Hey Joel, very interesting to note, particularly when it comes to discussing these issues with clients. Looking forward to finding out about the effects on insulin tomorrow as well. On the side issue of caffeiene, I am cycling caffeiene at the moment so I haven’t had any for three days and I am sleeping like a baby! (I think I may be on to something!!)
Alright, so I ended up causing quite a stir with my post about artificial sweeteners yesterday, and today I’m back to share some research as promised. When talking artificial sweeteners, there are generally two major concerns:
1. Safety
2. Fat Loss
Let’s discuss the research surrounding both. First up, safety.
1. Butchko HH et al. Aspartame: review of safety. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2002 Apr;35(2 Pt 2):S1-93.
In this 2002 paper, over 20 years since the food additive was approved by the FDA, a comprehensive review of all aspartame research to date concluded that aspartame is indeed safe when consumed by normal humans in acceptable amounts (more on acceptable amounts in a minute).
2. Magnuson BA, Burdock GA, Doull J, et al. (2007). Aspartame: a safety evaluation based on current use levels, regulations, and toxicological and epidemiological studies. Crit. Rev. Toxicol. 37 (8): 629-727.
Now more than 25 years later, another safety evaluation found that the weight of existing scientific evidence indicates that aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption as a non-nutritive sweetener.
3. Gallus S; Scotti L, Negri E, Talamini R, Franceschi S, Montella M, Giacosa A, Dal Maso L, La Vecchia C. (January 2007). Artificial sweeteners and cancer risk in a network of case-control studies. Annals of Oncology 18 (1): 40-44.
This study analyzing over 15 years of research showed a clear cut “lack of association between saccharin, aspartame and other sweeteners and the risk of several common cancers”
4. Lim U, Subar AF, Mouw T, et al. Consumption of aspartame-containing beverages and incidence of hematopoietic and brain malignancies. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers Prevention 2006; 15.
In 2006, the US National Cancer Institute concluded in a study of over a HALF MILLION men and women aged 50 to 69 that there was no statistically significant link between aspartame consumption and leukemias, lymphomas or brain tumors.
A study of over a half million HUMANS showing no statistically significant link between aspartame and cancer, and three other 15-25 year comprehensive reviews of ALL the available research, all finding that aspartame is indeed safe when consumed in acceptable amounts.
That sure seems to ring more factual than someone’s “conspiracy” website to me.
Now, I could have sat here and listed out a couple hundred papers showing no statistical significance, but instead I chose to list the review papers who already included that data in their 20+ year review.
So, you’re probably wondering what’s “acceptable”?
You’re bound to find this interesting…
Based on all available research, scientists first determine the maximum amount of a food ingredient that can be safely consumed daily over a person’s lifetime. Then, just in case they screwed up by 10,000%, they divide this number by 100 and call that the ADI (acceptable daily intake).
Just in case you didn’t get that, the ADI is actually 100 TIMES LESS than what has been scientifically determined to be safe, as an extremely conservative precautionary measure.
So what’s the ADI for aspartame?
The ADI for aspartame has been set at 50mg/kg of body weight (again, this is 100 times less than what has been determined safe).
But to even reach the ultra conservative ADI, a 150-pound adult would have to consume about 20 12-oz. diet carbonated soft drinks, or 33 8-oz. servings of powdered soft drink, or 42 4-oz. servings of gelatin, or 97 packets of tabletop sweetener each and every day.
And people are still worrying about safety issues based on a couple studies done on RATS being fed the aspartame equivalent of up to 2,000 cans of Diet Coke daily. No, that is NOT a misprint.
Before going any further, let me just clarify my recommendations.
1. I do not think non-nutritive sweeteners, particularly aspartame as it’s perhaps the most studied nutrient of all time, are the devil.
2. Despite the ADI, I do not recommend anyone drink 20 diet soft drinks or use 97 packets of Equal daily.
3. If you are drinking a caffeinated beverage, such as Diet Coke, etc, then I would recommend you limit your intake to one can per day.
4. If going with something non-caffeinated, you can be a little more liberal, but the bulk of your daily fluid intake should still come in the form of good old fashion water.
