates. This raises a critical question: will future, high-quality studies uncover links to the other cancers in which aspartame has been implicated (brain, breast, prostate, etc.)?

There is now more reason than ever to completely avoid aspartame in our daily diet. For those who are tempted to go back to sugary sodas as a "healthy" alternative, this study had a surprise finding: men consuming one or more sugar-sweetened sodas daily saw a 66 percent increase in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (even worse than for diet soda). Perhaps the healthiest soda is NO SODA AT ALL.
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The Shocking Story of 

How Aspartame Became Legal


5/5 (100%) 2 votes
Did you know that Aspartame was banned by the FDA twice?
How is this product legal now?
The bittersweet argument over whether Aspartame is safe or not has been going on for a long time. On one side we have medical evidence that suggests we should avoid using it and on the other side we lean on the FDA’s approval that suggests it is safe. Since generally that seems to be the factor that many continue to hold trust based upon, I thought we could look into the Aspartame story to find out how it came to be accepted as safe by the FDA. You would think that something so widely used and so well accepted would have quite the pristine story leading to its acceptance. I imagine one will discover otherwise after reading this post.
It all starts in the mid 1960′s with a company called G.D. Searle. One of their chemists accidentally creates aspartame while trying to create a cure for stomach ulcers. Searle decides to put aspartame through a testing process which eventually leads to its approval by the FDA. Not long after, serious health affects begin to arise and G.D. Searle comes under fire for their testing practices. It is revealed that the testing process of Aspartame was among the worst the investigators had ever seen and that in fact the product was unsafe for use. Aspartame triggers the first criminal investigation of a manufacturer put into place by the FDA in 1977. By 1980 the FDA bans aspartame from use after having 3 independent scientists study the sweetener. It was determined that one main health effects was that it had a high chance of inducing brain tumors. At this point it was clear that aspartame was not fit to be used in foods and banned is where it stayed, but not for long.
Early in 1981 Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld (who is a former Secretary of Defense.. surprise surprise) vowed to “call in his markers,” to get it approved. January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Searle took the steps to re-apply aspartame’s approval for use by the FDA. Ronald Reagans’ new FDA commissioner Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the board of inquiry’s decision. It did not take long for the panel to decide 3-2 in favor of maintaining the ban of aspartame. Hull then decided to appoint a 6th member to the board, which created a tie in the voting, 3-3. Hull then decided to personally break the tie and approve aspartame for use. Hull later left the FDA under allegations of impropriety, served briefly as Provost at New York Medical College, and then took a position with Burston-Marsteller. Burstone-Marstella is the chief  public relations firm for both Monsanto and GD Searle. Since that time he has never spoken publicly about aspartame.
It is clear to this point that if anything the safety of aspartame is incredibly shaky.  It has already been through a process of being banned and without the illegitimate un-banning of the product, it would not be being used today. Makes you wonder how much corruption and money was involved with names like Rumsfeld, Reagan and Hull involved so heavily. In 1985, Monsanto decides to purchase the aspartame patent from G.D. Searle. Remember that Arthur Hull now had the connection to Monsanto. Monsanto did not seem too concerned with the past challenges and ugly image aspartame had based on its past. I personally find this comical as Monsanto’s products are banned in many countries and of all companies to buy the product they seem to fit best as they are champions of producing incredibly unsafe and untested products and making sure they stay in the market place.
Since then, aspartame has been under a lot of attack by scientists, doctors, chemists and consumers about it’s safety and neurotoxic properties. Piles of comprehensive studies have been completed that show aspartame is a cause for over 90 serious health problems such as cancer, leukemia, headaches, seizures, fibromyalgia, and epilepsy just to name a few. We have written several articles discussing various affects of aspartame.
Timeline
December 1965– While working on an ulcer drug, James Schlatter, a chemist at G.D. Searle, accidentally discovers aspartame, a substance that is 180 times sweeter than sugar yet has no calories.
Spring 1967– Searle begins the safety tests on aspartame that are necessary for applying for FDA approval of food additives.
Fall 1967– Dr. Harold Waisman, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin, conducts aspartame safety tests on infant monkeys on behalf of the Searle Company. Of the seven monkeys that were being fed aspartame mixed with milk, one dies and five others have grand mal seizures.

November 1970– Cyclamate, the reigning low-calorie artificial sweetener — is pulled off the market after some scientists associate it with cancer. Questions are also raised about safety of saccharin, the only other artificial sweetener on the market, leaving the field wide open for aspartame.
December 18, 1970– Searle Company executives lay out a “Food and Drug Sweetener Strategy’ that they feel will put the FDA into a positive frame of mind about aspartame. An internal policy memo describes psychological tactics the company should use to bring the FDA into a subconscious spirit of participation” with them on aspartame and get FDA regulators into the “habit of saying, “Yes”.”
Spring 1971– Neuroscientist Dr. John Olney (whose pioneering work with monosodium glutamate was responsible for having it removed from baby foods) informs Searle that his studies show that aspartic acid (one of the ingredients of aspartame) caused holes in the brains of infant mice. One of Searle’s own researchers confirmed Dr. Olney’s findings in a similar study.
February 1973– After spending tens of millions of dollars conducting safety tests, the G.D. Searle Company applies for FDA approval and submits over 100 studies they claim support aspartame’s safety.
March 5, 1973– One of the first FDA scientists to review the aspartame safety data states that “the information provided (by Searle) is inadequate to permit an evaluation of the potential toxicity of aspartame”. She says in her report that in order to be certain that aspartame is safe, further clinical tests are needed.
May 1974– Attorney, Jim Turner (consumer advocate who was instrumental in getting cyclamate taken off the market) meets with Searle representatives to discuss Dr. Olney’s 1971 study which showed that aspartic acid caused holes in the brains of infant mice.
July 26, 1974– The FDA grants aspartame its first approval for restricted use in dry foods.
August 1974– Jim Turner and Dr. John Olney file the first objections against aspartame’s approval.
March 24, 1976– Turner and Olney’s petition triggers an FDA investigation of the laboratory practices of aspartame’s manufacturer, G.D. Searle. The investigation finds Searle’s testing procedures shoddy, full of inaccuracies and “manipulated” test data. The investigators report they “had never seen anything as bad as Searle’s testing.”
January 10, 1977– The FDA formally requests the U.S. Attorney’s office to begin grand jury proceedings to investigate whether indictments should be filed against Searle for knowingly misrepresenting findings and “concealing material facts and making false statements” in aspartame safety tests. This is the first time in the FDA’s history that they request a criminal investigation of a manufacturer.
January 26, 1977– While the grand jury probe is underway, Sidley & Austin, the law firm representing Searle, begins job negotiations with the U.S. Attorney in charge of the investigation, Samuel Skinner.
March 8, 1977– G. D. Searle hires prominent Washington insider Donald Rumsfeld as the new CEO to try to turn the beleaguered company around. A former Member of Congress and Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration, Rumsfeld brings in several of his Washington cronies as top management.
July 1, 1977– Samuel Skinner leaves the U.S. Attorney’s office and takes a job with Searle’s law firm. (see Jan. 26th)
August 1, 1977– The Bressler Report, compiled by FDA investigators and headed by Jerome Bressler, is released. The report finds that 98 of the 196 animals died during one of Searle’s studies and weren’t autopsied until later dates, in some cases over one year after death. Many other errors and inconsistencies are noted. For example, a rat was reported alive, then dead, then alive, then dead again; a mass, a uterine polyp, and ovarian neoplasms were found in animals but not reported or diagnosed in Searle’s reports.

December 8, 1977– U.S. Attorney Skinner’s withdrawal and resignation stalls the Searle grand jury investigation for so long that the statue of limitations on the aspartame charges runs out. The grand jury investigation is dropped.
June 1, 1979– The FDA established a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) to rule on safety issues surrounding NutraSweet.
September 30, 1980– The Public Board of Inquiry concludes NutraSweet should not be approved pending further investigations of brain tumors in animals. The board states it “has not been presented with proof of reasonable certainty that aspartame is safe for use as a food additive.”
January 1981– Donald Rumsfeld, CEO of Searle, states in a sales meeting that he is going to make a big push to get aspartame approved within the year. Rumsfeld says he will use his political pull in Washington, rather than scientific means, to make sure it gets approved.
January 21, 1981– Ronald Reagan is sworn in as President of the United States. Reagan’s transition team, which includes Donald Rumsfeld, CEO of G. D. Searle, hand picks Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes Jr. to be the new FDA Commissioner.
March, 1981– An FDA commissioner’s panel is established to review issues raised by the Public Board of Inquiry.
May 19, 1981– Three of six in-house FDA scientists who were responsible for reviewing the brain tumor issues, Dr. Robert Condon, Dr. Satya Dubey, and Dr. Douglas Park, advise against approval of NutraSweet, stating on the record that the Searle tests are unreliable and not adequate to determine the safety of aspartame.
July 15, 1981– In one of his first official acts, Dr. Arthur Hayes Jr., the new FDA commissioner, overrules the Public Board of Inquiry, ignores the recommendations of his own internal FDA team and approves NutraSweet for dry products. Hayes says that aspartame has been shown to be safe for its’ proposed uses and says few compounds have withstood such detailed testing and repeated close scrutiny.
October 15, 1982– The FDA announces that Searle has filed a petition that aspartame be approved as a sweetener in carbonated beverages and other liquids.
July 1, 1983– The National Soft Drink Association (NSDA) urges the FDA to delay approval of aspartame for carbonated beverages pending further testing because aspartame is very unstable in liquid form. When liquid aspartame is stored in temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, it breaks down into DKP and formaldehyde, both of which are known toxins.
July 8, 1983– The National Soft Drink Association drafts an objection to the final ruling which permits the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages and syrup bases and requests a hearing on the objections. The association says that Searle has not provided responsible certainty that aspartame and its’ degradation products are safe for use in soft drinks.
August 8, 1983– Consumer Attorney, Jim Turner of the Community Nutrition Institute and Dr. Woodrow Monte, Arizona State University’s Director of Food Science and Nutritional Laboratories, file suit with the FDA objecting to aspartame approval based on unresolved safety issues.
September, 1983– FDA Commissioner Hayes resigns under a cloud of controversy about his taking unauthorized rides aboard a General Foods jet. (General foods is a major customer of NutraSweet) Burson-Marsteller, Searle’s public relation firm (which also represented several of NutraSweet’s major users), immediately hires Hayes as senior scientific consultant.
Fall 1983– The first carbonated beverages containing aspartame are sold for public consumption.
November 1984– Center for Disease Control (CDC) “Evaluation of consumer complaints related to aspartame use.” (summary by B. Mullarkey)
November 3, 1987– U.S. hearing, “NutraSweet: Health and Safety Concerns,” Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Senator Howard Metzenbaum, chairman.
Source:
www.thelibertybeacon.com

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What Causes Cancer? 7 Strange Cancer Claims Explained


5/5 (100%) 1 vote


Bras, deodorant, and mouthwash­—just a few of the everyday products that have been linked to cancer at some point during the past several decades. Preposterous? Not at the time, and new suspects have been added to the list. The following slides reveal the real story behind ordinary household items that have come under scrutiny.

Artificial Sweeteners


The link: Calorie watchers scored a win when diet sodas were introduced in the early 1950s. Then lab studies suggested that the sweetener cyclamate caused bladder cancer in rats, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned its use. Then saccharin, the replacement of choice, was also shown to cause tumors in rats. Although saccharin was never banned, all products containing the sweetener were required to carry a cancer warning on their packaging.

The reality: No evidence has since emerged that either cyclamate, which is used in other countries, or saccharin causes cancer in humans, according to the National Cancer Institute. Although cyclamate is still banned, saccharin was taken off the government's list of possible carcinogens in 2000, the same year in which saccharin products shed the warning label. The sweetener aspartame has come under suspicion, but scientists have found no increased risk of cancer in humans.



Mouthwash


The link: A handful of studies since the late '70s have tied mouthwash that contains ethanol to oral cancer. Investigators theorize that it may make oral tissues more vulnerable to known carcinogens, such as those in cigarettes.

The reality: The evidence against mouthwash is weak, according to the American Dental Association. Studies don't show, for example, that brands with higher alcohol content present a greater risk than those with lesser amounts. Mouthwash is safe when used as directed, says the ADA, which, depending on the product, may mean swishing once or twice daily and not swallowing. People who smoke, have a family history of oral cancer, or have other risk factors may want to choose alcohol-free brands to be on the safe side, the ADA says.

Statins


The link: Could these cholesterol-lowering drugs raise the risk of cancer? A 2007 study inspired this belief when researchers investigating the side effects of certain statins—lovastatin, simvastatin, pravastatin, fluvastatin, and atorvastatin—found that participants taking high doses were more likely to be diagnosed with various cancers, including those of the breast, colon, and prostate.

The reality: A 2008 review of 15 clinical trials involving statins cast doubt on the initial results; low LDL cholesterol levels, the reviewers found, were associated with cancer, whether or not participants were taking statins, suggesting that cholesterol levels, not the drugs, were to blame. "This study should reassure those taking statins that they are not increasing their risk of cancer by trying to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease," senior author Richard Karas of Boston's Tufts University School of Medicine said in a statement. A separate review of research involving roughly 170,000 participants found no link between statins and cancer.

Cell Phones


The link: In 1993, a man suing the manufacturer of his wife's mobile phone claimed on Larry King Live that the device was responsible for her brain cancer. The broadcast provoked a public outcry, a rash of similar lawsuits, and millions of dollars poured into studying whether radio waves emitted by cell phones could be harmful.

