The comments below reflect the personal experiences and opinions of readers and do not represent medical advice or the views of this website. The information shared has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or health condition. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical concerns.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Sonya (Huntsville, Alabama, USA) on 01/22/2009
Thank you so much for trying to make the public aware of this epidemic. I myself am a victim of the artificial sweetener side effects. A couple of years ago in an effort to lose weight for my wedding, I started using "diet" products. Within a week, I was experiencing severe headaches, uncontrollable tremors, extreme fatigue, nausea and irritability. Thinking I had become hypoglycemic, I bought a glucose meter and began testing up to 6 times a day. My levels were always normal. At the gym one day, I met a doctor. Explaining my symptoms to her, she asked me if I used artificial sweeteners. I replied that I did and she told me to stop them and see how I felt in a few days. Lo and behold, my symptoms dissipated day by day. She explained that she had written articles on the effects of artificial sweeteners and that honey or natural sugar would be better than ANY artificial sweeteners. She explained that she had a patient that had come to her diagnosed with MS and after she told him to quit the sweeteners, he returned better, able to walk again and was able to cope without his medication for the MS. I am happy to report that 2.5 years later, I am doing much better and refuse to touch anything with artificial sweeteners in it. I try to warn anyone that I know. I've helped friends that had chronic headaches by informing them of the dangers of these sweeteners. Not surprisingly, their persistent headaches ceased. So thank you to everyone sharing their stories and helping to get the word out!!!
Reader Feedback
Posted by Joyce (Joelton, Tn) on 01/22/2009 490 posts
Hello Barbara, You need to google excitotoxins. You will find that the two major ones that are so heavily laden in all our processed foods are monosodium glutamate and aspartame. Good old toxin aspartame could be the cause of all the symptoms you are so fearful of including the migraines, heart palpitations, panic attacks and much more. Both of the above are known to cause lots of health problems including Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS. Work to get both of these out of your foods before it gets worse, because both are known to excite your neurons to death, and when all or many of your neurons are killed you won't have much brain left to receive or send a message to your muscles to swallow.
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Posted by Mary (Buckeye, Az.) on 01/22/2009
Have you had your thyroid checked? I started having trouble swallowing and one day took a small bite of rice, when I swallowed my throat went into spasm. later that day I told my mom what had happened, she looked a my throat and noticed that it was swollen. I immediately went to emergency,They diagnosed me with Grave's disease.
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Posted by Rich (Boca Raton, Fl) on 01/17/2009
Here are my thoughts on Aspertame. I suspect that if someone has Gum Disease, or a leaky Gut, or Diabetes, then a higher concentration of Aspertame is absorbed.
I would guess that the phenyl component might go to fight a fungus, allowing the Methanol to get into the blood and rise sugar levels, creating much more fungus, candida, etc... than it kills.
For "healthy people", or those not afflicted by candida, etc... this may cause no damage. For others, this can cause major problems.
****
The idea that sugar causes cancer has been around for a long time. That cancerous cells eat 15x more sugar, and are surrounded by lactic acid, and are anerobic(oxygen deficient), has been known.
Of course there are many types of fungus and different types of cancers, and I am over-generalizing.
Perhaps the candida eats the sugar, and the lactic acid is trying to kill the candida, but if it fails, the cancer has the ability to spread due to the low ph. Perhaps it's friendly bacteria, acidophilus or lactobacillus creating the lactic acid... then again you generate lactic acid through exercise, so perhaps the lactic acid is just a defense mechanism. Unclear.
Gum disease is treated with Chlorhexadine mouthwash. Chlorhexadine also kills ringworm fungus, and has antifungal properties, so I suspect fungus involved there (perhaps Chronic Mucosal Candidaidis).
Anyways, I suspect in some people they absorb much high concentrations of Aspertame, leading to Methanol poisoning and formaldehyde, etc... as you said.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Angela (Richmond, VA) on 01/09/2009
I used to use Equal. I would have these sharp shooting pains in my head and it was frightening. I learned about aspartame and stopped using it. The symptom stopped completely for years.
I noticed that recently I sometimes experience the symptom although not as severe. I wonder if they are sneaking this poison in foods that are supposed to be regular white sugar, although white sugar is a form a poison too. I think I will have to stop consuming foods even with "regular" sugar and maybe even the "no sugar added" ones too. I usually consume low sugars but a little can do a lot of damage for some.
