Many years ago Professor John Yudkin wrote an inspiring book detailing the health dangers of consuming too much white sugar. Without doubt his medical analysis that unrefined sugar causes diabetes and a host of other ailments was correct. In days gone by, only the wealthy had access to white sugar and they paid the price with missing teeth. Nowadays sugar is cheap and plentiful and we are paying the price for our love of this sweet addictive nutrient with tooth decay and rising rates of type two diabetes.
There is now an accepted consensus that an unrefined diet including wholegrains is conducive to robust health. Sugar that is unrefined may be purchased as black sweet molasses. Molasses is a delicious product rich in iron, and other micro-nutrients essential for good health such as chromium. Molasses is the discarded product of refining sugar. Jars of this sticky and syrupy substance may be purchased from many health shops. Molasses is seldom used however, despite it being the healthier option. Supermarkets are well stocked with bags of clean, white sugar, convenient and not messy to use. Brown sugar is also sold that may contain varying amounts of the health-giving molasses.
Refined white sugar is a very condensed form of energy and its consumption can lead to weight problems. The whole issue of being overweight is an enormous one. no pun intended! Consumers who have enjoyed the readily available calorie rich and tempting products abundant in supermarkets find themselves with an unwelcome weight problem. This epidemic of obesity has spawned a huge weight loss industry. Part of this industry includes the lucrative market in calorie free sugar substitutes. This huge and profitable global market in artificial sweeteners which will now be discussed. When corporate malpractice impinges on our health and safety then immediate and prompt action is required.
The artificial sweetener saccharin is well known and contains nil calories. This sweet tasting molecule is a petroleum by product and you would be wise to avoid it. It is a proven carcinogen that has been shown to cause bladder cancer. These risks are even greater for cigarette smokers. This sweetener has found its way into many cheap drinks and it would be wise to avoid such drinks. Unfortunately they are very widely available in the drinks displays and fridges of most stores. Sometimes it is impossible to purchase a healthy drink and the consumer is forced to buy the unhealthy option to assuage his or her thirst.
On the one hand there are rows of sugar laden drinks, while on the other there are rows of artificially sweetened drinks. Occasionally there are healthy drinks based on water and a hint of real fruit but this is rare. Those who frequently consume fizzy drinks containing sugar have increased risk of serious illness. A high correlation with obesity and tooth decay has been shown. There are also concerns that such drinks lead to pancreatic cancer one of the most deadly and incurable of all cancers. The pancreas is involved in sugar metabolism since it produces insulin with the islets of Langerhans. The prognosis for surviving pancreatic cancer is in the region of four per cent. Therefore it is prudent to avoid such drinks containing many spoons of sugar such as Coca Cola and Pepsi.
In January 2011 Coca Cola got into trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority watchdogs for claiming that their Vitamin Water drinks were highly nutritious. Since these drinks are laden with several spoons of sugar they are not deemed to be health promoting. The ASA watchdog banned Coca Cola from using the word “nutritious in future advertising campaigns.
Those who turn to Diet Pepsi in the belief that it is the healthier option are seriously mistaken. They often contain the dangerous artificial sweetener Aspartame which will now be discussed at length.
Aspartame is a trademark product of the huge Monsanto Corporation, having been purchased from the Searle Corporation many years ago. Aspartame may be known as Nutrasweet or Canderel and is widely present in diet foods and drink. Most products designated as “ Lite” contain aspartame including very low calorie yogurts and squash drinks. These products are frequently purchased by weight conscious consumers but they are deadly to health. Indeed these artificially sweetened products may be even more deadly than those sweetened with refined white sugar. Aspartame has been designated as a dangerous neurotoxin shown to cause brain tumours so how did it come to be legally approved?
The substance was first discovered in 1965 by a chemist working for the Searle company named James Schlatter. The sweet tasting substance comprises of forty per cent aspartic acid, fifty per cent phenylalanine, and ten per cent methanol. Searle then began conducting safety trials with animals. Soon after the trials began the laboratory animals, mice and monkeys, began experiencing adverse symptoms. They suffered epileptic type seizure and deaths. Autopsies found their brains to be full of lesions, holes and brain tumours. Methanol is a constituent of Aspartame and is widely known to be damaging to brain cells. To put it bluntly, methanol kills brain cells. The studies showed that Aspartame is a highly neurotoxic, carcinogenic and addictive substance. Despite the dangers the company, Searle, cleverly managed to persuade the Food and Drug administration (FDA) that the product was completely safe. The FDA gave their approval for limited use of Aspartame in 1974. A complaint was launched against the FDA` s decision and the product was banned when investigations showed that Searle had manipulated the data and used poorly designed studies. For example, the animals that had developed brain tumours had the tumours surreptitiously removed by surgery. The FDA revoked its licence and banned Aspartame.
Subsequently Searle hired Donald Rumsfeld in 1977 as their new CEO. Donald Rumsfeld later became famous in his role of United States Defence Secretary in 2001. Rumsfeld set about reviving the company fortune with vim and vigour. He sacked a lot of staff and changed them for political high fliers with powerful connections. The dynamic Rumsfeld and his new team, continued to push for FDA approval for Aspartame. Despite the major offensive to get Aspartame approved the FDA decided in 1980 that the product was conclusively shown to cause brain tumours in animals and was too dangerous to approve for human consumption.
Then in 1981 Ronald Reagan and Donald Rumsfeld became an important part of his political team. They managed to appoint a new head of the FDA who would amenable to persuasion. They appointed Dr. Hayes as the new head of the FDA. One of his first actions in his new post was to approve the use of aspartame in dry foods in 1981. In 1983 Dr. Arthur Hayes also approved the use of aspartame in liquids and beverages. Dr. Hayes was criticised for corruption and for accepting bribes and so he left the Government post in 1983. However he was not without a job as he moved straight into the Public Relations offices of Searle the company behind Aspartame.