The reality: The largest study to date, published in 2010, could neither confirm nor dismiss a connection between cell phones and cancer. Scientists tracked nearly 13,000 adults for a decade and found a slightly higher rate of one of four cancers—gliomas, a particularly aggressive variety of brain cancer—among frequent cell users. But cell users overall had a lower rate of the cancers than never-users. Participants gave their own estimates of how much time they spent talking, which may have muddied the results. Researchers have now embarked on an even larger study in Europe.



Antiperspirant and Deodorant


The link: A decade ago, an E-mail warning women that using antiperspirant could cause breast cancer went viral. Since then, some research has suggested that aluminum in antiperspirants and preservatives called parabens in both antiperspirants and deodorants mimic the hormone estrogen, which in high amounts can increase a woman's breast cancer risk.

The reality: There is no evidence that antiperspirants or deodorants cause cancer. Although a 2004 study heightened concern when researchers found parabens in breast cancer tissue samples, suggesting the chemicals may have caused the tumors, the investigators did not check for the presence of parabens in healthy tissue. Evidence suggests that 99 percent of us are exposed to parabens from numerous sources, including various cosmetics and foods, according to the American Cancer Society. Little evidence indicates they may be harmful. The organization says more study is needed to be certain that there is no risk. A 2002 study of hundreds of women with and without breast cancer, found no sign the antiperspirants or deodorants upped cancer risk.

Bras


The link: Women got a shock in 1995 when "Dressed to Kill," written by a husband and wife team of medical anthropologists, alleged that those who regularly wore bras had a much higher risk of cancer than women who didn't wear them. They theorized that bras promote the buildup of cancer-causing toxins in the breast.

The reality: Experts stress that a link between bras and breast cancer has never been proven. Considerable evidence points to other variables affecting a woman's risk of breast cancer, such as weight, age, and family history. Women who don't wear bras tend to weigh less or have less dense breast tissue, both of which reduce breast cancer risk. Those factors alone, according to the American Cancer Society, "would probably contribute to any perceived difference in risk."

Hair Dye


The link: In 2008 researchers from the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) revived concern of a hair dye-cancer connection after finding a pattern of bladder cancer in male hairdressers and barbers. They found too little evidence to say whether people who used the products every so often at home were also at risk.

The reality: The IARC finding was based on studies conducted at different times, so any increased risk could result from heavy exposure to chemicals that were discontinued decades ago after scientists discovered they caused cancer in rodents. It's unclear whether the chemicals used in current dyes cause cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. Most evidence, however, does not support a link.

Source:


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Aspartame Associated with Increased Risk of Blood Cancers in Long-Term Human Study

 


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Aspartame is an artificial sweetener used in diet soda and over 6,000 other sugar-free or "diet" products. New research linking aspartame to cancer in some individuals has sparked a flurry of commentary, including an "apology" from Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard University teaching facility, for promoting the results.

I first found out about the study when ABC News contacted me and requested that I provide them with a comprehensive analysis of this 40-page study within an hour. Fortunately, I have extensively reviewed this topic and was able to provide their requested review.

Funding was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

The Harvard hospital originally sent out a press release with the headline: "The truth isn't sweet when it comes to artificial sweeteners." Alas, just half an hour before the release of the study, the hospital suddenly got cold feet, issuing the following statement:

"Upon review of the findings, the consensus of our scientific leaders is that the data is weak, and that BWH Media Relations was premature in the promotion of this work. We apologize for the time you have invested in this story."

According to Erin McDonough, senior vice president of communication and public affairs, this was "the first time something like this had ever happened in her 25 years of working in media relations."

NBC News stated:

"Not all science deserves publicity. Some is not done well. Some comes to equivocal conclusions and serves solely to alert other researchers of the need for further study. The research... about a potential cancer from aspartame falls squarely in that second category. If such a study does get attention, it can often increase the confusion and anger that many people feel about science in general – and the study of possible risks and benefits of our diet, in particular."

None of this surprises me. After all, can you imagine the liability the food and beverage industries, not to mention virtually every public health agency in the US, would face were there convincing evidence that aspartame is carcinogenic? They simply cannot afford such evidence to be accepted.

But make no mistake about it, this study is of great importance because it's the most comprehensive and longest human study — spanning 22 years — that has ever looked at aspartame toxicity. The study evaluates the effect between aspartame intake and cancer, and they found a clear association between aspartame consumption and non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and leukemia.



Ignoring First Long-Term Human Study Would Be a MAJOR Mistake


This is the first large-scale observational human study to report an association between aspartame consumption and blood cancers. The long-term nature of this study is really crucial because one of the primary tricks companies use to hide the toxicity of their products is short-term tests.
As the study mentions, the longest study prior to this one was only four and half months, far too short to reveal any toxicity from chronic exposure. Unfortunately, because there are so many of these short-term trials, they get away with saying that aspartame is one of the most studied food additives ever made and no health concerns have ever been discovered. The beverage industry was quick to respond to the study saying aspartame has been "deemed safe for decades by the world's leading toxicologists."
Well, they simply didn't look long enough! But the average person does not realize that all those industry-funded studies were so pathetically short, and the media doesn't inform them of this fact either. Hence, people are easily misled.
A number of animal studies have clearly documented the association between aspartame and cancer, as the study points out. But what most researchers do not appreciate is that humans are the only animals that do NOT have the protective mechanism to compensate for methanol toxicity. So evaluating methanol toxicity in animals is a flawed model for testing human toxicity.
This is due to alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). In humans, methanol is allowed to be transported in the body to susceptible tissues where this enzyme, ADH, then converts it to formaldehyde, which damages protein and DNA that lead to the increased risk of cancer and autoimmune disease.
Interestingly, the previous AARP Diet and Health Study, which did not find an association with aspartame and cancer, used fruit juice as the control. Most are unaware that canned or bottled fruit juice is loaded with methanol that dissociates from the pectin over time and can actually cause similar problems as aspartame. This does not occur in freshly consumed fruits and vegetables, only ones that are bottled or canned. Hence no major difference could be discerned between the aspartame and the control group.

Why Was Aspartame More Toxic in Men than Women?


The health statistics for nearly 48,000 men and over 77,000 women over the age of 20 were reviewed for the featured study. They found that men who consumed more than one diet soda per day had an increased risk of developing multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Interestingly enough, this association was not found in women.
Leukemia was associated with diet soda intake in both sexes.
One hypothesis for the difference between the sexes is that men have a higher activity of the enzyme ADH, as I mentioned earlier, which metabolizes methanol and converts it to formaldehyde. More formaldehyde circulating in your blood would naturally have more opportunity to cause greater damage.
While the findings from this study add credible evidence that consuming aspartame over a long period of time can pose significant health risks, it also demonstrates that our understanding of the precise mechanism of harm is still lacking and needs to be investigated further, as it's unclear why the women in this study didn't experience the same increased rates of cancer.
It's possible that there is some hormonally mediated protection against the adverse effects of aspartame in women, in addition to men having higher ADH activity, but the study was not designed to answer that question.
All in all however, I believe the study offers significant supporting evidence of the danger that "diet" drinks and foods pose. Many have indeed been injured by aspartame — there are more adverse reports to the FDA on aspartame than all other food additives combined. It's also widely known how massive industry and government collusion at the FDA was ultimately responsible for its approval after it failed to be approved for many years.
Although the authors' summary conclusion mentions they do not rule out the possibility of chance for this association, it's worth noting that this is because they could not offer a conclusive explanation for the difference between the sexes.
I carefully reviewed this study in its entirety, and found it to be extremely well executed. While the mechanism responsible for the difference between the sexes for certain cancers need to be studied further, a biological mechanism for cancer from aspartame does exist, which I'll review in a moment. Furthermore, it was the reviewers of the study that pushed back during the editing process, insisting that it should be made clear that chance was a plausible explanation for the findings6.
Lead researcher Eva Schernhammer, MD, DrPH stated in the original press release (which has since been removed):
"The sex difference we observed deserves consideration. There are many possible explanations in this, one being chance, however these differences could be related to a yet-to-be-discovered risk factor for lymphoma and leukemia, which are associated with soda consumption in men, but not women."

Methyl Alcohol — The Root of the Problem with Aspartame


Aspartame is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol. This is in sharp contrast to naturally-occurring methanol found in certain fruits and vegetables, where it is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing the methanol to be safely passed through your digestive tract.

If the methyl alcohol is broken off from the phenylalanine, as easily happens when drinks sweetened with it are exposed to higher temperatures, it no longer tastes sweet. This is precisely what happened to most of the diet soda sent to the Middle East for US troops. They received non-sweet sodas that were loaded with dangerous levels of methanol, which can be toxic when it's in this already broken down state.
Methanol acts as a Trojan horse; it's carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone marrow, where the ADH enzyme converts it into formaldehyde, which wreaks havoc with sensitive proteins and DNA. All other animals, on the other hand, have a protective mechanism that allows methanol to be broken down into harmless formic acid...
According to aspartame expert Dr. Woodrow Monte, there's a major biochemical problem with methanol in humans, because of the difference in how it's metabolized, compared to all other animals. This is why toxicology testing on animals is a flawed model. It doesn't fully apply to humans.
Both animals and humans have small structures called peroxisomes in each cell. There are a couple of hundred in every cell of your body, which are designed to detoxify a variety of chemicals. Peroxisome contains catalase, which help detoxify methanol. Other chemicals in the peroxisome convert the formaldehyde to formic acid, which is harmless, but this last step occurs only in animals.
When methanol enters the peroxisome of every animal except humans, it gets into that mechanism. Humans do have the same number of peroxisomes in comparable cells as animals, but human peroxisomes cannot convert the toxic formaldehyde into harmless formic acid.
So again, to recap: In humans, the methyl alcohol travels through your blood vessels into sensitive areas, such as your brain, that are loaded with alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which converts methanol to formaldehyde, and since there's no catalase present, the formaldehyde is free to cause enormous damage in your tissues.

Saccharin and Aspartame Cause Greater Weight Gain than Sugar


In related news, a study published on October 19 in the journal Appetite, found that compared with sucrose (regular table sugar), saccharin and aspartame caused greater weight gain in adult rats, and this weight gain was unrelated to caloric intake. The underlying mechanism was not determined.

However, a number of studies have already shown that consuming artificial sweeteners breaks the connection between a sweet sensation and a high-calorie food, thereby changing your body's ability to regulate intake naturally. In a similar 2008 study, rats that ate yogurt sweetened with an artificial sweetener consumed more calories, gained more weight, and put on more body fat than rats that ate yogurt sweetened with sugar. Other studies, too, have shown that eating artificial sweeteners might hinder your body's ability to estimate calorie intake, thus boosting your inclination to overindulge.

The fact that aspartame is NOT a dieter's best friend has been known by scientists for some time. The problem is this news has not received the necessary traction in the media...

For example, a study from 1986, which included nearly 80,000 women, found that those who used artificial sweeteners were significantly more likely than non-users to gain weight over time, regardless of initial weight. According to the authors, the results "were not explicable by differences in food consumption patterns," and concluded that:

" The data do not support the hypothesis that long-term artificial sweetener use either helps weight loss or prevents weight gain."

Another more recent study with the telling title of Gain Weight by "Going Diet?" Artificial Sweeteners and the Neurobiology of Sugar Cravings, published in 2010, found that epidemiologic data suggest artificially sweetened foods and beverages do not reduce weight. Quite the contrary:

"Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain. The San Antonio Heart Study examined 3,682 adults over a seven- to eight-year period in the 1980s.

When matched for initial body mass index (BMI), gender, ethnicity, and diet, drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages consistently had higher BMIs at the follow-up, with dose dependence on the amount of consumption... Saccharin use was also associated with eight-year weight gain in 31,940 women from the Nurses' Health Study conducted in the 1970s.

Similar observations have been reported in children.

A two-year prospective study involving 166 school children found that increased diet soda consumption was associated with higher BMI Z-scores at follow-up, indicating weight gain. The Growing Up Today Study, involving 11,654 children aged 9 to 14 also reported positive association between diet soda and weight gain for boys. For each daily serving of diet beverage, BMI increased by 0.16 kg/m2... A cross-sectional study looking at 3,111 children and youth found diet soda drinkers had significantly elevated BMI."

Are Your Health Problems Related to Artificial Sweeteners?


Many people belatedly realize they've been suffering reactions to one artificial sweetener or another. If you suspect an artificial sweetener might be to blame for a symptom you're having, a good way to help you weed out the culprit is to do an elimination challenge. It's easy to do, but you must read the ingredient labels for everything you put in your mouth to make sure you're avoiding ALL artificial sweeteners. To determine if you're having a reaction to artificial sweeteners, take the following steps:
Eliminate all artificial sweeteners from your diet for two weeks.
After two weeks of being artificial sweetener-free, reintroduce your artificial sweetener of choice in a significant quantity (about three servings daily). Avoid other artificial sweeteners during this period.
Do this for one to three days and notice how you feel, especially as compared to when you were consuming no artificial sweeteners.
If you don't notice a difference in how you feel after re-introducing your primary artificial sweetener for a few days, it's a safe bet you're able to tolerate it acutely, meaning your body doesn't have an immediate, adverse response. However, this doesn't mean your health won't be damaged in the long run.
If you've been consuming more than one type of artificial sweetener, you can repeat steps 2 through 4 with the next one on your list.
Let me make it abundantly clear that even though you may not show immediate signs of any noticeable reaction after consuming artificial sweeteners, please don't make the mistake of telling yourself "they must be OK for me". I strongly urge you to avoid them at all costs. They are toxic to all humans and will not help you in any way, shape, or form.
Also, if you do experience side effects from aspartame, please report it to the FDA (if you live in the United States) without delay. It's easy to make a report — just go to the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator page, find the phone number for your state, and make a call reporting your reaction. There's no telling just how many reports they might need to receive before taking another look at aspartame's safety and reconsidering their stance. But I CAN tell you, the more reports they get, the more likely that is to happen. So if you suspect you have experienced an adverse reaction from aspartame (or any other drug or food additive), please take a moment to make this important call.

