Aspartame the Neurotoxin?!
I often suggest to many of our practice members that they need to increase their daily water intake.
Most Americans are severely dehydrated! We don’t realize this until our lips get chapped or skin dries out and those indicators are very late indicators of dehydration. The main issue is dehydration at the cellular level.
The response i received from one person (who was 68 years of age) was “I was listening to some doctors on the radio show and they said that water is contained in many soft drinks so i can add that into my daily intake, i typically go through 4-5 diet sodas a DAY!”
2 problems with that statement that jumped out to me:
1. Yes there is technically water in soda, diet sodas and juices. BUT, there are also large amounts of sodium, sugar or sugar substitutes, and other additives in ALL of those drinks. These substances have numerous effects on the physiological systems of the body, but most profoundly is the diuretic effect, or the ability of those chemicals to cause you to pass most of that water through your system without reaping the benefits.
2. Most people are willing to trust someone they have never met, sometimes never seen, over specialists in which THEY voluntarily came in for help.
The second problem is the most disturbing because it shows how we will constantly find studies that fit or justify the reasons why we live the way we live. This deters us from truly understanding facts and allowing us to make healthy changes in our lifestyle.
My rule of thumb is one i have adapted from world renowned nutritionist Marion Nestle: “If it’s not natural, don’t put it in your body!”
Aspartame has a lot of research showing its negative effects. It also has a lot of research claiming it isn’t harmful at all. Which are we supposed to believe? In this day and age our access to information is endless, making it all the more important to know where the research you are reading and depending your health on is being produced. Better question, WHO is producing that research? Something we touched in our “Supplements” post is the idea of biased research.
Example: Hershey Co. sells chocolate. Hershey Co. makes money when they sell chocolate. Hershey Co. commissions private research on that “shows” how eating chocolate is beneficial for you. Hershey Co’s new “affiliate”(whom they finance) fails to mention that it is the cacao bean that actually harnesses the health benefits it claims in its research.
You read the article and start chowing down on all sorts of Hershey chocolate because you are under the impression, given from the article, that eating chocolate is healthy for you. You aren’t presented the fact that the chocolate tested in the research study was 85% pure cacao with no additives like milk, corn starch etc. But the chocolate you have been eating has all the extra stuff the study didn’t.
Now is the research study false? no. Is it a bit misleading? I’d say so. The same paradigm exists for most research studies, including aspartame. But to give you diet soda drinkers a few facts:
1. Aspartame breaks down into methanol when ingested in the human body. Methanol is a toxin that most other species can eliminate before harmful effects can take place. The human body cannot do this, therefore the methanol starts to eat away at our Myelin sheaths, the protective layer around our nerves that allow proper nerve transmission(the same cause of multiple sclerosis-MS-) . This is the neurotoxic effect aspartame has on the central nervous system and brain development.
2. The FDA has rejected the approval of aspartame multiple times!! Why is it being used now? Mike Wallace and 60 minutes can help with informing you about that:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kn5slnNB8h0
3. Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners typically increase your carb/sugar cravings and promote fat storage!
4. Most artificially sweetened drinks, especially diet sodas, contain a large amount of sodium which further dehydrates the body!
A recent article stated that the Dairy industry wants to add aspartame to milk and yogurt products! I would recommend against dairy foods in general due to the difficulty the human body has trying to digest it.
If you are having trouble losing weight, artificial sweeteners and additives are not the answers, read “My food journey” for a start. These chemicals only make it harder for your body to function at a high level which will make it impossible for you to lose weight in a way that you can successfully keep it off. Not to mention the destruction it is causing your nerve cells (you remember? the cells that run every other function of your body from breathing to heart rate…i’d say that is kind of important.
For more info email or call us functionalhealthspecialists@gmail.com or 925-289-8011.
http://aspartame.mercola.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/diet-soda-diabetes-risk-type-2-artificially-sweetened-sugar_n_2663247.html
