<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Dennis</i>
<br />Lynda,
Stevia is totally banned throughout Europe. A licence to sell it was first applied for in Europe in 1985 and as a result it underwent stringent testing, arranged by the EC Scientific Committee on Food. The results of those tests show that Stevia has the potential to produce adverse effects in the male reproductive system that could affect fertility and that a metabolite produced by the human gut microflora, steviol, is genotoxic (ie. damages DNA).
Over here it is regarded as quite a scandal that the FDA continue to allow it to be sold on your side of the pond. I am even more surprised that, as an advocate of 'safe' natural foods over chemicals, you and your husband can even consider using it. And if this toxic substance is one that you are actually selling, then I suggest that you prepare yourselves for some very meaty law suits once its effects start to be seen.
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Hay Dennis,
I did some more due diligence on Stevia and found this:
European Commission, Scientific Committee On Food - Opinion on stevioside as a sweetener (adopted on 17/6/99).
http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scf/out34_en.pdf
I couldn’t find the studies you stated that the Commission called for in 1985, but this says that they evaluated what the petitioner had submitted and from that formed their opinion.
If I understand this right, the petitioner basically didn’t do their job in submitting adequate studies to prove the safety of their product.
As far as the fertility issues, the Committee had no hard evidence there either. I have yet to find where it’s toxicity has been proven. (Read their Conclusion)
I’ve found that when words such as, “possible, may, could,” etc. are used it means that “it’s not a fact and we're guessing”, so I do more of my own research and come up with my own “possible, may and could be’s.”
You’ll find that the studies the Committee sites used high doses. Anything used in excess is harmful no matter how healthy or safe it is, i.e. eating 1 orange is healthy, but eating 10 oranges at one time (typically as a large glass of processed orange juice) is unhealthy in that it spikes sugars. That’s what we do with many things in our excessive lifestyles. One of the main causes for diabetes, excessiveness. Our bodies were design to function in natural balance. These studies appear to have used stevia with extreme excessiveness.
As many others, I don’t put a lot of confidence in government agencies to be looking out for my best interest. For example, why does there need to be a law that I can’t buy vitamins unless I have a prescription from my doctor. A study of the endocrine and nervous system was an eye opener for me in the <b>game of addiction</b> with the food and pharmaceutical drug manufactures that are government approved. Far more detrimental than a possible, may, could be slightly toxic natural product if taken in mega doses.
As I said before, I don’t sell stevia. There are a lot of natural health products our family uses but there’s only one we promote that we receive any compensation for and you’ve read our story on that (
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-forum/viewtopic.php?t=1012 ) and why we are so passionate about it.
Here are some of the other studies I’ve found on stevia:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1468 ... stractPlus
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1627 ... d_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1612 ... d_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1468 ... d_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1456 ... d_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8143 ... d_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1469 ... d_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1264 ... d_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1097 ... d_RVDocSum
Although I found over 100, I’ll stop with that.
After reading the Committee’s opinion and reading some of the research for myself I concluded pretty much the same as this article reads:
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/stevia.html.
Certainly, everyone has to form their own opinion.
P.S. This was a good exercise.
Happy Trails,
Proverbs 17:22