I have accidently consumed low levels of aspartame a few times throughout the years. Whenever I have, the shooting pains start immediately - the same or next day! Please be smart. Don't convince yourself it's okay just because it's on the market and you like the way something tastes and don't want to change your ways.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Lynn (Chiang Mai, Thailand) on 12/29/2008
SIDE EFFECT: 2 years ago I had a Bacardi Breezer and after a short time I experienced a grand mal epileptic seizure. I felt my hearing go and knew I was about to faint. I came to 4-5 minutes later by concerned net-cafe workers who were fanning me. I was completely white and had lost conciousness for several minutes while shaking and jerking.
I just want to warn people of aspartame, I found out it was in the breezer and now I am very weary of this sweetener. It should be taken off the market. I have never had a seizure in my life, and being a traveller it changed my life in terms of travelling, and scared me to the bone. It is totally diregarding people and disrespecting people to keep using this msg and many other food additives. When will we have a say in what we put in us when often times the additives are hidden?
And to Ted, thank you so much for such a great website, you are doing great work and have extensive knowledge. You are helping so many. deep thanks :)
Reader Feedback
Posted by Roxanne ( Easton, Pennsylvania) on 11/21/2008
I found the information about aspartame in Ester C product interesting. I've had two spinal fusion and my Doctor wants me to take vitiman C for healthy cell growth etc. I could not take regular vitamin C after awhile needing nexium for months. I switched to Ester C. 6 months ago taking 500-1000mgs. a day. I had have a burning, tingling and pain in legs for months only getting extremely worse over the past 2 months. Now I am taking Neurontin 300mg;bid. My neurosurgeon wants me to go through an EMG again. I've been throught every MRI/scan to rule out my fusions/nerves at spine. After reading this and how aspartame can effect peripheral nerves it makes sense. It must be the Ester C? Thanks again for the insight.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Christine (USA) on 11/04/2008
This afternoon, I visited your site and noted a comment by a reader who said that Ester C made him enraged. It's not the Vitamin C, it's the aspartic acid in the Ester C product. I verified this with an aspartame activist. Aspartic acid is an excitotoxin, a poison that kills brain cells. Yep, it's the same stuff as in aspartame. All of the studies done on Vitamin C were done with sodium ascorbate, which is a type of chemically buffered Vitamin C. It's best to take it as a powder in water, because you can get gastritis if you take too many pills.
Hope that helps,
Christine
"Aspartic acid is an amino acid. Well, amino acids are good for us, right? Don't they keep us healthy ? The answer is yes, amino acids are necessary for good health, EXCEPT when you separate the individual amino acid from its protein chain, and use it as an "isolate" or by itself. (S.Sawada, et al '98)
In aspartame, these become synergistic toxins; one component playing off the other in a dangerous, systemic downward spiral. This eventually gives way to clinical manifestations; "hard-to-diagnose" health complications, and a myriad of medical symptoms and illnesses, which can eventually cause irreversible medical complications and death.
Aspartic acid, in aspartame, is an excitotoxin. An excitotoxin, is a deleterious substance that excites or over stimulates nerve cells. This occurs in the brain, as well as the peripheral nerves, because aspartic acid, in free form, easily crosses the blood-brain barrier. This pathological excitation of nerve cells creates a breakdown of nerve function, as we will see. (L.E.Rosenberg, McGraw-Hill 1991)
Reader Feedback
Posted by Terry (PGH, PA) on 11/13/2008
diet soda
recent forgetfulness and is unlike me as am a nurse... drinking diet soda and protein drinks... am aware i am forgeting and is bothersome..so attribute it to aspartame and diet things. am very tired and know i am forgeting calling people anddoing things. so am done drinking all diet things.... same thing happened to me after a week of using the sweet and low .. it is like you are aware you are doing stuff but cant control it ,, very disturbing thank you hope it helps some one out
Reader Feedback
Posted by Bruce (Christchurch, New Zealand) on 10/28/2008
I have been consuming about 1 litre a day of diet cola over a three month period. I started getting minor pain in the ankles and lower legs. I put this down to old age etc. In the last 2 weeks the pain became very intense with knees, shoulders and back involved. The pain was now intolerable. I could only crawl around the house. Anti inflamitories had little or no effect. I stopped drinking the aspartame sweetening drink six days ago and the pain has now almost stopped. I am of the opinion that aspartame was the problem. I am of the opinion that the product should be banned.
