Dr. Sandra Cabot, Mission Possible Australia wrote an excellent article titled: Aspartame Makes You Fatter: http://www.mpwhi.com/aspartame_makes_you_fatter.htm Dr. Ralph Walton said in a report: "Food seeking behavior and satiety are drive by an area of the brain known as the hypothalamus. Stimulation of the medial hypothalamus in a laboratory rate leads to eating. Stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus leads to satiety and cessation of eating. Placing a lesion in the lateral hypothalamus produces an obese rate. The lateral hypothalamus is drive by serotonin. There are many papers in the current literature demonstrating that antidepressants which increase serotonin (but not antidepressants which act on other neurotransmitters) are useful in treating binge eating disorders. I believe that consuming large amounts of aspartame decreases the availability of serotonin and is thus analogous to placing a lesion in the lateral hypothalamus. Although much of this work is recent, clinical suggestions that aspartame can lead to a paradoxical increased appetite date back to Blunder's work of l986.
A study by Sharon Fowler of the University of Texas using 7 years of data link diet drinks to obesity. I will send it to you by separate email. Aspartame is a drug that makes you crave carbohydrates so you gain weight. This information from the 1985 Congressional Record is included in Dr. Sandra Cabot's paper mentioned above.
Here is Abby Cormack's story: http://www.mpwhi.com/abby_cormack_story.htm Here is what the aspartame experts say about Abby's case: http://www.mpwhi.com/experts_on_aspartame_and_abby_cormack.htm
Keep in mind that aspartame is very addictive and a cash cow, so naturally Coke had to do something. I wouldn't call Dr. Bernadene Magnuson an aspartame expert. I would call her someone who defends aspartame, and this must be done with propaganda because true facts show aspartame triggers all sorts of neurodegenerative diseases from Parkinson's to Lou Gehrigs, can mimic and precipitate MS, trigger birth defects, behavioral and psychiatric problems and more than 92 Symptoms listed on the FDA list. These include four types of seizures, male sexual dysfunction, headaches, joint pain and mood disorders to blindness, coma and death. http://www.mpwhi.com/92_aspartame_symptoms.pdf
Around the world there is concern about the epidemic of obesity which is caused by aspartame as well as the epidemic of diabetes. As diabetic specialist H. J. Roberts, M.D., brings out in the medical text, aspartame can not only precipitate diabetes but simulates and aggravates diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, destroys the optic nerve from the free methyl alcohol, causes diabetics to go into convulsions and even interacts with insulin. The methanol is also the reason so many diabetics are losing limbs.
I lectured in New Zealand last year with Abby Cormack and Sue Kedgley from the New Zealand Parliament. A lot of the problem is the New Zealand Food Safety Authority who uses the aspartame manufacturers propaganda. In the face of the publicity many Kiwi's got off this poison and got well, while the NZFSA put out press releases not to listen to the campaigners. When those responsible to solve the problem ARE the problem it works against the efforts to free New Zealand of this chemical poison. I had with me congressional records and enough information to show aspartame to be a poison, so the NZFSA refused me entrance to their meeting on the subject. They feared being exposed with the records.
Here is the usual propaganda on aspartame rebutted with medical references: http://www.dorway.com/offasprt.html The aspartame industry is fond of evading the issue. For instance when you explain there is a methyl ester which becomes free methyl alcohol, a severe metabolic poison, they will tell you that there is more methanol in oranges than in aspartame. What they fail to tell you is that in nature methanol is always accompanied by ethanol which is the antidote to methanol toxicity and takes it safely out of the body. Here is a peer reviewed journal article by Dr. Woodrow Monte who now resides in New Zealand. http://dorway.com/dorwblog/?page_id=1000 Further, methanol in nature binds to pectin. In aspartame methanol is free. It is also classified as a narcotic. It causes chronic methanol poisoning which affects the dopamine system of the brain. This causes the addiction.
Let's take it a step further. The NZFSA is concerned about formaldehyde in clothing from China but what about the embalming by formaldehyde of the human using aspartame. The formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol embalms living tissue and damages DNA. Here is the complete Trocho Study: http://www.mpwhi.com/formaldehyde_from_aspartame.pdf I flew to Barcelona and spoke with Dr. Alemany who did this study and he admitted aspartame could kill 200 million people. In as much as aspartame is an abortifacient and triggers fatal diseases and cancers it no doubt already has.