Are there ANY Safe and Healthy Alternatives to Sugar?


The best strategy is to lower your use of sugar and eat right for your nutritional type and make sure you have enough high quality fats. Once your body has the proper fuel, your sweet cravings will radically diminish and you will be satisfied without them. If you still have cravings it is a strong suggestion you need to further refine your attempt to identify the right fuel for your body. My free Nutritional Plan can help you do this in a step by step fashion.

If you need a sweetener you could use stevia or Lo Han, both of which are safe natural sweeteners. Remember, if you struggle with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or extra weight, then you have insulin sensitivity issues and would benefit from avoiding ALL sweeteners.

If you're having trouble weaning yourself off soda, try Turbo Tapping. Turbo Tapping is a clever use of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), specifically designed to resolve many aspects of an addiction in a concentrated period of time.
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8 Dangers of Diet Soda


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You’ve probably noticed I mention diet soda quite often as something you need to eliminate from your diet as quickly as you can. It is a huge peeve of mine (along with a few others, like agave). I know many people enjoy diet soda and feel it is a “freebie” because it contains zero calories. What many people fail to realize is diet soda can be very detrimental to their health. It is also not beautifying at all- in fact it will diminish your beauty.  ~ Health Freedoms

Why is diet soda unhealthy? Let me count the ways!

1. Neurotoxic

While artificial sweeteners may be a zero calorie alternative to sugar, they are in no way healthier. Diet sodas may use a variety of artificial sweeteners in place of sugar, including aspartame, which acts as a neurotoxin.

Also known as NutraSweet, aspartame originally received FDA approval for use in carbonated beverages in1983, and it still remains the most commonly used sweetener in diet soda. Annually, reactions to aspartame result for a majority of the adverse reaction reports made to the food and drug administration.



Made from L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanyl-methyl-ester, aspartame is 200 times as sweet as sugar and contains negligible calories. Once in the human body, aspartame breaks down into phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol. Methanol is a wood alcohol poison that, when heated above 86 degrees Fahrenheit (the human body temperature is 98.6 degrees), converts to formaldehyde. Aspartame is also an excitotoxin that builds up in the brain, and can excite brain neurons to the point of cell death.

2: Causes Headaches and Other Symptoms

Another artificial sweetener commonly used in diet sodas, sucralose, may cause a host of health problems including headaches.

Made from a modified sugar molecule, sucralose is supposed to pass through the body unabsorbed. Because sucralose is relatively new in the market still, its long-term effects have not been measured. Some evidence1 suggests sucralose may cause migraines, gastrointestinal issues, and thymus gland damage. Sucralose may also intensify sugar cravings, increase appetite, and trigger insulin release.

3: Acidifying

Soda is made up of a number of acidic chemicals. It is one of the most acidic substances humans ingest. The acids in diet soda demineralize the bones and teeth, and can lead to fractures and osteoporosis. Acid in the body also can lead to a number of health conditions such as inflammation and corrosion of body tissue. When your body is overly acidic your skin will not be as beautiful or youthful. It will contribute to looking older.

4: Caffeinated

Many diet sodas contain caffeine, which is an artificial stimulant and an addictive substance. Caffeine also excessively taxes the liver and can hamper its ability to cleanse and filter toxins from the body. Additionally, caffeine can trigger stress hormones, which can result in chronic stress and weight gain. Caffeine is also a diuretic, which dehydrates the body. It’s best to avoid caffeine in all its forms, particularly diet soda.


 
5: Increases Risk of Obesity
Studies show that although diet soda has no caloric value, it may have an impact on insulin similar to sugar ingestion. This is most likely due to the cephalic phase insulin response in the brain. When you taste the sweet in diet soda, your body perceives it as sugar and causes the pancreas to release insulin just as it would if you were consuming actual sugar.

Some studies show that drinking diet soda may increase the incidence of obesity and/or prevent you from losing weight. In fact, researchers at the University of Texas Health Center made some startling findings when testing the link between obesity and diet soda.

Obesity risk increased as followed:

26.5 percent for people drinking up to ½ can of diet soda per day, and 24 percent for regular soda drinkers consuming up to one can per day
54.5 percent for one to two cans of diet soda per day as opposed to 32.8 percent for those drinking the same amount of regular soda
57.1 percent for people drinking more than two cans of diet soda per day as opposed to 47.2 percent for people drinking the same amount of regular soda

In other words, diet soda consumption had a higher correlation with obesity rates than consumption of caloric soda containing sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.

6: Increases Toxic Load


There’s not a lot that’s natural in diet soda. Here are just a few of the ingredients you may find:

Carbonated water
Artificial coloring
Phosphoric acid
Potassium benzoate
Citric acid

Doesn’t sound so delicious and healthy, does it! It sounds nasty, and that is because it is indeed a nasty product. Diet soda places a significant toxic load on your liver and can contribute to toxic sludge in your intestines. You are much better off drinking pure, filtered, non-tap water.

7: Increases Risk of Heart Disease


A study at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine4 showed that people who drank diet soda daily had a 61 percent increased risk of a cardiovascular event. The study followed more than 2,500 participants for about nine years, during which 559 vascular events occurred. Even accounting for age and other risk factors, the risk with diet soda consumption appeared to be at least 48 percent higher. With that kind of risk, why take a chance on diet soda?

8: May Contribute to Metabolic Syndrome


A study at University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health in 2008 linked diet soda to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of metabolic disorders including obesity, high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides and hormone resistance. According to the study, consuming diet soda increased the risk of developing metabolic syndrome by 34 percent, which was higher than the elevated risk from consuming two other unhealthy types of foods – meat (26 percent increased risk), and fried foods (25 percent increased risk).

With all of these health risks, you have to ask yourself, is diet soda worth it? Avoiding soda may be one of the best things you can do for your health and beauty.
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Aspartame: Safety Approved in 90 Nations, But Damages Brain

A new study on aspartame has the potential to reignite the decades-old controversy behind this artificial sweetener's safety, or lack thereof.  As far back as 1996, folks were writing about the potential link between aspartame and increasing brain tumor rates. Indeed, its intrinsic neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity has been confirmed in the biomedical literature. And yet, aspartame has been approved for use in thousands of consumer products in over 90 countries, and is still being consumed by millions worldwide on a daily basis – despite the fact that over

adverse health effects of aspartame have been documented.

The new study, published in the September edition of the Journal of Bioscience and titled, "Effect of chronic exposure to aspartame on oxidative stress in the brain of albino rats," aimed to test the hypothesis that chronic consumption of aspartame may be causing neurological damage in exposed populations.

They found that chronic (90 day) administration of aspartame to rats, at ranges only 50% above what the FDA considers safe for human consumption, resulted in blood and brain tissue changes consistent with brain damage.



Aspartame is metabolized into three distinct components: aspartic acid, methanol and phenylalanine. While aspartic acid is a well-known excitotoxin, phenylalanine only presents a serious health concern to those with a genetic disorder known as phenyletonuria. Methanol, on the other hand, is far more problematic, as it is not naturally found in significant quantities in the human diet.


According to a recent review

Until 200 years ago, methanol was an extremely rare component of the human diet and is still rarely consumed in contemporary hunter and gatherer cultures. With the invention of canning in the 1800s, canned and bottled fruits and vegetables, whose methanol content greatly exceeds that of their fresh counterparts, became far more prevalent. The recent dietary introduction of aspartame, an artificial sweetener 11% methanol by weight, has also greatly increased methanol consumption.

Moreover, the aspartame metabolite methanol (also known as wood alcohol) is highly toxic and is metabolized into the known human carcinogen formaldehyde and formic acid,[iv] which is known to be highly toxic to the central nervous system. Considering the fact that the normal human body temperature is approximately 98.6 degrees Farenheit, and that aspartame will convert to its toxic metabolites at temperatures as low as 86 degrees Farenheit, the finding that aspartame is neurotoxic to animals is not a surprise. The authors of the new study surmised that the observed adverse brain changes were due to the generation of oxidative stress in brain regions.



Aspartame, of course, is a proprietary synthetic chemical not found in nature, and exists primarily because plants like stevia, which have significant, clinically-substantiated healing properties, can be grown in your back yard for free and are therefore not profitable commodities that can be produced and controlled only by a few.

But, aspartame is not the only toxic sweetener on the market. A growing body of research now shows that sucralose, known by the brand-name Splenda, is also capable of suppressing the immune system, causing inflammatory bowel conditions such as Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, migraine headaches, and DNA damage.[v]
The trick is to stick with naturally occurring compounds, whose sweetness is not associated with adverse health effects. Below is a list of natural alternatives, along with the number of potential health benefits associated with each, as indexed on our website.

Compounds whose sweetness is not associated with adverse health effects


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Are PEPSI & COKE More Dangerous Then You Think?

 


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Zero calorie sodas such as Coke Zero and Pepsi Max are slowly but surely becoming the next generation of diet soft drinks. Based on their popularity, people are obviously drinking them, but if they don’t contain any calories, then what exactly is it that you’re drinking?

As a result of consuming too much processed food that’s high in sugar and refined carbohydrates, the majority of the population is overweight and many of the people who are trying to slim down by cutting calories are failing miserably. As such, zero calorie beverages such as Coke Zero and Pepsi Max are not the answer to weight loss that many people believe them to be, and to make matters worse, the chemical additives in these beverages can compromise your health.


Coke Zero and Pepsi Max

Most diet sodas, including Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, have been virtually calorie free for years. As such, Coke Zero and Pepsi Max are nothing more than diet sodas with some new ingredients and a unique marketing spin. The following are some of the more notable ingredients found in Coke Zero and Pepsi Max that don’t exist in their full calorie Coke and Pepsi counterparts.

Aspartame

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that’s considered by many health experts to be one of the most dangerous food additives in existence. Despite a significant amount of controversy, aspartame is frequently associated with cancer, neurological disorders including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and a very long list of other conditions and unpleasant symptoms.



Much of the controversy surrounding aspartame is fueled by corporate interest. In the late 1990s, Dr. Ralph Walden showed how significant this influence is by conducting a peer review of the 165 studies that were available at the time and were related to the safety of aspartame for humans. Of these studies, 74 were funded by corporations with financial ties to aspartame and the other 91 were funded by independent sources. All of the research that had financial ties to aspartame deemed it to be safe while 92% of the independent research indicated otherwise.


Acesulfame Potassium

Acesulfame potassium, often referred to as Acesulfame K, is another artificial sweetener that’s increasing in popularity. Although more research needs to be done on Acesulfame K, it’s been shown to promote cancer and increased insulin production in animals.

Potassium Benzoate

Potassium benzoate is a food preservative that’s used to prevent the growth of yeast, mold, and bacteria. It’s drawn a lot of negative attention due to it’s potential to form benzene when combined with vitamin C. Long term exposure to benzene has been found to cause cancer, anemia, suppressed immunity, irregular menstruation, and infertility.

Trading One Problem for Another

As shown by the following table, the biggest difference between Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Pepsi Max, and Diet Pepsi is the introduction of the Acesulfame K sweetener and the reduction of aspartame.

Acesulfame Potassium


Coke Zero Diet Coke Pepsi Max Diet Pepsi
Acesulfame K 46 mg 0 mg 32 mg 0 mg
Aspartame 87 mg 187 mg 123 mg 177 mg

Although Acesulfame K appears to be much less of a risk than aspartame, it’s safety is still in question, and that leaves Coke Zero and Pepsi Max with two potentially dangerous artificial sweeteners instead of one.

The Max Factor

In addition to being a zero calorie soft drink, Pepsi Max is also marketed for it’s increased caffeine content and the addition of ginseng, both of which give it the appeal of an energy drink. In comparison to the 38 mg of caffeine in regular Pepsi, there’s 69 mg of caffeine in Pepsi Max. The inclusion of ginseng, which is a natural herbal supplement used to promote better mental and physical function, even gives Pepsi Max a bit of a misleading health appeal.

Neither caffeine nor ginseng will ever provide you with the long lasting and balanced sense of energy that can only result from  optimal health. Furthermore, frequently relying on caffeine for energy will likely worsen the underlying problem that’s causing you to be tired and eventually lead to  adrenal fatigue  and poorer health.

Another suspect ingredient in Pepsi Max is calcium disodium EDTA which is commonly used by health professionals to help remove excess metals such as mercury, lead, and iron from the body. What does this have to do with soda you may ask? According to Pepsi, it helps to “protect flavor.” The real reason why it’s in Pepsi Max is to reduce the risk of benzene forming from the potassium benzoate preservative. How nice of Pepsi to look out for us like that.

A Better Perspective on Weight Loss

Clearly, the most obvious reason to drink zero calorie beverages such as Coke Zero and Pepsi Max is to reduce calorie intake, and in turn, lose weight. Ironically, although this is a controversial topic with research supporting both sides, it’s been shown in at least one study that people who rely on artificially sweetened beverages are more likely to gain weight.  In association with this, aspartame in particular has been shown to increase appetite and calorie consumption.

