Aspartame....Good or Bad?

JohnEGreen said:

Though refined sugar has been proven to be harmful in many ways aspartame has not been proven to be harmful as yet so as I said for me its aspartame that's my choice You are free to make your own choice. I also prefer to use some form of sweetening in some of my drinks and food though again it's not a necessity I often do not bother to use any sweetener at all. .

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I made my choice to switch to artificial sweeteners 40 years ago. Around 10 years ago I realised how badly they had affected my health and opted for either no sweeteners at all or a small amount of sugar (rarely though). I did drink them to excess(2 litres a day for about 6 years maybe?) so that I felt full all the time and didn't eat as much food so that I could lose weight. My gut flora changed. My metabolism changed. I became insulin resistant. That's how I became morbidly obese.

I don't see any harm in having diet drinks occasionally, but I feel duty bound to tell others what happened to me. It will remain anecdotal until someone shells out lots of money to do a good scientific study. This isn't likely as the food manufacturers and drugs companies would lose too much. So I expect it will remain anecdotal for many years to come....with ever increasing numbers of sufferers, all thinking that they are doing what's best for their bodies - just like I did.

zand said:

I made my choice to switch to artificial sweeteners 40 years ago. Around 10 years ago I realised how badly they had affected my health and opted for either no sweeteners at all or a small amount of sugar (rarely though). I did drink them to excess(2 litres a day for about 6 years maybe?) so that I felt full all the time and didn't eat as much food so that I could lose weight. My gut flora changed. My metabolism changed. I became insulin resistant. That's how I became morbidly obese.

I don't see any harm in having diet drinks occasionally, but I feel duty bound to tell others what happened to me. It will remain anecdotal until someone shells out lots of money to do a good scientific study. This isn't likely as the food manufacturers and drugs companies would lose too much. So I expect it will remain anecdotal for many years to come....with ever increasing numbers of sufferers, all thinking that they are doing what's best for their bodies - just like I did.

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To me it sounds like the issue wasn't the presence of the diet soda in your diet, rather that it was the excess. If you'd stuck to a glass a day, or a few glasses a week, instead of 2 liters every day, do you think you'd still be in the position you're in? Would you be any healthier if it had been 2 liters of regular soda every day for 6 years? I fully support you sharing your story to raise awareness, I just think it's important to put the focus on the right place while we do this.

I do find this fascinating, but I keep, personally, returning to the thought of "everything in moderation". We have seen runners at the London marathon die from drinking too much water. Humans cannot survive on 100% oxygen. If you feed lactose to my wife she is unaffected, yet I will be crippled for 24 hours, and yet she will be crippled by wheat, I will have raised BG, and my best mate, can eat it without a care in the world. My wife lives on caffeine. It makes me feel sick and light headed. We are each more unique than we sometimes like to admit, and whilst it is widely acknowledged cigarettes cause cancer, we've all heard of some who smoked all their lives without succumbing. Whilst many people obviously and justifiably believe sweeteners are the cause of their ailments, I don't believe there is anywhere near enough evidence to prove it categorically yet. I spent 18 months believing I was wheat intolerant, but it turns out, I am not, it was simply I happened to be eating wheat and milk on most days, because when I cut out cereals, I also cut out milk!

DaftThoughts said:

To me it sounds like the issue wasn't the presence of the diet soda in your diet, rather that it was the excess. If you'd stuck to a glass a day, or a few glasses a week, instead of 2 liters every day, do you think you'd still be in the position you're in? Would you be any healthier if it had been 2 liters of regular soda every day for 6 years? I fully support you sharing your story to raise awareness, I just think it's important to put the focus on the right place while we do this.

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The reason I drank so much is that colas in particular are addictive. I started off with a few glasses a week (or less) , the habit started there, just like it does with sugary drinks. It took me a very long time to ditch that habit, I couldn't just stop. The thing is I was dieting, so there's no way I would have drunk 2 litres of full sugar cola a day, ever. It's too sweet for me and too filling. I calorie counted and therefore believed that zero calories and all those chemicals were OK. So in answer to your questions - If I had stuck to say 3 glasses a week of diet cola I believe I would have been fine. I expect if I had stuck to 3 glasses a week of regular cola I would have been fine too. Of course anything consumed to excess can be harmful. It was that excess that did the damage in my case. I did say in my post that I didn't see any harm in having the occasional diet drink. The addictive qualities of the ingredients of the diet drinks were more potent to me personally than alcohol and the habit just grew from that level to the 2 litre level and all the time I thought there was no harm being done so I carried on. Now with sugary drinks we know there's harm being done, so we make the choice to drink or not to drink it. If we really fancy a drink we can have just one, knowing the consequences of over indulgence.

I wish I had stuck to regular soda. I would never have got to the 2 litres a day habit with regular soda and I would not have messed up my hormones so much with the full sugar version.