5. In Summary: Drink at least a half gallon of water daily, but feel free to enjoy other non-calorie drinks in moderation (1-3 beverages per day)
6. Lastly, if you personally as an individual experience adverse reactions like headaches, dizziness, etc, due to the use of aspartame, then don’t use it. Just realize that you fall into .0000001% of the population and shouldn’t preach your personal experience as truth for all. One of my friends is allergic to chocolate, but she doesn’t go around telling everyone else that it’s poison.
So it looks like my recommendations are actually 1,000 times less than what has been determined safe, and I’m pretty comfortable making that recommendation.
Alright, this post is already going longer than I anticipated, so I’m going to save the research on non-nutritive sweeteners and weight loss for tomorrow.
At least 100 comments and I’ll be back tomorrow with that data (which you’ll probably find even more interesting).
In clarity and moderation,
Joel
P.S. My friend Isabel kind of bashes artificial sweeteners in the below video, and while I do NOT agree with that stance, I do agree with just about everything else she shares for losing up to 10% of your unwanted body fat in the next 30 days. You can check it out here for some eye-opening, actionable tips:
How to lose up to 10% of your unwanted body fat in the next 30 days <——- Click here
If you liked today’s post, hit the Facebook “Like” button below to share it with your friends.
Related Posts
277 comments - add yours
Hi Joel,
I do read your blog often enough. I come from Malta, smack in the middle of the Med.
Would it be possible to have quantities being given in metric please, for the benefit of Europeans and others who use this system?
Also, on another topic I would love if you can provide a programme of workouts for fat-loss/muscle-building for hot and humid areas :-)
Kind regards
Chris
Go ahead and enjoy your wood alcohol that is in aspartame. The FDA and Cancer Society are in cahoots.
Who paid for these studies to come out the way they wanted them to????
Thank goodness the FDA doesnt approve of pharmaceutical drugs causing death but when they do “research” they are completely fine for people. Aspartame is another pharmaceutical engineered product that causes problems slowly over time.
These studies have major flaws just like corexit being used as a dispersant on the oil in the gulf. In studies, the first 7 days of being exposed to corexit shows “statistical hardships” but if you look at what happened to the animals from 10 days to 2 weeks after…they all died. Go bathe in the gulf in the lovely oil and corexit…you will be fine and bring along your diet coke with aspartame as well.
toodles
Okay so cancer is not the only issue with aspartame but I understand that you are debunking a huge myth. I do feel as a person that studies the laws of food energy that aspartame is useless because it provides zero energy for the body. It raises the acidity levels in the body placing your body out of an alkaline balance. And let’s face it, anything that leaves an after taste should probably be avoided. So, thanks for the info Joel. I certainly appreciate the research, but it’s just not for me :)
Everyone is unique and our bodies will react in their own ways to the various substances be it natural or processed we consume.
It appears that some individuals may have observed a health complication and have decided to blame one part of their lifestyle whereas in reality it will be a combination of various factors.
Thank you Joel for the sifting through the research and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s insights.
I’ll stop eating chocolate now that I know of its deadly potential!
I won’t and don’t trust anything the FDA has to say. There is resarch out there that shows the contrary to what your saying. I think it’s safest to stick to natural foods, sweetners , ones you can pronounce. My take is stay away.
Do a bit more homework, and look at the studies linking obesity and artificial sweeteners.
Artificial sweeteners are contributing to the obesity problems in the USA.
While they may appear to be safe, overall, they can contribute to weight
gain, because they don’t satisfy the gustatory responses in the brain the same way that caloric sweeteners do.
Because artificial sweeteners are so sweet they enable sugar craving and sugar dependence. “Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain.”
Here is a link to a great review article (2010), from the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine entitled: “Gain weight by “going diet?” Artificial sweeteners and the neurobiology of sugar cravings”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/?tool=pubmed
I’ll take sugar or honey over artificial sweeteners any day. The last thing I need is artificial sweeteners screwing up my neural responses to caloric intake and helping me gain weight!
These studies use very particular wording ” common cancers”, “direct association” they cant possible know all the risks involved and as health and fitness exxpert you should be educating people on the importance of eating as little processed food as possible not 1-3 diet sodas a day is ok! Their full of chemical and shouldnt be had at all let alone daily and the fact their 0 cal doesnt mean ****. back to basic eating is the lonf term heathy and best way to loose weight, less packaged more fresh, simple!