Dr. Betty Martini's Response
Posted by Betty (Duluth, Georgia) on 09/29/2008
I should also mention that not only do I exist, Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, but also James Bowen, M.D. exists. In these feedback comments it mentions that neither I or Dr. James Bowen exist. If you go to www.dorway.com and on the right side click on Doctors Speak Out under Miscellaneous you will see some of Dr. Bowen's articles. A lot are also on www.wnho.net
Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible International
9270 River club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770 242-2599
www.mpwhi.com, www.dorway.com and www.wnho.net
Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
Please public stop saying we don't exist, we all exist. You can even call at the above number.
Dr. Betty Martini's Response
Posted by Betty (Duluth, Georgia) on 09/29/2008
I'm answering the information on aspartame. It says Betty Martini does not exist. Yes, I do exist and have my own web site, www.mpwhi.com I'm the founder of Mission Possible World Health International. We are a global volunteer force in 39 nations warning about aspartame. I work with the world experts. An email I wrote after lecturing for the World Environmental Conference, was signed by Nancy Markle, and made world news. Front groups tried to say it was a hoax, but its not. Since lecturing H. J. Roerts, M.D. declared aspartame disease a world epidemic and wrote a medical text on it, and in fact, dedicated it to me. Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, www.sunsentpress.com The entire story of the World Environmental Conference is on www.dorway.com/nomarkle.html including my invitation to speak. Finally a movie was made to investigate called Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World. So please change your web site. Anyone who wants to know about aspartame can contact me and we have an aspartame information list on www.mpwhi.com scroll down to banners.
Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible Intl
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770 242-2599
www.mpwhi.com, www.dorway.com and www.wnho.net
Aspatame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
P.S. At the time this happened NutraSweet was owned by Monsanto. Try as they did to get people to think it was a hoax so many people walked out of wheelchairs, regained their sight, lost their fibromyalgia, etc. that they couldn't put out the fire and sold the NutraSweet Company. One of those people who walked out of her wheelchair was Cori Brackett, co-founder of Sound and Fury Productions who went on to make the film Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World. The world experts are in it as well as victims and myself.
EC: Thanks for contacting us, Dr. Martini. The information has been updated.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Bret (Phoenix, Arizona) on 09/18/2008
re: Artificial sweeteners: The blindness thing is real. As a nurse I did my thesis on elderly diabetics. One thing I found that blindness in diabetics, an ongoing issue without artificial sweetners,had become so prevalent that no one with a lick of sense could attribute the increase in blindness to variants of diabetes disease itself. What I did find was that as the use of artificial sweetners increased, so did the incidents of retinal deterioration. The curves when plotted on a graph were almost identical. This means as diabetics steered away from sugared soda, they became more and more blind. Bret
Reader Feedback
Posted by Dora (Augusta, GA) on 09/08/2008
I'm so glad I decided to google artificial sweetners. I am appaled to find out what they turn into in your body. I have been having panic attacks since I started drinking diet soda, I just never saw a conection. I also went to the Dr. last year with what my Dr. thought was an MS episode. I now believe it was from the diet sodas I was consuming. I am not ever touching the stuff again!!!! I've even given the stuff to my toddler on occasion. How could the government allow these products to stay on the market without a warning on the label?
Reader Feedback
Posted by Angela (Tallahassee, Florida) on 08/13/2008
NEVER put ANY form of sodas into your body. Phosphate leaches Calcium from your bones. White sugar in ANY form is poisonous.(Sodas have 50+ tsps of it!) Use ONLY "Sugar in the Raw", Add 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar in a glass of water several times a day. It will help to break up the cellulite/fatty tissue and flush it out of your body. And a key word to remember: if it says "DIET" think "DIE". AVOID ALL DIET PRODUCTS.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Susan (Phoenix, AZ) on 06/27/2008
During the early 80's I had an eating disorder. It was not to the point where I would throw up however I could eat a dozen donuts and then go out for pizza. It was like there was no shut off. Then I would fast and run and work out to undo the damage. One Thanksgiving I ran 11 miles in the pouring rain after dinner then went back in and ate half a pie.
I attended a health fair and there was a speaker there-a PHD specializing in anorexia and bulemia. I told her what was going on and she asked how much diet soda I drank a day. It was considerable amount. I drank it instead of eating after a binge. She told me to not use sacharrin again and the problem would go away. It affected the appetite she said.