Losing weight is no different from increasing your energy in the regard that it’s most effectively done through a healthy lifestyle.  Too many people prioritize their appearance over their health, and as a result, fail to understand that pursuing better health and following a healthy diet will naturally lead to weight loss.

No type of soda, regardless of how many or how few calories it has, is ever a good choice. However, by following healthy habits on a regular basis, you’ll be able to enjoy soda in moderation without much impact to your health or weight, and when you do, you might as well enjoy the real thing.

Kids are heavy consumers of soft drinks, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and they are guzzling soda pop at unprecedented rates.

Carbonated soda pop provides more added sugar in a typical 2-year-old toddler's diet than cookies, candies and ice cream combined.

Fifty-six percent of 8-year-olds down soft drinks daily, and a third of teenage boys drink at least three cans of soda pop per day.

These popular beverages account for more than a quarter of all drinks consumed in the United States.

More than 15 billion gallons were sold in 2000.

That works out to at least one 12-ounce can per day for every man, woman and child.

Not only are soft drinks widely available everywhere, from fast food restaurants to video stores, they're now sold in 60 percent of all public and private middle schools and high schools nationwide, according to the National Soft Drink Association. A few schools are even giving away soft drinks to students who buy school lunches.

As soda pop becomes the beverage of choice among the nation's young -- and as soda marketers focus on brand-building among younger and younger consumers -- public health officials, school boards, parents, consumer groups and even the soft drink industry are faced with nagging questions:

How healthful are these beverages, which provide a lot calories, sugars and caffeine but no significant nutritional value?

And what happens if you drink a lot of them at a very young age?

Recently, representatives of the soft drink industry, concerned that public opinion and public policy may turn against them, will staged a three-day "fly-in" to lobby Congress to maintain soft drinks sales in schools; and to educate lawmakers on the "proper perspective" on soft drink use.

The industry plans to counter a US Department of Agriculture proposal, announced in January, that would require all foods sold in schools to meet federal nutrition standards. That would mean that snack foods and soft drinks would have to meet the same standards as school lunches.

Nearly everyone by now has heard the litany on the presumed health effects of soft drinks:

Obesity

Tooth decay

Caffeine dependence

Weakened bones

But does drinking soda pop really cause those things?

To help separate fact from fiction, the Health section reviewed the latest scientific findings and asked an array of experts on both sides of the debate to weigh in on the topic. Be forewarned, however: Compared with the data available on tobacco and even dietary fat, the scientific evidence on soft drinks is less developed. The results can be a lot like soft drinks themselves, both sweet and sticky.

Acesulfame Potassium

Obesity

One very recent, independent, peer-reviewed study demonstrates a strong link between soda consumption and childhood obesity.

One previous industry-supported, unpublished study showed no link. Explanations of the mechanism by which soda may lead to obesity have not yet been proved, though the evidence for them is strong.

Many people have long assumed that soda -- high in calories and sugar, low in nutrients -- can make kids fat. But until this month there was no solid, scientific evidence demonstrating this.

Reporting in The Lancet, a British medical journal, a team of Harvard researchers presented the first evidence linking soft drink consumption to childhood obesity. They found that 12-year-olds who drank soft drinks regularly were more likely to be overweight than those who didn't.

For each additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened soft drink consumed during the nearly two-year study, the risk of obesity increased 1.6 times.

Obesity experts called the Harvard findings important and praised the study for being prospective. In other words, the Harvard researchers spent 19 months following the children, rather than capturing a snapshot of data from just one day. It's considered statistically more valuable to conduct a study over a long period of time.

Researchers found that schoolchildren who drank soft drinks consumed almost 200 more calories per day than their counterparts who didn't down soft drinks. That finding helps support the notion that we don't compensate well for calories in liquid form.



Tooth Decay

Here's one health effect that even the soft drink industry admits, grudgingly, has merit. In a carefully worded statement, the NSDA says that "there's no scientific evidence that consumption of sugars per se has any negative effect other than dental caries." But the association also correctly notes that soft drinks aren't the sole cause of tooth decay.

In fact, a lot of sugary foods, from fruit juices to candy and even raisins and other dried fruit, have what dentists refer to as "cariogenic properties," which is to say they can cause tooth decay.

Okay, so how many more cavities are soft drink consumers likely to get compared with people who don't drink soda? This is where it gets complicated.

A federally funded study of nearly 3,200 Americans 9 to 29 years old conducted between 1971 and 1974 showed a direct link between tooth decay and soft drinks. Numerous other studies have shown the same link throughout the world, from Sweden to Iraq.

But sugar isn't the only ingredient in soft drinks that causes tooth problems. The acids in soda pop are also notorious for etching tooth enamel in ways that can lead to cavities. "Acid begins to dissolve tooth enamel in only 20 minutes," notes the Ohio Dental Association in a release issued earlier this month.

Caffeine Dependence

The stimulant properties and dependence potential of caffeine in soda are well documented, as are their effects on children.

Ever tried going without your usual cup of java on the weekend? If so, you may have experienced a splitting headache, a slight rise in blood pressure, irritability and maybe even some stomach problems.

These well-documented symptoms describe the typical withdrawal process suffered by about half of regular caffeine consumers who go without their usual dose.

The soft drink industry agrees that caffeine causes the same effects in children as adults, but officials also note that there is wide variation in how people respond to caffeine. The simple solution, the industry says, is to choose a soda pop that is caffeine-free. All big soda makers offer products with either low or no caffeine.

That may be a good idea, though it raises the question of whether soda machines in schools should be permitted to offer caffeinated beverages or at least be obligated to offer a significant proportion of caffeine-free products.

It also raises the question of how one determines a product's caffeine content. Nutrition labels are not required to divulge that information. If a beverage contains caffeine, it must be included in the ingredient list, but there's no way to tell how much a beverage has, and there's little logic or predictability to the way caffeine is deployed throughout a product line.

Okay, so most enlightened consumers already know that colas contain a fair amount of caffeine. It turns out to be 35 to 38 milligrams per 12-ounce can, or roughly 28 percent of the amount found in an 8-ounce cup of coffee. But few know that diet colas -- usually chosen by those who are trying to dodge calories and/or sugar -- often pack a lot more caffeine.

A 12-ounce can of Diet Coke, for example, has about 42 milligrams of caffeine -- seven more than the same amount of Coke Classic. A can of Pepsi One has about 56 milligrams of caffeine -- 18 milligrams more than both regular Pepsi and Diet Pepsi.

Even harder to figure out is the caffeine distribution in other flavors of soda pop. Many brands of root beer contain no caffeine. An exception is Barq's, made by the Coca-Cola Co., which has has 23 milligrams per 12-ounce can. Sprite, 7-Up and ginger ale are caffeine-free. But Mountain Dew, the curiously named Mello Yellow, Sun Drop Regular, Jolt and diet as well as regular Sunkist orange soda all pack caffeine.

Caffeine occurs naturally in kola nuts, an ingredient of cola soft drinks. But why is this drug, which is known to create physical dependence, added to other soft drinks?

The industry line is that small amounts are added for taste, not for the drug's power to sustain demand for the products that contain it. Caffeine's bitter taste, they say, enhances other flavors. "It has been a part of almost every cola -- and pepper-type beverage -- since they were first formulated more than 100 years ago," according to the National Soft Drink Association.

But recent blind taste tests conducted by Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore found that only 8 percent of regular soft drink consumers could identify the difference between regular and caffeine-free soft drinks.

The study included only subjects who reported that they drank soft drinks mainly for their caffeine content. In other words, more than 90 percent of the self-diagnosed caffeine cravers in this small sample could not detect the presence of caffeine.

That's why the great popularity of caffeinated soft drinks is driven not so much by subtle taste effects as by the mood-altering and physical dependence of caffeine that drives the daily self-administration.

And the unknown could be especially troublesome for the developing brains of children and adolescents. Logic dictates that when you are dependent on a drug, you are really upsetting the normal balances of neurochemistry in the brain. The fact that kids have withdrawal signs and symptoms when the caffeine is stopped is a good indication that something has been profoundly disturbed in the brain.

Exactly where that leads is anybody's guess -- which is to say there is little good research on the effects of caffeine on kids' developing brains.

Bone Weakening

Animal studies demonstrate that phosphorus, a common ingredient in soda, can deplete bones of calcium.

And two recent human studies suggest that girls who drink more soda are more prone to broken bones. The industry denies that soda plays a role in bone weakening.

Animal studies -- mostly involving rats -- point to clear and consistent bone loss with the use of cola beverages. But as scientists like to point out, humans and rats are not exactly the same.

Even so, there's been concern among the research community, public health officials and government agencies over the high phosphorus content in the US diet. Phosphorus -- which occurs naturally in some foods and is used as an additive in many others -- appears to weaken bones by promoting the loss of calcium. With less calcium available, the bones become more porous and prone to fracture.

The soft drink industry argues that the phosphoric acid in soda pop contributes only about 2 percent of the phosphorus in the typical US diet, with a 12-ounce can of soda pop averaging about 30 milligrams.

There's growing concern that even a few cans of soda today can be damaging when they are consumed during the peak bone-building years of childhood and adolescence. A 1996 study published in the Journal of Nutrition by the FDA's Office of Special Nutritionals noted that a pattern of high phosphorus/low calcium consumption, common in the American diet, is not conducive to optimizing peak bone mass in young women.

A 1994 Harvard study of bone fractures in teenage athletes found a strong association between cola beverage consumption and bone fractures in 14-year-old girls. The girls who drank cola were about five times more likely to suffer bone fractures than girls who didn't consume soda pop.

Besides, to many researchers, the combination of rising obesity and bone weakening has the potential to synergistically undermine future health. Adolescents and kids don't think long-term. But what happens when these soft-drinking people become young or middle-aged adults and they have osteoporosis, sedentary living and obesity?

By that time, switching to water, milk or fruit juice may be too little, too late

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Hard Facts About Aspartame That All Should NOT Ignore

If you have not read my previous  articles about Aspartame you can

read each article by clicking on the links below.










The top 10 worst Sources of Aspartame

If you think you are making a healthier option because you chose to have diet soda over a regular soda drink, its time to think again. Crafty advertising may have given the term "sugar free" an impression of healthy alternative, but the truth of the matter is that chemical sweeteners are far from healthy.

Despite the dismissive stand of aspartame producers that aspartame is safe for human consumption, various studies over the years have shown that aspartame is actually linked to headaches, migraines, dizziness, tumors and even cancer. The U.S. FDA made public 92 symptoms attributed to aspartame from submitted complaints. Despite its questionable effect, aspartame was approved for use in 1981 and still continues to be so today. Ironically, aspartame was never tested in humans before its approval. Its use in over 6,000 products and by 250 million people has made the public its unwitting guinea pig in a grand experiment 40 years in the making.

Key to health: Low-Sugar, not sugar-free

Stocking up on diet foods is the best way to gain weight. Latest research on aspartame has revealed that it actually increases the risk of weight gain. Being 200 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame appears to be the perfect answer to dieting since it contains only a few calories while still having the sweet taste of sugar. Unfortunately, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, major components of aspartame, trigger the release of insulin and leptins. The latter are hormones that stimulate storage of body fat.

Moreover, large doses of phenylalanine lower serotonin levels and lead to food cravings. Since both real and artificial sweeteners stimulate the taste buds, they affect the same taste and pleasure pathways in the brain. Artificial sweeteners, however, merely activate but do not satiate the pleasure-related region of the brain, proving to be an inferior system in preventing sugar cravings. In the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, researcher Qing Yang - a faculty at the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology- published findings that revealed artificial sweeteners more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss.

This is over and above the fact that aspartame is also highly addictive. The phenylalanine and methanol components increase the dopamine levels in the brain and cause a certain high. This further creates an addiction that is only made worse by the release of methyl alcohol or methanol, which is considered a narcotic. Keeping this in mind, it's time we reconsider the "health benefits" aspartame is supposed to give.


Products containing aspartame


The following are well-known products that use aspartame:

Diet sodas

Diet Coca Cola (all varieties)Coca Cola Zero (all varieties)Diet Pepsi (all varieties)Pepsi Max (all varieties)Diet Irn Bru (all varieties)Lilt Zero (all varieties)Sprite Zero (all varieties)Tango (all varieties)Tango no added sugar (all varieties)7up Free (all varieties)Lucozade Sport (all varieties)Schweppes Slimline Drinks (all varieties)Fanta Zero (all varieties)Fanta OrangeDr Pepper ZeroOasis Summer Fruits Extra LightOasis Citrus Punch

Yogurts

Muller Light Cherry

Muller Light Blueberry

Muller Light Raspberry

Muller Light Banana and Custard

Danone Activia Cherry

Weight Watchers Fromage Frais

Weight Watchers Toffee and Vanilla


Chewing gum

Wrigleys Airwaves (all varieties)

Wrigleys Orbit (all varieties)

Wrigleys Extra (all varieties)

Cooking sauces

Uncle Ben’s Sweet and Sour Light

Crisps

Walkers Sensations Sweet Thai Chilli

Walkers Sensations Lime and Thai Spices

Walkers Prawn Cocktail

Tabletop sweeteners

CanderelSilver Spoon Sweetness and LightSilver Spoon Light Granulated Sugar

Drink powders

Cadburys Highlights (all varieties)Options Hot Chocolate Drink (all varieties)

Flavored water

Sugar-free products

Cereals

The above mentioned popular products are just a few of many that contain aspartame. Despite the rising reports of aspartame's toxicity, a re-investigation by the FDA as well as of key regulatory bodies worldwide doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon. We can only protect ourselves by making a conscious choice to check the label of every product we buy at the grocery store.

