Health & Healing Articles

One of our readers wrote: "After talking with you yesterday I thought it might be a good idea if you did an article for the Glenorian on the dangers of Aspartame (alias nutrasweet, equal, spoonful, etc) artificial sweeteners (included in diet drinks etc.). This insidious product should be banned and most users are completely ignorant of the long-term dangers.

The web is full of info and if you could assemble some data in your good writing style I feel that you could help many to become aware of the dangers of this product."

Having looked at many sources of information about this substance, I was horrified.

What are we doing to ourselves? Eating and drinking poison and worse still, feeding it to our children by the bucket full, every day of the year.

This substance has been linked to many health problems and yet it is still on the market and we are still buying and consuming it. Aspartame use has been associated in scientific literature, with a huge list of physiological and psychological disorders including irrational rage, headaches, numbness, fatigue, blurred vision and blindness, heart palpitations, brain lesions and tumours, memory loss, dizziness, muscle spasms, miscarriages, sexual dysfunction, irritability, anxiety attacks, vertigo, epileptic seizures, rashes, tachycardia, tinnitus, joint pain, nausea, mood alterations and depression, hearing loss, slurred speech, loss of taste and insomnia, as well as eroding intelligence and short term memory. It also helps trigger multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, Epstein Bar, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, mental retardation, lymphoma, and birth defects.

Now, I'm no chemical engineer and in fact this was my worst subject at school (I always had a feeling there was some evil mystery to it ... maybe I was right) but, I do understand the term neuro-toxin, even if it is disguised as food additive E951 or 951. When I am told that Aspartame above 30 Deg C (7 Deg C below my body temperature) rapidly breaks down into three chemicals hazardous to human health, I feel like the rats and natures other animals do ... it's not to be eaten. These chemicals are Aspartic acid (approx. 40%), Phenylalanine (approx. 50%) and Methanol (approx. 10%). Methanol is quickly absorbed and converted into formaldehyde, a severe poison and carcinogen. Further conversion to formic acid can make you blind and quickly kill you. Methanol's hazard is exacerbated by the presence of the two amino acids, Aspartic acid (Aspartate) and phenylalanine, in the breakdown of aspartame in the human body. These two synthetic toxins (in their aspartame form) have a multiplying or synergistic role in methanol chemistry inside our bodies. Phenylalanine in its synthetic form causes the most pernicious problems among aspartame addicts.

Enough of this scientific jargon, there are numerous publications that go into detail and this article cannot possibly cover all this detail. Lets just consider that if we truly want to be healthy and have happy, healthy children, then we must start feeding ourselves wholesome foods and stop feeding the bank accounts, of those who would have us eat poison.

For further reading go to the article "We are the laboratory rats!" written by Chris Wheeler

This article is intended to be informative and interactive. Readers are invited to participate, by writing to us with their thoughts or comments and to request topics of interest, relating to health issues.

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Sydney Wellbeing Centre

Colin Ifield 02 9652 0308

Katherine Ferris 02 9652 1818

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