So I stopped using saccharine and the problem cleared right up.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Jane (Seattle, WA) on 06/25/2008
It is almost impossible to find gum without either aspartame or sucralose. I bought a pack of gum last night at the grocery store after reading through the ingredients on about 5 other packs. I didn't bother to read the ingredients on this one, Trident, because it said in big lettering on the front "with Xylitol". I popped a piece in my mouth thinking it was fine and then started to feel canker sores within 5 minutes. I then read the small print and besides xylitol, it also said aspartame. GRrrrrrr!
Reader Feedback
Posted by Joyce (Joelton, Tn) on 06/21/2008 490 posts
Kelley, Not sure about this but suggest that you search on that Celebrex that you're taking. I think it may be in same category as Vioxx which caused so many so much in worsened health problems. Have you tried (MSM)methylsulfonylmethane for those hip problems? I have been taking it for years now without problems. Makes a world of difference in the painful joints. Also hope that you listened to your body telling you so loudly to stop poisoning yourself with those diet drinks. Do an on-line search of MSG and aspartame to learn what havoc they wreak on our brains and bodies. I also don't think that the chemicals, food coloring in any carbonated beverage does our kidneys any good, to say nothing of the fact that they don't contribute anything to healthy nutrition.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Kelley (Toddville, Iowa) on 06/20/2008
In hopes of loosing some weight I started drinking diet pop. Before long I noticed that my hips hurt ALOT. I have been on celebrex for years to help with the hip pain, but when I started drinking diet pop the pain was so intense that I was doubling up on the meds as well as taking tylenal to help with the pain.Going to bed was horrible as it hurt so much. Once I stopped drinking pop all together my hip pain went away. I have stopped taking the celebrex and only need tylenal when I have over taxed myself.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Tiffany (Sheffield Lake, Ohio) on 06/10/2008
Peppermint altoids don't have artificial sweeteners..just real sugar. I love 'em.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Mya (Hendersonville, USA) on 06/10/2008
Did you know that Wrigley's even adds aspartame to their regular gum? So even when it doesn't say sugar free you still have to be cautious. I emailed them and asked them why they added aspartame to regular gum and their response was to enhance the flavor.
Reader Feedback
Posted by Susan (Missoula, Montana) on 06/08/2008
Does anyone know which gum or breath mints DO NOT contain Aspartame?
EC: There are a few brands, you just have to read all the ingredients and not get fooled by the sucralose labeling (aka Splenda). Xylitol is a good alternative that we've seen in a few packs of gum. Whole Foods will definitely have gum without artificial sweeteners, but just make sure by reading the ingredients first!
Reader Feedback
Posted by Mike (Davenport, USA) on 04/22/2008
I know all too well the side affects of aspartame. I was addicted to diet coke to the tune of 7-8 cans and sometimes bottles for nearly 10 years. Many of the things on the hit list for side affects I experienced. Headaches, migraines, joint pain in my knees, jitteryness and extreme fatigue. I tried so many times to quit on my own but the withdrawal symptoms were just too much. I broke that habit by accident in 5 days and did it without any withdrawal symptoms at all and I couldn't feel healthier. I have not had one headache, not one migraine, no joint pain, nothing. Read my whole story to find out how I broke this addiction. Thanks,Mike
www.dietdrinkaddiction.com
Reader Feedback
Posted by Patrick (Caldwell, NJ) on 04/20/2008
I'm a forty year old man who feels like he's in his late fifties. For a long time I just figured it was from being overweight and I still am sure that this contributes. But the sheer level of aches and pains for someone so young seemed extraordinary. Every joint hurts constantly, especially on my left side (I'm a lefty so it figures).
Being overweight, there were two things I did to keep from becoming more so. First, I never liked sweet sodas, so started drinking lemon/lime seltzer. Second, I do like sweet coffee so used a single packet of aspartame in each cup I drink.
One weekend I ran out of seltzer, and being too lazy to get more I just started drinking up my wife's diet orange sodas. By the following Tuesday my aches and pains had worsened so much I considered going to the doctor. Visions of wheelchairs and leukemia were swimming in my head.
I put two and two together and went cold turkey as far as artificial sweeteners go, and about three days later and ever since I have been 100% pain free.
I'm convinced.
