Aspartame is now being marketed as the brand AminoSweet and labeled as an all natural sweetener! This is partially true, in that the two ingredients are naturally occurring amino acids. The chemical reaction that occurs when they are combined, however, creates an unsafe (proven) cancer-causing chemical that is not found in nature. http://www.foodbev.com/news/ajinomoto-brands-aspartame-aminosweet
Aspartame is the one that causes MS symptoms in the short term, too, right? Thanks for the heads up. I'll stick to my natural sugars and stevia.
Probably not in everyone, since every chemical affects everyone differently. But it is a very common side effect. It messes with the chemical balance in the brain and tends to cause varying degrees of depression. If drink so much as a single diet soda 20 ounce, you might as well put me on suicide watch. Seriously, it's that bad. I hate myself, my children, everything. Now, for my mom, she was on a diet for about three months. Her doctor put her on several different anti-depressents and none helped. She finally went to a specialist who started her on a food journal. When he saw how much diet soda she drank (about a two liter every two days), he asked her to quit. Less than a week later her depression was gone. My reaction is much more severe than hers, but it still impacted her life.
I just saw this latest info a week or two ago! Aspartame affects me really bad. Same thing as ActressDancer if I even have a can of pop or the flavored water that contains aspartame I will have a severe migraine within an hour. I know people that don't believe me because they guzzle diet pop all day and 'it doesn't affect me', yet they moan and groan to me about health issues. I mention the diet pop and they find every excuse in book as to why that doesn't cause issues. Oy....
Here's another yikes! I was stocking the gum shelf at work a couple of weeks ago (shortly after this came out), and realized that every. single. pack of gum, with the SOLE exception of Trident*, contained Aspartame. Every one. I'm not talking just about the "sugar free" gums, either. Even gum that has sugar listed as the second ingredient had Aspartame as the fourth or fifth. Juicy Fruit has it. Big Red has it. Wrigley's has it. *Trident contains Sucralose, which is only slightly better.
How bizarre to gratuitously put aspartame in sugary gum. My Dh switched to diet pop about 6 months ago. (I don't understand why the man can't just drink water) He has been experiencing headaches non-stop for a couple weeks now, probably longer, but at least that long that I'm aware of. I'll say something about it, but he has OCD and doesn't shift gears quickly--or ever. You would think he would have learned from his dad who drank so much diet pop each day that he began to have MS symptoms. Less than a week after quitting, his symptoms were subsiding.....and now HE is back to drinking it some. What? A little poison won't make me uncomfortable as it slowly kills me? I don't get it.
I'm so glad to find some support here! I avoid the stuff, too, and push the water in our house. My husband thinks I'm a wack-o. Same man who says "I'll be right here on the couch when you get home, hon," when I go for a jog. He also has a lot of physical complaints. Duh! Why does this not compute? I tell him when he's dead I'm going to marry someone healthy.
