IUBio

Is this true or some myth?

Mark Gold mgold at tiac.net
Wed Jan 20 12:55:30 EST 1999


>From: Krakatoa <stephan at nospam.ucla.edu>
>Newsgroups: bionet.neuroscience
>Subject: Re: Is this true or some myth?
>Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 02:23:43 -0800

>> I hesitate to address this because there may be some knee-jerk
>> responses,

> 1/100th of the lethal dose in some situations? Do you expect anyone to
> take this seriously? Do you know that 1 L of water is much more than
> 1/100th of the lethal dose of water in most situations?  Yet people
> safely consume 1L of water a day for many years, without ever worrying
> about the effects of 100L consumption.

Stephan,

As I pointed out formaldehyde has been shown to be a chronic poison at
extremely low levels.  This has nothing to do with water which is not 
poisonous.  If you are going to use an analogy, try using
elemental mercury.

<snip more knee-jerk text>

> Am J Gastroenterol 1993 May;88(5):737-43 

Gee, you should at least read the study and my comments before posting
this stuff!  This was a ***one day*** study which proves nothing about
adverse effects of aspartame.  But it is very typical of
Monsanto-sponsored junk science.

> let's see, no detectable methanol even in patients with chronic liver
> disease??

Had you read my web page, you would see that the authors used a methanol
measuring test developed in 1969 which would only recognized a > 350% to
600% increase in plasma methanol levels.  Why would the authors use a test
when there had been research in the 1980s (Food and Chemical Toxicology,
Volume 24, No. 3, page 187-189) showing half the dose of aspartame
increased plasma methanol levels significantly?!  Hmmm. 

> But it get's worse!! Let's see what happens when we give people
> aspartame equivalent to 10 L of diet Coke per day for half a year!!!

Yes, let's see. :-)

> Arch Intern Med 1989 Oct;149(10):2318-24 

First of all, let's deal with the methanol measurements.  Had you read the
study, you would know that the authors measured the methanol levels after
a 12-hour fast!  At this point, all of the methanol would have been
converted to formaldehyde!  How could the authors not know this
fact...especially since they measured formate levels as well.  By the way,
both urine and plasma formate measurements have been shown to be useless
for chronic, low-level formaldehyde poisoning.  Please see the disussion
in the scientific FAQs section, particularly the sub-section dealing with
abuse of the scientific method:

           http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/aspfaq.html

Secondly, as far a supposed "safety" goes, this study showed a significant
increase in adverse reactions in the aspartame group.  But the authors
split the adverse reactions into tiny categories so they could claim in
the abstract that within these tiny categories, there was no significant
difference.  This is a statistical trick that the manufacturer used in
pre-approval research as well.

Thirdly, this supposed high dose (10 liters) is really a much, much
smaller dose since the aspartame was given in capsules.  Instead of a
sudden absorption of methanol, aspartic acid, phenylalanine, DKP, etc.,
the breakdown products are absorbed very, very slowly.  The amino acids
are absorbed more like amino acids from food which are broken down from
protein and absorbed gradually.  Please see the industry-sponsored study:

  Stegink, Lewis D., et al. 1987. "Plasma Amino Acid
    Concentrations in Normal Adults Administered Aspartame in
    Capsules or Solution: Lack of Bioequivalence,"
    Metabolism, Volume 36, No. 5, page 507-512.

Fourth, the researchers in this study tested healthy volunteers and went
further and eliminated the population group who have reported the majority
of adverse reactions -- normal, healthy women of childbearing age. 

Finally, even if the experiment were conducted properly, it does take
longer than 6 months for many people to develop clinically-obvious
aspartame toxicity reactions.

> Sounds like the "anti-aspartame cult" is full of crap as usual.

Care to read my web page first, followup on all of the research and then
comment? :-)

               http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/

Best Wishes,
                             - Mark
                          mgold at tiac.net




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