If you have complaints regarding aspartame, don't be shy in making your complaint known. The last thing you want to be is a face in a crowd lining up before a government office that doesn't have your interest at heart.

This clip is a broadcast news segment about the controversies surrounding aspartame. Aspartame is the world's most popular sugar substitute, and is found in a wide range of products, including diet sodas, confectionary foods, chewing gum, and medications. The individuals featured in this video claim to suffer from headaches, twitches, blindness, and seizures; all of which they attribute to aspartame. The media item is an expose by Fox 5 News, Washington DC, and was first aired on November 15th, 1999. Through a series of interviews and overhead narration, this clip explores the controversial FDA approval of aspartame, its subsequent saturation of the artificial sweetener market, and some of the adverse effects as described by consumers, researchers and physicians.

Our research demonstrated the lack of conclusive evidence as to the danger or safety of aspartame, and the necessity for more independent studies to ensure the health and wellbeing of consumers.

This topic is of significant interest because of the popularity of artificially-sweetened products within Western markets, and in particular the high consumption of aspartame in diet carbonated drinks within Australia. We chose this item as it had broad links to different areas studied within the course, including seizures, depression and pharmacological effects on the brain, but also because of its pertinence to our group: young women being the second highest consumers of aspartame-laden beverages (second only to sufferers of diabetes).

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Neuroscientific Context Background

Aspartame is an white, odourless, powdered methyl ester comprised of aspartic acid and phenylalanine; hence its IUPAC name N-(L-?-Aspartyl)-L-phenylalanine,1-methyl ester (Figure 1). It is ~200 times sweeter than sucrose. While having a similar caloric profile to sucrose, its intensity of sweetness renders calorie intake negliable. It is slightly soluble in water (3x10-2 g mL-1 at ph 3 and 25oC). Solubility increases with high and low pH and heating, but various types of degredation also occur- in particularly strong acidic or alkaline conditions, aspartame may be used to produce methanol, or free amino acids via hydrolysis.
 Aspartame is metabolised into aspartate, phenylalanine and methanol. (Butchko et al., 2002, p. S17)
Aspartame was 'discovered' in 1965 when chemist James Schattler, while using aspartame in the development of an anti-ulcer drug, found it had a sweet flavour (ibid, p. 1806). At the time, Schattler was working for the G.D. Searle & Co. (now owned pharmaceutical giant Pfizer), who quickly patented it and put it up for approval for the consumable market by the Food and Drug Administration. While made legal in 1974, it was not until 1981 that Searle were permitted to market Aspartame in dry goods, and then in carbonated drinks in 1983 (GOA 1987, p. 2).
 


During the delay in marketing-approval, the FDA assessed the quality of Searle's findings, as well as those of a 1975-1980 Public Board of Inquiry. While the PBI concluded that "aspartame did not cause brain damage... studies did not conclusively show that aspartame did not cause brain tumours" (ibid, p. 3). In the 1987 United States General Accounting Office's review of Aspartame's approval, scientists indicated "neurological function, brain tumours, seizures, headaches, and adverse effects on children and pregnant women" (ibid, p. 3) as being key areas which needed further investigation before approval could be given. While approval was given without addressing these concerns, research in all aforementioned issues continues.

Purported Negative Health Effects

Neurotoxicity:

After consumption, aspartame metabolises into two common amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, and methanol. While these can be harmful in large amounts, they are also naturally occurring in many of the foods we eat. In fact, foods such as milk, tomato juice and chicken have much higher amounts of these chemicals than aspartame. The chemical which has had the most focus from a neuroscientific perspective is phenylalanine, which is a Large Neutral Amino Acid (LNAA). Studies have focused on how consumption of it impacts upon the ratio of phenylalanine to other LNAAs, and whether this leads to inhibition of other important LNAAs and enzymes in the brain, such as decreased catecholamine, serotonin and dopamine concentrations. There are two fates for phenylalanine: firstly, some is metabolized in the liver to tyrosine, essential for the synthesis of important neurotransmitters such as dopamine (Figure 2a); secondly, phenylalanine readily crosses the blood brain barrier (BBB) by competing for binding on the NAAT, a co-transporter of phenylalanine, tryptopahn (precursor for serotonin) and other amino acids (Figure 2b and 2c). At high concentrations, the competitive binding of phenylalanine results in lower concentrations of dopamine hence disturbing its negative feedback pathway (Figure 2d). However, studies such as those by Stegink et al. (1996), show that while consumption of aspartame leads to a small increase in phenylalanine to LNAA ratio, it is not significant enough to cause any adverse effects. (Humphries, Pretorius & Naude, 2008)


 High concentrations of phenylalanine will bind more effectively to NAAT, rather than tyrosine, hence leading to lower concentrations of dopamine. There are two pathways of uptake of phenylalanine in the body: (a) firstly, some phenylalanine is hydrolysed into tyrosine in the liver; and (b) secondly, phenylalanine will compete with tyrosine, methionine and other amino acids for binding on the NAAT and transported across the BBB. (c) Tyrosine must enter the BBB via NAAT since it cannot be synthesized in the brain. (d) Inside the brain, tyrosine is converted to dopamine. (Humphries, Pretorius & Naude, 2008, p. 453)

Aspartame also releases aspartate during digestion, a type of excitatory amino acid and neurotransmitter used by the neurons in the brain. Aspartate is purported to act on the NMDA receptors on the glutamate binding sites, causing calcium ion influx into the cell (Figure 3), thereby promoting greater chances of depolarization or increased firing of action potentials. This high rate of neuron depolarization can potentiate neurodegeneration (Humphries, Pretorius & Naude, 2008). Therefore, when such excitatory neurotransmitters are in excess, the potential toxicity may lead to the neuronal death in the CNS. Additionally, excess aspartame in extracellular space will pump back into glial cells by using enormous amounts of ATP; as the level of ATP stores decrease, the synthesis of glutamate and GABA also falls, thus affecting the functionality of glutamate. In essence, disrupting the balance of neurotransmitters potentially affects a wide range processes in the CNS and the rest of the body, such as amino acid metabolism.


It is purported that aspartate may act directly on the glutamate binding sites on the NMDA receptor, causing calcium ion influx and hence excitation. ("Neuroactive steroids: Synthesis of positive and negative modulators of NMDA receptor", n.d.)

Headaches:

A headache is a common ailment in the general population due to pain caused by structures within the cranium (e.g. blood vessels, meninges), or structures outside the cranium (e.g. nerves, muscles). Aspartame has been accused of being a precipitant of headaches in consumer reports and questionnaires (Butchko et al., 2002). Yet, the unreliability of these studies have prompted further research using a double-blind crossover method. A double-blind crossover study conducted by Schiffman et al. (1987) did not find significance in the incidence of headaches in subjects who took aspartame compared to placebo. On the contrary, another study showed a subset of the study group were indeed more vulnerable to headaches (Van Den Eeden et al., 1994). However, this study only comprised a small sample of 33 subjects leading to potential statistical issues. Therefore, the answer to whether aspartame provokes headaches is still unclear given such variable reports.

Depression:

Depression is a mood disorder characterized by many symptoms, including: depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, guilt, loss of appetite or overeating, and cognitive problems affecting concentration, memory or decision making. The ingestion of aspartame is suggested to increase the ratio of phenylalanine to other large neutral amino acids, possibly altering central neurotransmitter concentrations (Butchko et al., 2002). These alterations might modify brain function, such as mood or cognition. Walton, Hudak and Green-Waite (1993) conducted a study which examined the effect of aspartame on subjects already suffering from mood disorders; however, this study was cancelled due to severity of reactions in the initial 13 subjects. On the contrary, a completed study on healthy volunteers showed no significant effects of aspartame on mood or cognitive function (Spiers et al., 1998).

Phenylketonuria:

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an autosomal recessive disease resulting in dysfunction in metabolism caused by deficiency of the enzyme, phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH). PAH is essential for converting phenylalanine consumed in food to tyrosine, which is the precursor for dopamine, noradrenaline and adrenaline. As a consequence to deficient or inactive PAH, the concentration of phenylalanine in patients suffering from PKU can become toxic ("Pheylketonuria", n.d.) since phenylalanine is hydrophobic, and competes with large, neutral amino acids to cross the blood brain barrier. Some common symptoms of PKU are neurological comprising of seizures, behavioural problems, psychiatric disorders and mental retardation. Therefore, aspartame consumption is theorized to cause adverse effects on vulnerable individuals, such as the heterozygous parents of PKU sufferers (PKUH). Despite this studies have once more produced inconclusive evidence, as some studies found high phenylalanine concentrations caused generalized EEG slowing (Epstein et al., 1989); whereas other data show no medical and biochemical changes (Koch, Shaw, Williamson, & Haber, 1976); nor significant effects on cognitive performance and EEGs (Trefz, et al., 1994). Further, a review by Butchko et al. (2002) on the vulnerability of PKUH to aspartame shows that several studies have demonstrated the tolerance of high levels of aspartame in PKUH, and studies employing more sophisticated EEG analysis found no statistically significant differences.

Brain Tumours:

A brain tumour is an abnormal growth of cells within the brain or the central canal of the spinal cord, causing neurologic symptoms which are focal or generalised (DeAngelis, 2001). Generalized symptoms are due to intracranial hypertension leading to headaches, nausea and vomiting. Focal symptoms indicate the location of the tumour and can include weakness on one side of the body (hemiparesis) and impairment of producing or comprehending language (aphasia). One of the most controversial purported adverse effects of aspartame use is that it causes brain tumours. Investigations conducted in the 1970s showed a high occurrence of brain tumours in rats exposed to aspartame (Reynolds, Butler & Lemkey-Johnston, 1976). A more recent rat study showed a statistically significant increase in malignant schwannomas (cancer of Schwann cells on peripheral nerves), in addition to other cancers (Soffritti et al., 2006). Thus, suggesting that aspartame is a potential carcinogenic agent, particularly affecting the central nervous system.

Consequently, there is much controversy regarding whether aspartame may be a causative factor in human brain tumours. The incidence of human brain tumours increased significantly in the United States within 1-2 years following the approval of aspartame by the FDA (Roberts, 1991). A comparison of total CNS tumour trends showed a substantial fluctuation pre- and post-aspartame introduction in the US (Olney, Farber, Spitznagel & Robins, 1996). Given results from rat studies and the correlation between aspartame approval and brain tumour incidences, it is highly suggestive that aspartame causes brain tumours.

However, the same experimental procedure which found hypothalamic lesions in neonatal mice had no effect on infant monkeys (Reynolds, Butler & Lemkey-Johnston, 1976), indicating that primates may manage high amino acid loads better than rats, metabolically or at the level of the blood brain barrier. Furthermore, recent research found no risk associated with aspartame and brain cancer (Lim et al., 2006).

Seizures:

A seizure generally manifests in physical convulsions or other physical signs and the underlying mechanism is due to uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain. Given that aspartame is a purported excitotoxin, consumption may cause disturbance to the balance of central neurotransmitters, hence provoking seizures. In animal models aspartame promoted an increase in seizure frequency in those that were already at risk, yet it is unclear whether these results translate to humans (Maher & Wurtman, 1987). Although self reports of aspartame induced seizures may appear to be significant, a double-blind crossover model applied to such indivudals did not cause seizures even though phenylalanine concentrations were found to be significantly higher with aspartame consumption (Spiers et al, 1998).
A study by Helali et. al (1996) suggested that aspartame played an antagonistic role against anti-epileptic drugs possibly through decreased epinephrine and norepinephrine levels and increased GABA levels. Some studies (i.e. Sze, 1989) have shown that doses of 1000 mg aspartame/kg body weight (bw) or greater did enhance chemically induced seizures, however according to the review by Magnusson et. al. (2007), these results were not consistent, as another study (Reynolds et. al., 1984) claimed that doses of 2000 mg/kg bw had no effect on inducing seizures. There has been a general consensus amongst nearly all studies that doses of under 1000 mg/kg bw have no effect on inducing seizures. Considering that the average amount of aspartame consumed by the top-consuming 90th percentile of society is around 2-3 mg/kg bw, there should be very little concern for seizures as a symptom of aspartame consumption.

As becomes clearly apparent from our research, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that aspartame is dangerous or safe for consumption. It would be our recommendation that more studies with improved methodologies commence so as to ensure the safety of the public.

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Is Chewing Gum the Most Toxic Substance in the Supermarket?


5/5 (100%) 1 vote

Recently, about thirty women, were asked whose ages were mostly under the age of forty, if they carried chewing gum with them. Twenty seven of the thirty were able to pull out a pack of gum, some even going as far as telling me why they loved a particular brand/flavor of gum.

While this demographic is not representative of all women, 90% of them chewed gum on a daily basis, some consuming more than one stick per day. As with many things that we expose our bodies to on a daily basis, let’s take a moment and analyze the ingredients of chewing gum and ask some important questions that pertain to whether it contributes to good health.


How many of us have looked at the ingredients on a pack of gum?

If you have, do you know what each one of the substances is?

Is a stick of chewing gum more of a “cancer stick” than a cigarette?

As you will see below, commercial gum products are some of the most toxic substances that you can expose your body too and literally can lead to some of the worst diseases on the planet.

Here is a list of the most common ingredients in the most popular chewing gum products on the market:


 
Sorbitol, Xylitol, Mannitol, Maltitol
Gum Base
Glycerol
Natural and Artificial Flavors
Hydrogenated Coconut Oil and Starch
Aspartame –Acesulfame
Soy Lecithin
Colors (titanium oxide, blue 2 lake, red 40)
BHT
Malic Acid, Citric Acid

Ingredient #1: Gum Base.