Could it get any worse? Aspartame also triggers an irregular heart rhythm, interacts with cardiac medication, damages the cardiac conduction system and causes sudden death: http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_and_arrhythmias.htm and http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_msg_scd.htm
What I am particularly concerned with is the fact the last health minister made a deal with Coke to eliminate regular Coke in schools in favor of Diet Coke which can destroy the brains of the children. Here is our Report For Schools http://www.mpwhi.com/report_on_aspartame_and_children.htm The Honorable Pete Hodgson read this report and agreed it wasn't for children. Now there is a new health minister and he's done nothing to prevent this travesty. http://www.mpwhi.com/health_minister_admitted_aspartame_not_for_kids.htm
Many people in New Zealand have now gotten off of aspartame and gotten well and the information is spreading fast. For this reason Coke sent in Bernadene to defend their product. Here is the rebuttal to the Burdock Study: http://www.mpwhi.com/aspartame_and_manufacturer_funded_reviews.htm
You can save the people of New Zealand from aspartame and Bernadine and her propaganda. All you have to do is write the facts in the press when she spins her yarn. If you need further facts I'm delighted to help and can also connect you to world experts.
While I was in New Zealand, Chris Wheeler, Mission Possible New Zealand and an excellent journalist wrote this article: Dying for a Diet Coke: http://www.rense.com/general78/dying.htm
Keep in mind that the Food and Drug Administration of the US knew aspartame caused cancer before it ever was approved, and their own FDA toxicologist, told Congress by approving it they violated the law:
On August 1, l985 the FDA's own toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, told Congress at least one of Searle's studies "has established beyond ANY REASONABLE DOUBT that aspartame is capable of inducing brain tumors in experimental animals and that this predisposition of it is of extremely high significance. ... In view of these indications that the cancer causing potential of aspartame is a matter that had been established WAY BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT, one can ask: What is the reason for the apparent refusal by the FDA to invoke for this food additive the so-called Delaney Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act?"
The Delaney Amendment makes it illegal to allow any residues of cancer causing chemicals in foods. In his concluding testimony Gross asked, "Given the cancer causing potential of aspartame how would the FDA justify its position that it views a certain amount of aspartame as constituting an allowable daily intake or 'safe' level of it? Is that position in effect not equivalent to setting a 'tolerance' for this food additive and thus a violation of that law? And if the FDA itself elects to violate the law, who is left to protect the health of the public?" Congressional Record SID835:131 (August 1, l985)
Two of the congressional records on aspartame are on the main index page of http://www.mpwhi.com Bernadine will attempt to rebut the prestigious Ramazzini Studies peer reviewed by 7 world experts which showed aspartame to be a multipotential carcinogen, and can be passed on to the offspring if the mother uses aspartame during pregnancy and the baby survives. Aspartame in original studies caused all types of tumors from mammary and brain to testicular and pancreatic. First the European Food Safety Authority tried to say the rats had respiratory disease and then Dr. Soffritti who did the studies explained to them that respiratory disease is the dying process. After this Dr. Koeter of the EFSA confessed that they were pressured by industry to highjack science. Here is that confession: http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=70720-efsa-health-claims-antibiotics
Here is Dr. Soffritti's rebuttal already to the Magnuson letter:
Carcinogenicity of Aspartame: Soffritti Responds
Environ Health Perspect. doi:10.1289/ehp.10881R available via http://dx.doi.org [Online 27 May 2008]
Magnuson and Williams's letter is substantially a repetition of the arguments set forth in a recent article (Magnuson et al. 2007), which was a "safety evaluation" sponsored entirely by Ajinomoto, the manufacturer of aspartame. Their article (Magnuson et al. 2007) and this letter contain numerous erroneous statements about the long-term carcinogenesis studies on aspartame conducted by the European Ramazzini Foundation (ERF).
First, Magnuson and Williams imply that our findings (Soffritti et al. 2007) should be discounted because the incidence of lymphomas/leukemias in the high-dose group "were within or near the reported historical control ranges." As reported in our study (Soffritti et al. 2007), the incidence of lymphomas/leukemias observed in both sexes treated with 2,000 ppm aspartame is nearly double the concurrent control (Soffritti et al. 2007). The suggestion that concurrent control data should be ignored is contrary to the widely accepted standard of good laboratory science.
Second, Magnuson and Williams attribute our findings (Soffritti et al. 2007) to some kind of bias (i.e., infection) that would affect only treated animals but not the controls. We have responded in detail to this hypothesis in our article (Soffritti et al. 2007) and in an earlier letter (Soffritti 2006). To support their assertion, Magnuson and Williams mislead readers by stating that "the lung was often the site of lymphoma again in this [second] study." However, we actually reported that we observed the diffusion of neoplastic tissue not only in the lung but also concurrently in various organs (liver, spleen, mediastinal and other lymph nodes). (Soffritti et al. 2007)
Infection as a mode of action for induction of rat lymphoma has been recently examined by a group of scientists at the National Center for Environmental Assessment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Caldwell et al. (2008) found that a careful examination of available information does not support the hypothesis that the observed lymphomas/leukemias in the ERF bioassays are a general effect from infection. The reports of chemically-induced lymphomas/leukemias by the ERF seem to be chemical specific.