Who/what entity(-ies) funded these studies and reviews? They are meaningless without that information. If there’s any outside interest at all in the outcome of a study or review, its validity is questionable at best.
well to paraphrase an old adage – One man’s treasure is another man’s trash – I happen to know someone who was told he was poisoned by diet coke and now has trouble walking (uses two canes – has an MS-type condition) so surely there are others who can have a sensitivity to any type of sweetener…even Stevia. (I have another friend who can’t use that) SO it seems to me that IF you are a person with a sensitivity to chemicals .. or are experiencing any type of joint/muscle pain it wouldn’t hurt to STOP drinking diet coke and see if it helps.
@ West: Er, West: Joel’s found research supporting the alleged safety of aspartame, not Splenda. Splenda is the trade name for sucralose. Aspartame becomes formaldehyde (a highly toxic preservative) above a certain temperature, 38 degrees Celsius, I believe. Sucralose is Sucrose with two of its hydrogen atoms replaced with chlorine atoms.
Personally, having looked at a few natural health websites, I avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague, even for ‘cheat’ meals. These websites can’t even agree on stevia. Dr Mark Hyman warns against consuming it. I’d go for natural: ribose, glucose, fructose (from RAW honey and fruit, not even from agave nectar as this is highly processed) or unrefined cane sugar.
These are chemicals. Why aren’t you promoting natural alternative sweeteners? I just don’t understand this angle.
Bottom line: I use your “Cheat Your Way Thin” diet, so I get to indulge in all of my favorite foods once a week. That’s enough for me. You should be encouraging discipline and self control – the teachings that drew me to you in the first place. After following your program for over 4 months, my cravings for sugar throughout the week have all but disappeared.
What do I tell others? Drink water – lots of it. When you’re looking for something different, and it isn’t cheat day, grab an unsweetened tea. If you need a sweetener, grab a packet of Stevia or one of the many combination packets available (most contain Stevia plus pure cane sugar…yielding a whopping 1 gram of sugar per packet).
Thanks for the open forum, Joel. Keep up the good work.
Regarding aspertame. It doesn’t matter if you ingest one can or 100 cans of Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi or whatever diet soft drink you prefer, aspertame turns into formaldehyde in your body once you ingest it. So does decaffinated coffee like Brim. The process to decaffinate anything involves the use of formaldehyde. So ….. drink this stuff to your hearts content if you want this substance in your body and brain. Just drink the regular stuff – it has to be better than this artificial junk!!!!!
Hi Joel.
I totally agree with you. I consume artificial sweeteners as safe for both health and weight loss because there is not a single piece of research that convinces me otherwise.
I’m pretty sure you will write tomorrow about the excipient problem in sweetener packets. I don’t know if there are newer presentations of sweeteners in the US since I’ve not been there since 1995. But you European folks are lucky. Some sweeteners come in pill form where you only have 0,2 grams of excipient per portion, -glycine and lactose, mainly.
Here the best I’ve found are packets with isomalt as excipient instead of the more used maltodextrine/dextrose. They have some bitter aftertaste but they in fact taste better than normal sweeteners when used for beverages, IMO.
Finally, my favorite one is sucralose, but just because of its flavor.
Thanks for the research, Joel. Please tell us tomorrow about the studies which show that diet ADHERENCE is in fact improved when using artificial sweeteners as a treat.
Over the years so much missinformantion has been spread about the safety and viability of artificial sweeteners. Your points are well made and spot on regarding the type of testing that actually caused cancerous reactions in mice. Anything, if abused can be harmful and cause one type of reaction or another. Taken in moderation, these products are safe and useful for avoiding the effects of sugar on the system. I am a diabetic, so these products are very useful for providing the sweets I enjoy.
Recent statements have been made that using artificial sweeteners actually increases desire for sweets and makes you eat more food. These statements said the body when receiving the artificial sweeteners, looks for the glucose and when it’s not found, cravings begin. I say that’s bunk. I’ve been drinking diet drinks for over 35 years and haven’t gone to clean out the frig or cookie jar yet.