Imagine if someone came up to you and said, “Hey, would you like to chew on some tire rubber and plastic?” You probably would politely decline and want to report this person to a doctor for a psychological evaluation. “Gum base” is a blend of elastomers, plasticizers, fillers, and resin. Some of the other ingredients that go into this mix are polyvinyl acetate, which is frequently referred to as “carpenter glue” or “white glue”. Paraffin wax is another ingredient that is a byproduct of refined petroleum. Is chewing plastic, petroleum and rubber safe? As you chew, these substances leach into the mouth and body. Yummy.

Ingredient #2: Aspartame.

The controversy surrounding this substance is widespread. It is one of the most body toxic substances we can consume. The political corruption and money trail behind this agent of disease is a mile long. Aspartame has been linked to all of the major brain diseases including Alzheimer’s and ALS. It is also considered a prime contributor to many other diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, asthma, obesity, and many others. It is in many diet products on the market today, but in the long run actually contributes to obesity due to his extreme acidity. Aspartame is an excitotoxin, which over excites neurons in the brain until they burn out and die. Dr. Russell Blaylock is the leading expert on Aspartame and other excitotoxins and I would highly encourage you to see the documentary entitled “Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World”.

#3: Hydrogenated Coconut Oil and Starch.

Hydrogenation is chemical process that adds hydrogen across a double bonded carbon. This is done to increase the shelf life of a product, turning oil into a more plastic like substance. This process also creates Trans fats, which are now known to be very harmful to health.

Ingredient #4: Colors (titanium dioxide, blue 2 lake, red 40).

Titanium dioxide is a nanoparticle that is very common in sunscreen and many other health products, including synthetic nutritional supplements. New evidence is leading in the direction of this substance being carcinogenic, leading to cancer. We as humans are drawn to things that are colorful. Artificial food colorings, such as red 40, are made from petroleum and are dangerous to our health. Many people have extreme allergies to these substances and they have been implicated in contributing to ADD and other disorders and diseases.



Ingredient #5: Sorbitol, Xylitol, Mannitol, Maltitol.

These sugar alcohols are originally made from sugar, but are altered so much that they are considered sugar free. As a general rule, when nature is altered and changed to make a “better” product, more often than not, the result is something that is not healthy. Some even go so far as to say that these products are far worse than sugar and can stimulate weight gain. Other side effects can include abdominal pain and diarrhea. Is sugar alcohol better than sugar? Neither are good substances, so comparing the two is somewhat pointless.

Chewing Gum and Digestion

Every time you chew gum, your brain is tricked into thinking that you are eating food. Therefore, it sends signals to your stomach, pancreas and other organs involved in digestion to prepare for this “food”. Your salivary glands and pancreas will begin to emit enzymes, which are necessary to digest food and absorb nutrients from food. Constant emission of enzymes over time will deplete enzymes and over time this process can slow down. If you are not breaking down and absorbing food properly over time, you will get disease because the body needs nutrients to rebuild and thrive.

A Great Alternative for Fresh Breath

A great alternative to chewing gum is to carry around a small bottle of organic food grade peppermint oil and when you would like fresh breath, just put one drop in your mouth and you will have achieved the same effect. You can find many food grade oils that are wonderful for helping you have fresh breath.

Nothing in chewing gum is natural. It is chemical goop that in no way contributes to health or is good for your teeth. Don’t be fooled by fancy advertising. The five ingredients that we reviewed above, in one form or another, contribute to disease and poor health. Is this really a risk that you want to expose yourself to all for the sake of fresh breath? In the future, perhaps we will see that chewing gum may be as much of a contributor to disease as are cigarettes.


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Top 10 Worst Sources of Aspartame


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Millions of Americans still have no idea that many of the beverages and foods they eat on a regular basis are contaminated with a neurotoxin posing as a sugar substitute. So to help raise awareness about the pervasive presence of toxic aspartame in the American food supply, the Health Ranger, has released a helpful infographic that identifies the top ten worst sources of aspartame.

The infographic highlights the use of aspartame in chewing gums, tabletop sweeteners, flavored water products, sugar-free foods and beverages, diet sodas, drink flavoring products, cooking sauces, children's medicines, yogurts, and cereals. And while these are not the only sources of aspartame in the food supply, they are among the most common.



"At every point in the fertility process aspartame destroys, beginning with the gleam in Mom and Pop's eyes: it ruins female sexual response and induces male sexual dysfunction," wrote Dr. James Bowen, a neurologist and chemist. "Beyond this, aspartame disrupts fetal development by aborting it or inducing defects. And if a live child is born aspartame may have heinously damaged the DNA of the baby, cursing future generations."

This is just one of the many side effects of consuming aspartame, of course, but it is one of the most serious. Millions of people think that using aspartame instead of sugar will help them safely lose weight, when in fact aspartame is far more harmful than even processed sugars like high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

"Both amino acids in aspartame freely enter the arcuate nucleus (at low dose), cause inappropriate release of hormones, and at high dose actually destroy these regulatory neurons," says Dr. Madelon Price, another aspartame expert. "This is why sexual dysfunction is associated with aspartame."

Contrary to the claims made by theU.S. Food and Drug Administration(FDA) and others that aspartame is safe, a wealth of independent research has verified that aspartame is linked to causing autism spectrum disorders, neurological problems, birth defects, and gastrointestinal problems, among other things (http://www.dorway.com/doctors.html).

If you think you are making a healthier option because you chose to have diet soda over a regular soda drink, its time to think again. Crafty advertising may have given the term "sugar free" an impression of healthy alternative, but the truth of the matter is that chemical sweeteners are far from healthy.

Despite the dismissive stand of aspartame producers that aspartame is safe for human consumption, various studies over the years have shown that aspartame is actually linked to headaches, migraines, dizziness, tumors and even cancer. The U.S. FDA made public 92 symptoms attributed to aspartame from submitted complaints. Despite its questionable effect, aspartame was approved for use in 1981 and still continues to be so today. Ironically, aspartame was never tested in humans before its approval. Its use in over 6,000 products and by 250 million people has made the public its unwitting guinea pig in a grand experiment 40 years in the making.




Key to health: Low-Sugar, not sugar-free


Stocking up on diet foods is the best way to gain weight. Latest research on aspartame has revealed that it actually increases the risk of weight gain. Being 200 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame appears to be the perfect answer to dieting since it contains only a few calories while still having the sweet taste of sugar. Unfortunately, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, major components of aspartame, trigger the release of insulin and leptins. The latter are hormones that stimulate storage of body fat.

Moreover, large doses of phenylalanine lower serotonin levels and lead to food cravings. Since both real and artificial sweeteners stimulate the taste buds, they affect the same taste and pleasure pathways in the brain. Artificial sweeteners, however, merely activate but do not satiate the pleasure-related region of the brain, proving to be an inferior system in preventing sugar cravings. In the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, researcher Qing Yang - a faculty at theDepartment of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology- published findings that revealed artificial sweeteners more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss.

This is over and above the fact that aspartame is also highly addictive. The phenylalanine and methanol components increase the dopamine levels in the brain and cause a certain high. This further creates an addiction that is only made worse by the release of methyl alcohol or methanol, which is considered a narcotic. Keeping this in mind, it's time we reconsider the "health benefits" aspartame is supposed to give.


Products containing aspartame


The following are well-known products that use aspartame:

Diet sodas

Yogurts

Chewing gum

Cooking sauces

Crisps

Tabletop sweeteners

Drink powders

Flavored water

Sugar-free products

Cereals

The above mentioned popular products are just a few of many that contain aspartame. Despite the rising reports of aspartame's toxicity, a re-investigation by the FDA as well as of key regulatory bodies worldwide doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon. We can only protect ourselves by making a conscious choice to check the label of every product we buy at the grocery store.


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Seven Toxic Foods, Drinks, & Additives to Cut Out of Your Diet for Good

4.5/5 (90%) 4 votes


By Ethan A, Huff

With so much conflicting information out there about which foods are healthy and which foods are not, it can be difficult for many people to determine how best to approach a healthy lifestyle that includes eating well. But a good place to start is to avoid these seven toxic foods, beverages, and additives that are quite common in the American diet.

Diet sodas and beverages sweetened with artificial chemicals. One of the more common dietary misconceptions in mainstream society today is the idea that "diet" beverages are somehow healthier than their sugar-sweetened beverages. Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal) saccharin (Sweet'N Low), and sucralose (Splenda) are among the more popular artificial sweeteners used in many diet sodas, juices, chewing gums, and other foods (http://www.naturalnews.com).

Not only are artificial sweeteners bad for your health (http://www.naturalnews.com), but they also tend to promote obesity (http://www.naturalnews.com/022785.html). If you want to protect yourself against chronic illness and toxicity -- aspartame literally converts to formaldehyde in the body and causes metabolic acidosis -- it is best to stick with either raw sugars or natural sugar substitutes like pure stevia  extract.



High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the silent killer. It is not really much of a secret anymore that HFCS, despite all the corn industry shilling, is a toxic sweetener that should be avoided (http://www.naturalnews.com/hfcs.html). Since it is linked to obesity, brain damage, low IQ, and even mercury poisoning,  avoiding all foods that contain HFCS -- this can include breads, cereals, and other seemingly innocuous  foods -- will do wonders for your health.

Most vegetable oils, including hydrogenated and 'trans' fat varieties. The misdirected war on saturated fats has convinced millions of people that unsaturated vegetable oils are a healthy alternative. Not only do many vegetables oils turn rancid quickly, which means they are toxic (http://healthwyze.org), but many of them also contain high levels of omega-6 fatty acids which, apart from omega-3 fatty acids, can cause severe health problems like heart disease and cancer. (http://www.naturalnews.com/022860.html)

Many vegetable oils are also derived from genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), including canola, soy, and corn oils. These same oils are often hydrogenated as well, a process that turns them into heart-destroying solid oils. Avoiding these and sticking instead to healthy fats like grass-fed butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and hemp oil will greatly improve your health and lower your risk of disease.

White bread, pasta, and other refined flour foods. They are cheap, plentiful, and come in hundreds of varieties. But white breads, pastas, and other foods made from refined flour are among the top health destroyers in America today. Not only are most white flour products carcinogenic because they are bleached and bromated, but they also lack vital nutrients that are stripped away during processing. Avoid them, and all processed wheat products if possible, to optimize your health.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG), carrageenan, and refined salt. Often hidden in foods under deceptive names (http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html), MSG is a pervasive salt chemical you will want to avoid that is linked to causing headaches, heart problems, brain damage, and other problems. Carrageenan, another chemical additive often hidden in "natural" and organic foods like nut milks and lunch meats, is similarly worth avoiding, as it can cause gastrointestinal upset and colon cancer.  (http://www.cornucopia.org)

And processed salt, which is added to just about everything these days, lacks the trace minerals normally present in sea and earth salts, which means it ends up robbing your body of these vital nutrients (http://www.naturalnews.com/028724_Himalayan_salt_sea.html). Hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and stroke are just a few of the many conditions that can result from refined salt intake, so your best bet is to stick with unrefined sea salts and other full-spectrum salts.



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Aspartame – Sweet Killer – It puts the DIE in Diet Soda


5/5 (100%) 1 vote


Aspartame (E951) is an artificial sweetener, used in over 6000 products. The food industry claims that aspartame helps in losing weight, but why is obesity then becoming such an ever increasing problem?
Aspartame is a very sweet chemical, responsible for a host of health problems such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, brain diseases, migraines, ADHD, etc.



Aspartame breaks down into three toxic components:

1. Methanol.
This is poisonous alcohol. In the body, methanol breaks down into formaldehyde, which is a poison.
2. Phenylalanine.
This decreases the amount serotonin in your brain, which leads to mood swings (depressions) and an increased appetite! That is why aspartame is one of the main causes for the current obesity epidemic.
3. Aspartic acid.
This is a neurological toxin comparable to MSG.

The US Department of Health has recorded 92 (!) symptoms following complaints about aspartame. In fact, over 80% of all complaints filed with FDA are related to aspartame consumption!

Some of the brand names for aspartame:
AminoSweet, NutraSweet, Equal, NatraTaste, Canderel, Spoonful, Equal-Measure, etc.

Aspartame is used in any of the following products:
Sugarfree, Light, Diet, Zero (Coke, Sprite & Fanta), Coke 007, Pepsi Max, Crystal Clear, Low-Calorie, Crystal Light, No Sugar Added, Smint, Stimorol Ice, Stimorol Fusion, Freedent, Mentos, Sportlife, etc.

Do no longer believe the lies of the food industry and the 'main stream' media. Contrary to what so-called 'health experts' claim, aspartame is NOT safe!

In fact, aspartame is a sweet poison developed to make people sick so the pharmaceutical industry can sell expensive medication to 'treat' the chronic diseases that are caused by it's use.

Avoid this toxic chemical for 60 days and discover how your health will improve dramatically!

Shocking aspartame documentary 'Sweet Misery':

Other artificial sweeteners that you should avoid:
Acesulfame K (E950), Cyclamate (E952), Isomalt (E953), Saccharin (E954), Sucralose or Splenda (E955), Alitame (E956), Neohesperidine (E959), Neotame (E961), Salt of Aspartame-Acesulfame (E962), Maltitol (E965), Lactitol (E966), Sorbitol (E420), Mannitol (E421), Glycerol (E422).