Within weeks of Aspartame being approved for beverages cans of sweetened drinks flooded the markets. An intensive advertising and marketing campaign began to persuade the public that these drinks were better for them and would keep their weight down. Aspartame has been in use ever since and is now in at least nine thousand different food and drink products world wide. In 1985 the company Searle was bought by Monsanto and Donald Rumsfeld received a twelve million dollar bonus for his marketing skills. One dreads to imagine how many people worldwide have become ill through excessive consumption of Aspartame-laced products. The animal studies provided incontrovertible evidence that the sweetener caused brain tumours and lymphomas but they were over-ruled and suppressed by Searle and now Monsanto.
The metabolites produced in the body after consuming Aspartame are all extremely neurotoxic. Neurotoxicity means that the substances cause the death of neurons or brain cells that cannot be replaced. These metabolites include formaldehyde, formic acid and methanol (Roberts 2001). Aspartame is addictive and so there is the danger of consumers becoming hooked on this poison and ingesting far more than their bodies and minds can deal with. Children are especially at risk due to their size and developing brains. Aspartame kills brain cells as well as causing brain tumours. Aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol which causes chronic methanol poisoning. Drinking “meths” amongst alcoholics is well known to cause blindness and deterioration of the optic nerve. Aspartame contains exactly the same product, as meths, methanol, that is proven to damage eyesight. Many angry Americans allege that Aspartame damaged their eyesight or even caused the deaths of family members from seizures. Every single ingredient in Aspartame can cross the blood brain barrier. These substances are highly neurotoxic and harm the brain. The animal studies that were conducted in America conclusively found that it caused brain tumours. Yet today many children are drinking aspartame sweetened drinks, often without their parents realising what a dangerous additive it is. Many parents are rightly concerned that their children avoid consuming additives and artificial flavourings and colourings. There can be no doubt that the most dangerous additive of all is Aspartame and yet it is very widely prevalent in food and drink. Many children drink low calorie squash. Parents may believe that such drinks are better for them than conventional sugary squash. This low calorie fruit juice is frequently given to children at schools. This dangerous sweetener is worryingly omnipresent and most parents are blissfully unaware of the danger. Since the product is highly neurotoxic one has to question whether learning disorders have increased in children throughout the world since the product was given the green light in 1983. This is a very worrying concern and one that warrants substantial attention. Children are even more vulnerable to toxins than adults and may be consuming dangerous amounts on a daily basis.
Furthermore those who believe that aspartame will facilitate weight loss will be disappointed to hear that there is no evidence that this is the case. In fact the opposite has been found. Aspartame consumption may lead to weight gain. Why should this be the case? It appears that the phenylalanine in aspartame confuses the brain. When a craving for sweet food strikes it is usually because the body is low on energy and needs carbohydrates. Therefore reaching for aspartame sweetened food is not going to provide carbohydrate and the phenylalanine stimulates the protein receptors rather than satiating the glucose receptors. So the person continues to feel hungry and will eventually succumb to an eating binge of high calorie food having attempted first to stave off their hunger with low calorie “lite” products. Phenylalanine is also very dangerous to those who are allergic to it and to those who lack an enzyme to metabolise it. These people are known as having the genetic disease of phenylketonuria known as PKU. Sufferers of PKU must never consume the amino acid phenylalanine from birth or they will incur brain damage. New born babies are now routinely screened for PKU at birth with a small pin prick blood test on their foot.
The breakdown products of Aspartame damage DNA and have been shown to facilitate leukaemia. Donald Rumsfeld may have earned himself a nice bonus but at what cost to innocent lives? Aspartame is also an excitotoxin and consumers rapidly get hooked on it. As it drives the mind into a manic excited state Aspartame simultaneously destroys brain cells. The methanol constituent of aspartame breaks down in the body to formaldehyde, a proven carcinogen. . Formaldehyde is in the same category of poisons as arsenic and cyanide. The products change the actual brain chemistry and this can lead to seizures mimicking epilepsy. The Environmental protection agency gave an absolute maximum limit for methanol consumption of no more than seven mg a day. It is easily possible to exceed this limit seven fold with diet drinks containing aspartame. A bill was written to try and get the product banned for pregnant women by Senator Howard Metzenbaum and for warnings to be displayed in America but it was thrown out by the powerful corporations involved in the business. Dr. John Olney founded the medical science of excitotoxicity and attempted to get aspartame banned in 1996 in America without success.
Monsanto is well known as being a company involved in the marketing of genetically modified products known as GMO`s. It was found that Monsanto produced Aspartame using a secret genetic engineering process using bacteria. Aspartame is not only found in food and drink but in many pharmaceutical products such as Gaviscon, Lemsip and cough medicines. The EU has banned aspartame for children` s medicines in Europe but it is so widely present that it is impossible to avoid without a total outright ban. I once had to take a large sachet of penicillin and it was sickeningly sweetened with Aspartame. I would have preferred an unsweetened version, knowing the toxicity of the sweetener. It seems apparent that the product is finding its way into myriad pharmaceutical products and the consumer sometimes has no choice but to take the poisoned medicine. Even Sugar Free vitamins may contain Aspartame so it is worth reading the small print on the labels. It is often difficult to read the extremely small print on labels. Large health warnings should be placed on products warning consumers. Aspartame, a known toxin, is a constituent ingredient. Following a rash of lawsuits and bad publicity Monsanto sold the product, sometimes known by brand name Nutrasweet to J.W. Childs in the year 2000. J, W, Childs Associates is a private equity firm that specialises in leveraged buyouts and recapitalisation of middle market companies .
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