Third, the idea that we must provide a "biologically plausible explanation" for human or rodent carcinogens is a time-honored approach to postpone or prevent the application of regulatory measures to minimize carcinogenic risks. The reality is that this explanation is quite often unknown, as is, in general, the mode of action behind the carcinogenic process.
I regard the other questions raised by Magnuson and Williams as trivial. For example, whatever the doses at various ages and weights, the finding of any effect should be a cause for concern. Likewise, the authors' observation that some methodologic details were omitted from the publication certainly does not change the oncologic results of this research.
Magnuson and Williams express disappointment that Environmental Health Perspectives would publish original scientific research by the ERF after regulatory agencies went through so much trouble to review our first aspartame study (Soffritti 2006) only to disagree with our conclusions. It is the obligation of the agencies responsible for food safety to review any new scientific data available and to make their opinion available to the public. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not make public the contents of their review, but rather they issued a short press release a full year after the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded its evaluation, and coincidentally, just days before I presented new aspartame data in a lecture at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York (FDA 2007).
I find it unfortunate that some scientists have such a low tolerance for original, independent scientific research; however, I welcome continued discussion and more importantly, additional long-term experimental studies on aspartame and other artificial sweeteners. We at the ERF stand behind our results, and we remain convinced that a review of the current regulations governing the use of aspartame is necessary to better protect public health.
The author declares he has no competing financial interests.
Morando Soffritti
European Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences "B. Ramazzini" Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center Bologna, Italy
E-mail: mailto:crcfr@ramazzini.it
References
Caldwell J, Jinot J, DeVoney D, Gift JS. 2008. Evaluation of evidence for infection as a mode of action for induction of rat lymphoma. Environ Mol Mutagen 49: 155-164.
FDA (Food and Drug Administration). 2007. FDA Statement on European Aspartame Study. Available: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/fpaspar2.html [accessed 12 January 2008].
Magnuson BA, Burdock GA, Doull J, Kroes RM, Marsh GM, Pariza MW, et al. 2007. Aspartame: a safety evaluation based on current use levels, regulations, and toxicological and epidemiological studies. Crit Rev Toxicol 37: 629-727.
Soffritti M. 2006. Acesulfame potassium: Soffritti responds [Letter]. Environ Health Perspect 114: A516-A519.
Soffritti M, Belpoggi F, Tibaldi E, Degli Esposti D, Lauriola M. 2007. Life-span exposure to low doses of aspartame beginning during prenatal life increases cancer effects in rats. Environ Health Perspect 115:1293-1297.
I was in New York at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine when Dr. Morando Soffritti gave a lecture on his second study. At that time he was honored with the Irving J. Selikoff Award for Outstanding contributions to the identification of environmental and industrial carcinogens, and his promotion of independent scientific research. It was created in 1993 by the Collegium Ramazzini, an academy of 180 internationally renowned experts in occupational and environmental health from over 30 nations. It has been awarded just twice before being presented to Dr. Soffritti.
The Ramazzini studies are so prestigious that industry had to scramble to the bottom of the barrel to try and rebut it. The government and the aspartame manufacturers found an old AARP survey (American Association of Retired People) sent to a million American seniors: 16 pages with 56 questions. It asked: How high did you go in school? Had a hysterectomy? Do you eat brownies? Oatmeal? Margarine? Question #25 asked "Over the last 12 months when you drank coffee or tea, what kind of sweetener did you regularly add?" There were 6 multi-choice selections, one of which was Equal or aspartame.
This 10 year old 3 word item instantaneously converted the questionnaire into the biggest aspartame study in history! It showed no problems at all! (None were asked for!). Thru saturation news releases this propaganda spread planetwide in major magazines and other media. http://www.wnho.net/halt_the_spin_on_bogus_studies.htm We call it the Oatmeal/Brownie study.
Dr. H. J. Roberts said: "The failure of the FDA to acknowledge and act on the ongoing revelations over the last two decades about the hazards of aspartame products in a number of realms, especially when taken by children and pregnant women, remains a source of professional embarrassment. This chemical constitutes an imminent public health hazard. I congratulate Dr. Soffritti for independently underscoring this waring."
Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock remarked on Dr. Soffritti's first study: "The study released in the European Journal of Oncology by Morando Soffritti and co-worker should terrify mothers and all those consuming aspartame sweetened products. This was a carefully done study, which clearly demonstrated a statistically significant increase in several types of lymphomas and leukemias in rats. Both of these malignancies have increased significantly in this country since the widespread use of aspartame. The type of damage was a duplicate of that associated with cancers. Along with this most recent study, this means that drinking a single diet cola sweetened with aspartame can cause the development of lymphoma or leukemia."