According to a research review conducted by South African scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo and published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, high intake of the artificial sweetener aspartame may lead to the degeneration of brain cells and various mental disorders.


Sweet misery



The researchers also noted that aspartame appears to cause excessive signaling of nerve cells, and nerve cell damage or even death. By disrupting the functioning of the cells' mitochondria, or energy source, aspartame leads to a cascade of effects on the whole system.

"The energy systems for certain required enzyme reactions become compromised, thus indirectly leading to the inability of enzymes to function optimally," the researchers wrote.


Same face, different name

Previous research was reviewed and it was found that aspartame, marketed as NutraSweet, Equal, Canderal and Tropicana Slim, leads to both direct and indirect changes in the brain when consumed in high quantities. It was found that the chemical can disrupt amino acid metabolism and structure, degrade nucleic acids, and interfere with the function of nerve cells and hormonal systems. It also appears to change the concentration of certain neurotransmitters in the brain.

Aspartame is used in more than 6,000 products around the world. It has been controversial since its introduction, with a number of studies linking it to cancer and neurological and behavioral disorders. Side effects have been reported by many people including headaches, insomnia and even seizures from aspartame consumption.

The FDA and the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), however, continue to insist that the sweetener is safe.

You can't imagine how hard soft drinks sweetened with Aspartame are on your body.
A must-see for anybody with a sweet tooth, this exposé reveals the dangers of Aspartame consumption.

Americans constantly obsess over the latest diet fads and skinny trends, yet we're one of the unhealthiest nations on the planet.

According to the US Surgeon General, obesity plagues more than 30% of Americans, killing over 300,000 people every year! Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are also all on the rise, with one of the main culprits in this disturbing trend being sugar. Almost 20% of our daily calorie intake comes from refined white sugar. That works out to about 150 pounds of sugar per year!

Consumed in small amounts, sugar actually helps your metabolism and supplies a quick boost of energy. In excess, sugar adds nothing but empty calories to your body. Many people have recognized this and now opt for sugar free alternatives, allowing for the rise of the artificial sugar industry. The most prevalent artificial sugar in our food supply today is called aspartame, which is also recognized as NutraSweet or Equal. Aspartame has made its way into more than 6,000 products including almost all diet sodas, chewing gum, frozen desserts, yogurt, and even vitamins and cough drops.
200 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame is a combination of two amino acids: aspartic acid and phenylalanine.

Even though the safety of aspartame has been affirmed by the Food and Drug Administration 26 times in the past 23 years, the FDA has received more complaints about adverse reactions to aspartame than any other food ingredient in the agency's history. In fact, at least 30% of the US population is sensitive to even moderate doses of aspartame and may suffer several symptoms. Immediate reactions include severe headaches, dizziness, attention difficulties, memory loss, throat swelling, and seizures.

Aspartame, the artificial sweetener found in many diet sodas and used as an ‘alternative’ sweetener, has been found recently to have detrimental – specifically, cancerous – effects.


Here are some more links about Aspartame  :  Link 1     Link 2   Link 3  Link 4
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Ten Consumer Products You Should Avoid

5/5 (100%) 2 votes
Most of the consumer products in conventional stores these days contain harmful ingredients that can destroy your health. These harmful ingredients are sometime listed in ways that make them hard to detect. The purpose of this is to prevent you from finding these dangerous ingredients. Many of these harmful ingredients are not lethal because they are not going to kill you right away, but in the long run they can help cause serious health problems, such as diabetes, cancer, sterility, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.

The amount of consumer products that contain harmful chemicals are so overwhelming that one conventional store can carry over tens of thousands of these products. Many of these chemicals are intentionally put into products for mostly business purposes. It is all about saving as much money as possible even if it is harmful to consumers. Whenever a harmful chemical becomes well known, manufacturers would try to change its name to fool consumers. An example of this is aspartame which is now being named as AminoSweet. Manufactures will also try to use long scientific names to confuse consumers. These marketing strategies are designed to trick the consumers into buying their so called “safe and healthy products.”

Before you go shopping this weekend make sure you read the list below, because it will help educate you to avoid ten of the most popular consumer products that contain harmful ingredients.

Fluoride toothpaste 

Toothpaste that contains fluoride is dangerous to your health because it is a toxin. Before fluoride was introduced as a cavity fighter, it was used as a rat poison. The health claims about fluoride is very misleading. It does little to prevent tooth decay but does a great job destroying your thyroid gland, metabolism, and increasing your risk of cancer and sterility. Toothpaste that contains toxic ingredients, such as fluoride and sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS), will usually have warning labels on the back of its tube. On the other hand, toothpaste that does not contain toxic ingredients usually has no warning labels. Now, why would fluoride toothpaste manufacturers put warning labels on their product? The main reason is because they know that it is toxic. People have been known to die from swallowing fluoridated toothpaste. A good rule of thumb when buying consumer product is to look for warning labels. If the warning labels tell you information that is life threatening, you should avoid it, especially if it is something that you put in your mouth or on your body.

Bottled water 



According to researchers, about half of the bottled water in the market is filtered tap water. The laws and regulations that govern the bottled water industry are not very specific. As a result, bottled water manufacturers can easily manipulate their labels to mislead consumers. In many cases, chlorine is added to bottled water as a sanitizer to prevent organisms from breeding in the water. Chlorine is not dangerous in small amounts but it still affects your health. Another chemical found in bottled water that may even be more dangerous than chlorine is phthalates. High doses of phthalates have been known to disrupt hormones in rodents, and cause damages to the liver, testes and increase birth defects.

Chips 

This product is one of the most popular consumer products. Chips contain a large variety of harmful synthetic ingredients. One of the most dangerous is monosodium glutamate (MSG). Have you ever wonder why after eating a bag of chips you get headaches? One of the main reasons is because most chips contain MSG which is an excitotoxin. Independent studies have shown a significant relationship toward Alzheimer’s and MSG. In animal studies, the animals that consumed large doses of MSG experienced permanent brain damage due to the destruction of their pyramidal neurons.

Corn products 

Most corn products in the United States, such as corn oil, flour, meal, starch, gluten and syrups are genetically modified. Corn that has been genetically modified is known to produce its own pesticides so insects cannot eat it. Genetic engineering is something that scientists is very poor at doing because they still have little clues to how genes truly work. Many of the studies done on genetically modified food lacked the concrete data to support their claims. Because of scientists immature and naive studies, the consumers are the ones that end up suffering from health problems. To avoid genetically modified corn products only buy the ones that are labeled non-GMO or organic.

Ice cream 

Most ice creams found in conventional stores are full of harmful synthetic chemicals. Three of the most popular synthetic chemicals found in ice cream are acetiel C17, benzyl acetate and pepernial. Acetiel C17 is an aniline dye that is used in the manufacture of plastic, rubber and pharmaceuticals. It is used to mimic the cherry flavor in ice cream. Benzyl Acetate is a nitrate solvent that is widely used as artificial strawberry flavoring. Pepernial is a chemical that is popular for killing lice. Pepernial is used in ice cream to mimic the vanilla flavor

Sugar free products 

A lot of consumers believed that sugar free products are healthy and great for preventing weight loss. These consumers have been tricked by the food industry. Sugar free products usually contained artificial sweeteners. The most popular ones are sucralose (also known as Splenda) and aspartame (also known as Equal, AminoSweet, NutraSweet). These two artificial sweeteners are considered by independent researchers as neurotoxins. Artificial sweeteners are great for causing weight gain even though they contain less calories. Artificial sweeteners are also found in baby products. If you have babies, please do not feed them baby food that contains artificial sweeteners.

Soda

One of the most dangerous ingredients found in soda is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is not like regular sugar. Most HFCS has been genetically modified because it is a product of corn. Many studies have linked HFCS to obesity, heart disease and certain cancer. To learn more about how HFCS causes obesity please visit this site. Diet soda is even worst because it contains artificial sweetener which is great for causing weight gain and destroying brain cells. If you are pregnant, you should stay twice as far away from diet soda because you have twice as many reasons to not drink it.



Conventional shampoo 

Most of the shampoo in conventional stores are filled with harmful chemicals. The common ones are sodium lauryl sulfate and methylisothiazoline (MIT). Some of the chemicals found in shampoo are known to be harmful to the skin and hair. Some of them are even considered to be neurotoxins. If you are worried about going bald or having skin problems, you may want to avoid conventional shampoo. When buying shampoo read the ingredients list. If it contains the two chemicals I mentioned above avoid it. For more information about the hidden dangers in shampoo please read this article.

Cow milk 

Got milk? I hope not. The health claims made by the dairy industry about milk are very misleading. They are designed to trick you into buying its product. Cow milk does little to strengthen bone. Cow milk is full of harmful chemicals, animal proteins and synthetic vitamins. In order for your body to effectively absorb calcium it needs assistance from vitamin D. The vitamin D in milk is synthetic and does not have all the necessary components to help your body effectively absorb calcium. The best source of calcium is not from cow milk but from plant-based food. Many plant-based food contains more calcium per calorie than milk, plus it contains other nutrients that are necessary for the utilization of calcium. Examples of plant-based food that contains more calcium per calorie than milk are: arugula, bok choy, turnip greens, collard greens, mustard greens, spinach and broccoli. For more information about bone health please read Bone Health: Truth and Myth.

Cell phone 

This consumer product is a little off topic but I decided to put it in the list because of its tremendous growth. Cell phone has changed the way we communicate so much that it can make us crazy when we go a day without it. Cell phone is a great technology but its manufacturers has lied to you about how it affects your health. One of the main problem with cell phone is electromagnetic pollution which is caused by scalar waves. Scalar wave is an electromagnetic longitudinal wave that is of multi-dimensional quality. It is one of the mediums that fills the empty space between all things. Scalar wave can be used for good or for bad. When scalar wave is used for good, it can rejuvenate the body back to its original state. It is very important for your health because your cells use this wave to communicate. Unfortunately, the scalar wave generated by cell phone vibrates at certain frequencies that are harmful to your cells. In the long-run, this may cause cellular mutations which can lead to cancer. To reduce electromagnetic pollution do not use your cell phone for too long. If you use your cell phone a lot, you may want to buy a wave shield for cell phone. This type of wave shield is designed to reflect most electromagnetic radiation emitted from cell phone.

Source:
energyfanatics.com
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Aspartame has been Renamed and is Now Being Marketed as a Natural Sweetener

4/5 (80%) 12 votes

Artificial sweeteners especially aspartame has gotten a bad rap over the years, most likely due to studies showing they cause cancer. But not to worry Ajinomoto the company that makes

Aspartame has changed the name to AminoSweet. It has the same toxic ingredients but a nice new sounding name. And if you or your child happens to be allergic to Aspartame, well don’t take it personally it’s just business.

Despite the evidence gained over the years showing that aspartame is a dangerous toxin, it has remained on the global market . In continues to gain approval for use in new types of food despite evidence showing that it causes neurological brain damage, cancerous tumors, and endocrine disruption, among other things.

Most consumers are oblivious to the fact that Aspartame was invented as a drug but upon discovery of its’ sweet taste was magically transformed from a drug to a food additive. HFA wants to warn our readers to beware of a wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing or in this case Aspartame dressed up as Aminosweet.



Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the general public is waking up to the truth about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health. The latest aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public into accepting the chemical sweetener as natural and safe, despite evidence to the contrary.

Aspartame was an accidental discovery by James Schlatter, a chemist who had been trying to produce an anti-ulcer pharmaceutical drug for G.D. Searle & Company back in 1965. Upon mixing aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two naturally-occurring amino acids, he discovered that the new compound had a sweet taste. The company merely changed its FDA approval application from drug to food additive and, voila, aspartame was born.

G.D. Searle & Company first patented aspartame in 1970. An internal memo released in the same year urged company executives to work on getting the FDA into the “habit of saying yes” and of encouraging a “subconscious spirit of participation” in getting the chemical approved.

G.D. Searle & Company submitted its first petition to the FDA in 1973 and fought for years to gain FDA approval, submitting its own safety studies that many believed were inadequate and deceptive. Despite numerous objections, including one from its own scientists, the company was able to convince the FDA to approve aspartame for commercial use in a few products in 1974, igniting a blaze of controversy.


 

In 1976, then FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt wrote a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy expressing concern over the “questionable integrity of the basic safety data submitted for aspartame safety”. FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill believed that a grand jury should investigate G.D. Searle & Company for lying about the safety of aspartame in its reports and for concealing evidence proving the chemical is unsafe for consumption.

The details of aspartame’s history are lengthy, but the point remains that the carcinogen was illegitimately approved as a food additive through heavy-handed prodding by a powerful corporation with its own interests in mind. Practically all drugs and food additives are approved by the FDA not because science shows they are safe but because companies essentially lobby the FDA with monetary payoffs and complete the agency’s multi-million dollar approval process.

Changing aspartame’s name to something that is “appealing and memorable”, in Ajinomoto’s own words, may hoodwink some but hopefully most will reject this clever marketing tactic as nothing more than a desperate attempt to preserve the company’s multi-billion dollar cash cow. Do not be deceived.

Update: As many comments are being posted by readers who are allergic to Aspartame we ask that you please forward this article to as many people as you can.