The key here is moderation. That’s all. I’ve come to the conclusion the much of the conspiracy crap that has been put out there are being created by the sugar and corn syrup industry to bolster sales.
I use the pink, blue and yellow…but do prefer Splenda for it’s more natural taste.
Great stuff!
This confirmed my thoughts about aspartame.
However, I’ve experienced ONE side effect, or actually two when I think about it.
When I drink Coke Zero (which I fancy), I’ve noticed that my cravings for sweets or salty things like chips have increased, quite much. I drink some Coke Zero…and then after a while, OH! how about some of those delicious chips, yummy!….OH! now I got thirsty, I better have some more Coke …..and then it goes on and on. Secondly, I’ve noticed that one gets rather addicted to aspartame, just like with coffe.
Luckily, I’ve noticed these things and can control them :)
So, when I get those cravings, I deny them and when I get thirsty I drink water…just as one should.
People are worried about something that was produced as an ant poison when every person on earth consumes massive amounts of growth hormones in our beef, pork, and chickens not to mention pesticides and other cides in our fish and yes even our vegetables and fruits. Aspartame does not even reach the quantities that these other chemicals reach in our food and water
@ Joel Marion:
I quite using it for six months! I felt no better and weight loss was not easier.
I read something once that said if we hear it enough, even if it’s false, we believe it is true. Just because we’ve been told for years that aspartame is bad, doesn’t mean it is.
“my vote is..stay away from any chemicals….” .
Exactly . I weaned myself off sugar in coffee & from soft drinks 30 years ago. It wasn’t hard to do when you do it gradually. Apart from Diabetics , i just wonder why everyone else needs this additive? I was always wary because it was a chemical.
As some have said there are more natural alternatives if you really need to add a sweetener. To me the main problem today is there is far too much sugar anyway on processed foods , so why add any more unnecessarily?
Thanks for the info, Joel. I appreciate that you chose literature reviews as those incorporate MANY studies, not just a few, and often reflect the long-term studies which are more relevant for human health.
I’m surprised at the number of people here who seem to have confused sweeteners. Splenda is a brand of sucralose rather than aspartame–aspartame’s most common brand name is Equal.
Great info – thank you. Can anyone comment on other claims (not in this blog) made about aspartame hindering fat loss? I didn’t read thru all 160+ comments so maybe this has already been addressed.
it is very funny reading the comments, I believe that people saying that aspartame is a poison and whatnot consume grilled stuff, and that’s “proven” to be carcinogenic, and they may eat prepackaged foods, so what about all those chemicals in preservatives? if you cut cold turkey on sweeteners you should do so with all the preservatives and added stuff, so if you want to be trully clean and “poison” free cook all your meals from scratch and never use anything packaged….
I do so, but the only thing I consume is splenda, so yes I am a sinner!!!! LOL
I think like you commented on your report is that people may have predisposition to be allergic or sensitive to some kind of foods, or stuff, my father cannot eat shellfish now, he was able to do so until his 58th b’day and he’s had colon cancer and he doesn’t blame shellfish to be the culprit!
it’s genetics, my whole family has predisposition to have this.
so what I am saying is just learn what it’s good for you and stick with it….
The fact that, according to this information, I fall into the .0000001% of the population that has adverse affects does NOT surprise me. Of all my friends, no one that I know, besides myself, suffers server migraines due to aspartame consumption. If I want a soda, which is not very often, I drink one, just not a diet soda. To each his own.
A friend who is trying to lose weight, loves her diet coke. She consumes upwards to 6 or more a day! I’ve told her that when you consume sweets of any kind, you crave more sweets… just because that’s what I’ve heard. I’ve been telling her to give up sodas as an experiment to see what happens to her weight, but with no knowledge as to why I’m actually saying that to her. I did tell her that I know she will go through withdrawal from caffeine and sugar though… that I know. I am looking forward to tomorrows post so I can back up my statements with some actual research!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hey, it’s Joel! So you want to know a little more about me, huh? Well, I’d be happy to oblige :-)
I guess it all started back in 2001 (my freshman year of college) when I was just a “skinny fat” 19-year old kid. At the time, I was spending close to 2 hours a day in the gym (now my workouts last about 30 minutes), and despite my efforts, you’d probably never guess I worked out a day in my life by looking at me...