Side Effects Of Aspartame

Aspartame is usually an artificial sweetener used in most diet, sugar-free and diabetic goods that would normally contain sugar. Beverages, baked goods,soft serve ice cream, gelatins, candy, syrups, jams and jellies are a couple of the foods that commonly contain aspartame.As the sweetener was long touted being a wonderful substitute, allowing diabetics to have sugar-free sweets. The side effects are actually known, though, andthey could be quite debilitating.

In 1965, a chemist was working on an anti-ulcer drug. He licked his finger after accidentally contaminating it with the drug and thought it was very sweet. It was the birth of aspartame. Preliminary tests caused brain tumors in rats so it was not approved by the FDA for many years. By 1983, it was approved for many foods and by 1996, all restrictions had been lifted in the US.

The only warning aspartame carries is for those born with phenylketonuria (also known as PKU.) One ingredient of aspartame, phenylalanine, is dangerous for those with PKU and can cause mental retardation. More recently, though, other health problems have been connected with aspartame consumption, although FDA has not yet taken any action towards restricting it.

Aspartame is normally marketed under the name NutraSweet, Equal and Canderel. Saccharin and sucralose, the primary ingredients in other low calorie sweeteners, do not pose the exact same risks as aspartame, though they do each come with their own set of potential side effects.

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