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Top Health Threats Affecting Children, Yet Denied By The Mainstream Media

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The mainstream media and government have peddled the same lame health concerns affecting children for decades. Whether it's drug abuse, smoking, teen pregnancy, obesity or any other perceived public health threat, no officially recognized health concern affecting children compares to the actual threats which are rarely if ever discussed by public health entities or the mainstream media. The reasons for this convenient ignorance are simple...deception and distraction.
The typical diatribe coming out of government organizations who claim to be enforcing good health and protecting our children is nonsense and always has been. They parrot the same mundane health threats affecting children decade after decade without actually doing anything about them or telling us what actually causes them. They insist things like smoking, drug abuse, obesity, teen pregnancy, bullying and abuse are the top health concerns for children and teens when they are nothing but a miniscule fraction of a threat compared to the following:
1) Vaccines
A German study with 17461 children between 0-17 years of age (KIGGS) showed that 4.7% of vaccinated children suffer from asthma, 10.7% of these children from hayfever and 13.2% from neurodermatitis. These numbers differ in western countries, i.e. the prevalence of asthma among children in the US is 6% whereas it is 14-16% in Australia (Australia's Health 2004, AIHW). The prevalence of asthma among unvaccinated children in our study is 0.2%, hayfever 1.5% and neurodermatitis 2%.
According to the KIGGS study more than 40% of children between the ages of 3 and 17 years were sensitized against at least one allergen tested (20 common allergens were tested) and 22.9% had an allergic disease. Although we did not perform a blood test, less than 10% stated that their children had an allergy.
Vaccinated children are up to 14 times more likely to have asthma than the unvaccinated and up to nine times more like to have skin problems.http://www.impf-report.de/jahrgang/2005/02.htm#06

An estimated 100-180 Indian children are diagnosed with vaccine-associated polio paralysis (VAPP) each year. In fact, the clinical presentation of the disease, including paralysis, caused by VAPP is indistinguishable from that caused by wild polio viruses.
Vaccines, all vaccines, are immune suppressing; that is they depress our immune functions. The chemicals in the vaccines depress our immune system; the virus present depresses immune function, and the foreign DNA/RNA from animal tissues depresses immunity. Chemical toxicity and depressed immunity likely make vaccines the number one long-term health threat to children.
2) Artificial Sweeteners, Colors, Flavors and Preservatives
Dangerous food additives are creating a toxic environment for our children's health spurring allergies and ADHD.
Two recent British studies found that certain food dyes, as well as the common preservative sodium benzoate, may have an adverse effect on some children's behavior. Researchers said the increase in ADHD diagnoses could be partly to blame on the preservative.
"It can affect their focus, their concentration. They become more easily distractible, become more impulsive. I think we're looking at a whole population of kids with skewed immune systems," said Dr. Kenneth Bock, who wrote a book that supports the theory that food additives could lead to hyperactivity in children.
A Southampton Study in the UK showed that additives cause hyperactivity in children within an hour after consumption. Food additives, especially the artificial colors are made from coal tar derivatives and synthetic chemicals. Within an hour of ingestion, hyperactive behavior is evident.
MSG is not a nutrient, vitamin, or mineral and has no health benefits. The part of MSG that negatively affects the human body is the "glutamate", not the sodium. The breakdown of MSG typically consists of 78% glutamate, 12% sodium, and about 10% water. Any glutamate added to a processed food is not and cannot be considered naturally occurring. Natural glutamate in plants and animals is known as L-glutamic acid.
A study on infant rats showed that administration of MSG lead to five shrunken glands, including the testes. Other studies have shown that growth hormone, thyroid hormones and many other endocrine functions can be assaulted by excitotoxins which may lead to growth retardation of children before the age of puberty.
One study on mice showed that aspartate, the excitotoxin in diet drinks,gum and aspartame, did the same kind of neuronal damage to the hypothalamus that previous studies on glutamate exhibited. This study mentioned that the research showed that excitotoxins lead to "subsequent obesity, skeletal stunting and reduced mass of pituitaries, ovaries and testes. Yes, the research is clear that excitotoxins can literally damage (and reduce in size) the future development of your child's testes and ovaries.
Colouring agents are derived from coal tar, and nearly all colouring is synthetic. Though some artificial food dyes have been banned because they are believed to cause cancer, most dyes used today are of the artificial variety. They are also linked to allergies, asthmas, and hyperactivity. They have been found to provoke asthma attacks and have links to thyroid tumours. Coincidently, artificial colors are very prevalent in ice cream products which are directly marketed to children. Every single artificial color in the food industry has some kind of detrimental health effect. These include neurotoxicity, organ, developmental, and reproductive toxicity and cancer. Children are being fed these chemicals in such large quantities that they begin to have nervous system malfunctions that ultimately are misdiagnosed as ADHD, learning disabilities, or violent behavior.
As one of the most prolific preservatives in the food industry, it is difficult to find many foods without potassium sorbate. Food and chemical toxicology reports have labeled potassium sorbate as a carcinogen, showing positive mutation results in the cells of mammals. Other studies have shown broad systemic and toxic effects on non-reproductive organs in animals. No long term studies have ever been initiated on either animals or humans, but many suspect the preservative to be toxic to young children.
Sodium Benzoate can convert into lethal carcinogenic poison when combined with absorbic acid. Professor Peter Piper, a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology, tested the impact of sodium benzoate on living yeast cells in his laboratory. What he found alarmed him: the benzoate was damaging an important area of DNA in the "power station" of cells known as the mitochondria. "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether." he stated.
"The food industry will say these compounds have been tested and they are complete safe," he said. "By the criteria of modern safety testing, the safety tests were inadequate. Like all things, safety testing moves forward and you can conduct a much more rigorous safety test than you could 50 years ago."
Sodium Benzoate, as most other preservatives, should not be ingested in any quantity by children, however the toxin is still available in many foods that children ingest.
In the current climate of escalating obesity rates, artificially sweetened soft drinks are marketed to children as healthier alternatives to sugar-sweetened beverages, due to their lack of calories. However, past research has shown very serious long-term health consequences due to highly toxic additives and artificial sweeteners such as sodium benzoate, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose and high-fructose corn syrup.
Artificial flavors and colors means it is derived from a chemical made in a laboratory and has no nutritional value. Every single artificial flavor and color in the food industry has some kind of detrimental health effect. These include neurotoxicity, organ, developmental, reproductive toxicity and cancer.
* Examples
- Glutamates
Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)
- Maltodextrin
- Autolyzed Yeast Extract
- Disodium Guanylate
- Disodium Inosinate
- Blue 1, Blue 2
- Yellow 5, Yellow 6
- Red 3, Red 40
3) Genetically Modified Foods
Genetically Modified (GM) foods are likely the single biggest threat to humanity in the coming decades and certainly a threat to the health of future generations. If you're new to the dangers of GM foods this article "The 7 Biggest Reasons To Never Eat Genetically Modified Foods" sums up the reasons to stay away from them. Problem is, they're everywhere and it's almost impossible to escape from them.

GM foods pose a threat to the environment, polluting the fertile soils of the world with unnatural genetic material that may have unknown long-term consequences. Cross-pollination with non-GM crops, monoculture practices and the liberal use of chemical pesticides alongside GM crops are just a few of the serious threats to sustainable life on Earth posed by food scientists playing God with seeds.
Researchers have found clear links among the consumption of GM-corn and immunological alterations in the gut and the exacerbation and creation of allergies which more children are suffering from every year.
GM Foods causes allergies, organ damage, cancer, immunotoxicty, and damaging transgenes which affect future generations. Many fruits and vegetables for sale in the U.S. are already genetically modified.
The data from comprehensive studies on GM corn “clearly underlines adverse impacts on kidneys and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, as well as different levels of damages to heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system,” reported Gilles-Eric Seralini, a molecular biologist at the University of Caen.
Ninety-nine percent of GMO crops either tolerate or produce insecticide which also damage a child's health. This may be the reason we see bee colony collapse disorder and massive butterfly deaths. If GMOs are wiping out Earth’s pollinators, they are far more disastrous than the threat they pose to future generations of all humans and other mammals.
Children who consume the processed foods with the following are likely consuming ingredients that are GM.
* Examples
- Corn flour, meal, oil, starch, gluten, and syrup
- Corn Sweeteners such as fructose, dextrose, and glucose
- Modified food starch
- Soy flour, lecithin, protein, isolate, and isoflavone
- Most vegetable oils and vegetable proteins
- Canola oil (also called rapeseed oil)
- Cottonseed oil
- Anything not listed as 100% cane sugar

4) Environmental Toxins
BPA, fluoride, parabens, phthalates, PFOA, fiberglass, oxybenzone, BHA and dozens of other chemicals makes up a very long laundry list of environmental toxins affecting every household. Combine this with geoengineering intiatives polluting the entire atmosphere with toxins, and you have a toxic planet from soil to sky.
Developing children are at even greater risk than adults for harm from the above chemicals. There toxic effects are far reaching affecting almost every body system.
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered that exposure during pregnancy to Bisphenol A (BPA), a common component of plastics, causes permanent abnormalities in the uterus of offspring, including alteration in their DNA.
Fluoride alters the minds and brains of children. There has been considerable research done on fluoride regarding cancer, birth defects, and risks to the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and urinary systems, however, very little has been done on its neurological effects.
For years, experts have been warning women about some very toxic ingredients the cosmetic industry uses which put users at risk of cancer and hormonal changes. A number of studies since 1998 have raised concerns about the potential role of these parabens in breast cancer as they possess estrogenic properties.
"We have to do a better job at protecting the health of our children, but we also have to do a better job of protecting the women that feed our children, especially in their first year of life," said Patricia Ongo a breastfeeding specialist.
Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is another extremely toxic and persistent contaminant in groundwater. Many states are exposed to much higher concentrations of the notorious Teflon chemical under a proposed state regulations that allow unsafe levels of the contaminant in drinking water, scientists at Environmental Working Group (EWG) have warned.
Phthalates are a group of chemical compounds that occur in construction materials and a great number of common consumer goods such as toys, cleaning solvents, packaging, etc. Phthalates are suspected of disrupting hormones, premature births and may be related to several chronic diseases in children, like asthma and allergies, as shown in earlier studies.
A whistleblower and former hazardous materials expert recently exposed the shocking and under-reported evidence that attenuated fiberglass, the kind used to insulate your home and found in countless consumer products, is more carcinogenic than asbestos.
Synthetic preservatives, such as BHA and butylhydroxytoluene (BHT), used to slow down the oxidative deterioration of food are toxic nightmares for children. They used in everything from orange juice to butter, cereals and snack foods. These chemicals are lethal to the health and long-term development of children's hormonal regulation and brain.
5) Mainstream Medicine
Perhaps the biggest health myth today (although more people are catching on) is the public's misconception that mainstream medicine and the healthcare system helps sick children. Nothing could be further from the truth since physicians and psychiatrists alone are extremely dangerous to the health of children. They are the ones that prescribe the dangerous medications, vaccines, antibiotics, and debilitating psychotic drugs.
90 percent of all diseases (cancer, diabetes, depression, heart disease, etc.) are easily preventable through diet, nutrition, sunlight and exercise. None of these solutions are rarely if ever promoted by conventional medicine to parents and their children because they make no money.
One can only hope that a child does not contract cancer as physicians only have one tool for that--cut, poison and burn via surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
No pharmaceuticals actually cure or resolve the underlying causes of disease. Even "successful" drugs only manage symptoms, usually at the cost of interfering with other precious physiological functions in young bodies that will cause side effects down the road. There is no such thing as a drug without a side effect.
Mainstream medicine is the leading cause of death in the United States. They recruit children into the system when they are young and vulnerable and they attempt to keep them as life-long clients as they age.

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3 comments:

  1. Health drinks are always known for their instant energy boosting capabilities. But people often skip the after effects of drinking such beverages which harm their health from inside. The best health drink which doesn't have any side effects is Goji Berry Juice.

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  2. I am using AVG security for a number of years, and I'd recommend this product to all of you.

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  3. Why don't you go and do some research before you listen to this shit. Sorbitol, sac archon, aspartame, and other sweeteners were thought to have been proven to be carcinogenic. However, this has been proven wrong by independent, and I stress the word independent, researchers, in the same way that the flat earth was proven wrong.Any bans or warning labels were removed from that point. Also, methanol is derived from the mint leaf. Aspartic acid is an AMINO ACID, something that is literally essential for life on earth. Humans get amino acids from other things, but I don't see how something that is essential can be toxic. Phenilalene is also an amino acid, although there are two types. D-phenilalene is not an essential amino acid, although it has some benefits. L-phenilalene is essential for humans. Also, why are you so morbidly afraid of all chemicals? Water, vitamin c (as ascorbic acid), vitamin d (cholecalciferol), and a whole bunch of other things that you may not consider as chemicals are chemicals! EVERY SINGLE SUBSTANCE IN THE UNIVERSE IS A CHEMICAL!!! I am sure that if I told you about ascorbic acid and cholecalciferol and it's side effects, whether made up or true, you would believe me until I told you what their common names are. Here's a little test:
    Dihydrogen monoxide is an odourless, colourless, chemical. It is exposed to us through a variety of methods. Here are some facts about this:
    It is used as an industrial solvent,
    It can cause severe burns when it is a gas,
    From 2005-2014, 3514 people died from this, excluding burn related deaths, and 1 in 5 of these were 14 or younger.
    This chemical can be used to make nitroglycerin, sulphuric acid, and ethyl alcohol.
    Nitroglycerin is extremely explosive, sulphuric acid is found in Venus clouds, and ethyl alcohol is a poison.
    Would you want to ban this substance from the earth?
    Say that you succeeded. I would say, congratulations ! You have successfully banned dihydrogen monoxide from the earth! Now let me tell you about its chemical name.
    It is H2O. Yes, you thought of banning WATER from the earth. Good job. By the way, all of the facts that I told you were true.

    ReplyDelete