Dr. Blaylock further stated: "They also found an increased incidence of malignant brain tumors, even though it was not statistically significant. This does not mean there is no association to brain tumors, since only the animals exposed to aspartame developed the tumors. With children and pregnant women drinking the largest amount of diet colas, this puts their children at the greatest risk of developing one of these horrible diseases. their study found that even low doses of aspartame could cause these malignancies; yet, the higher the dose, the more cancers that were seen."
Dr. Ralph Walton of Safe Harbor Behavioral Health, Erie, PA, emphasized: "Dr. Soffritti's two outstanding studies on the multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame add significantly to the evergrowing body of evidence on the hazards of this artificial sweetener. The FDA's stubborn adherence to their original, and controversial, approval of aspartame is unconscionable. The public must be informed that the approvals, both in this country and Europe, are based on highly questionable industry-funded research, or in the case of recently issue statements on aspartame's supposed safety, on a questionnaire which in no way represents legitimate research. Independent research, such as the recent Soffritti studies invariable demonstrates the extremely hazardous nature of this product."
It's so easy to show aspartame triggers tumors even a grandmother did a study: http://www.mpwhi.com/aspartame_study_female_rats_developed_visible_tumors.doc This is why the aspartame industry is known to threaten researchers and try to assassinate their character: http://www.mpwhi.com/upi_1987_aspartame_report.pdf
The aspartame industry will rebut any independent study which is why Dr. Ralph Walton some years ago did research for 60 Minutes showing that 92 % of independent scientific peer reviewed research shows the problems aspartame causes: http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.html In the past two or three years there are probably 30 more studies showing aspartame toxicity. We have many of them on web.
How did such a deadly, deadly poison get marketed? It was through the political chicanery of Donald Rumsfeld after FDA revoked the petition for approval. See the movie, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-566922170441334340 Here you can see and hear the experts and listen to Attorney James Turner who exposes Rumsfeld.
Coming is a blazing conflagration of misinformation by Coke and Bernadene Magnuson. All you need to put out the inferno and save New Zealand is the facts. If you need further information that they will not be able to answer simply email me.
All my best,
Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum.
Founder, Mission Possible World Health International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770-242-2599
E-Mail: BettyM19@mindspring.com
http://www.wpwhi.com
http://www.whno.net
http://www.dorway.com
Aspartame Toxicity Center: http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
Diet drinks lose out to sugary alternatives
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10533444
4:00AM Monday Sep 22, 2008
By Martin Johnston
Anxieties about the health effects of aspartame appear to have turned many consumers against the artificial sweetener, sparking new public health worries this could boost obesity.
Supermarket sales of low- or no-calorie diet soft drinks such as Coke Zero have slumped this year while their sugar-charged alternatives have experienced a boom, according to figures from research agency Nielsen. This reverses an earlier trend.
"I think it's a concern," Auckland University population health expert Professor Rod Jackson said yesterday.
In the face of New Zealand's growing obesity rate, he supports replacing sugary drinks with those containing aspartame - except for those with a rare disease that prevents them from processing the sweetener - to reduce energy intake.
"There's no such thing as a safe anything. Anything you eat is going to have some harms and possibly some benefits.
"But what's clear is that having too many calories increases your weight, your blood pressure, your risk of diabetes, your risk of heart disease."
New Zealand's acceptable daily aspartame intake is 40mg/kg of bodyweight - 17.5 cans for a 70kg adult if measured by aspartame drinks. In 2003, individuals were typically consuming 6-15 per cent of the recommended limit, according to the Health Ministry.
The aspartame controversy erupted after Abby Cormack's case became the subject last year of a petition to Parliament's health select committee calling for restrictions on the chemical.
Ms Cormack, who chewed four packets of sugar-free gum a day and drank large quantities of diet soft drink, reported dizziness, tingling, insomnia, paranoia and other problems which she said ended when she quit aspartame.
The committee did not agree to the petitioners' request, but in a minority report, the Green Party called for warning labels to highlight aspartame's "potential adverse effects".
Coca-Cola Oceania has financed the trip to New Zealand of Canadian aspartame expert Dr Bernadene Magnuson, who will speak at Nutrition Foundation seminars this week on the "myths" surrounding the chemical.
Dr Magnuson, an independent consultant toxicologist and Toronto University adjunct professor in nutritional sciences, contributed to a review of aspartame last year. It was funded by a leading producer of the sweetener, but the researchers were not told this until after they had reached their conclusions.
"At current levels of consumption of aspartame, the evidence is that it's completely safe," Dr Magnuson told the Herald yesterday. "There is no credible evidence of an effect of aspartame in cancer, neurological problems or reproductive problems."
She discounted studies which purported to show adverse health effects from the chemical.
