Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Aspartame - Diet Sodas and Weight Loss

Aspartame - Diet Sodas and Weight Loss
Being involved in nutrition research for such a long time I
can’t stop wondering what’s wrong with our
natural food. Why do sugar substitutes and artificially
created ingredients receive such an enormous attention? Why
can the industry freely and without prove advertise
artificial sweeteners as being a healthy alternative?
Consumers are manipulated to think the label “zero
calories” translates to “good for health”.

Well, I don’t blame the consumers, although nowadays
it is easy to obtain information on the internet and one
has got no excuse. The reason why I’m writing this
article is the misinformation I come across almost daily in
newspapers, magazines and other media. Food and beverages
containing artificial sweeteners are advertised as being
beneficial for health. I regard this as a deception per se.
It means the industry does not shy away from targeting your
health concerns for their business. Let’s zoom in on
an artificial sweetener called Aspartame for example. There
is a long list of products with this name on their
ingredients label. What is Aspartame? Does our body know
how to metabolize it? Our body is programmed to deal with
natural molecule structures and does not know how to
process artificial ones.

Aspartame contains Methanol. Studies show that Methanol is
a dangerous neurotoxin, is carcinogenic, interferes with
the DNA and causes several other severe health problems.
Methanol is needed to fuse together two amino acids to
create the sugar substitute Aspartame. In our body Methanol
breaks down into Formic Acid and Formaldehyde.

Long term studies on rats by an Italian Cancer Institute,
the Ramazzini Foundation, found increases in Lymphomas,
Leukemias and Breast Cancer. The rats were given 20 mg of
Aspartame per kilogram of body weight. This is comparable
to a 50 pound child consuming 21/2 cans of diet soda. This
doesn’t sound alarming as currently the acceptable
daily intake is set at 50 mg/kg of body weight. But there
are hundreds of other products which contain Aspartame and
are likely to be consumed by kids and adults alike. It all
adds up. The Center for Science in the Public Interest
(CSPI) downgraded the rating of Aspartame to
“everyone should avoid”. Experts are calling on
the FDA to review the Aspartame Cancer risk. Remember,
this is a multi billion dollar industry and the pressure on
the authorities to turn a blind eye to this issue is high.
Ultimately you are responsible for your health, so just
stop consuming products containing artificial sweeteners as
a precaution.

If you have got a sweet tooth like I do, use brown sugar or
honey in a moderate amount as a sweetener. It is a natural
substance, tastes lovely and does not do you any harm. And
do you know that pure water as a replacement of diet sodas
is most beneficial to your health by hydrating your body
and flushing out toxins? I’m sure you do! Then I need
to say no more.


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Rudy Tiefnig, is an expert in the area of fitness and diet,
creating nutrition and diet plans for fitness and weight
loss and guiding people to achieve a fit, slim and healthy
body. To read more, go to:
http://www.fit-slim-healthy.com/aspartame.html

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