fair summary of Ramazzini aspartame cancer studies, UPI Food Writer Julia
Watson: Murray 2007.07.02
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNMmessage/1445

www.upi.com/Consumer_Health_Daily/Reports/2007/07/02/eat_to_live_new_fears_over_\
aspartame/6520/

United Press International®
News. Analysis. Insight.™
Consumer Health Daily - Reports
Published: July 2, 2007 at 9:25 AM

Eat To Live: New fears over aspartame
By JULIA WATSON, UPI Food Writer

LE BUGUE, France, July 2 (UPI) -- Two years ago, Italian researchers at the
prestigious Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences
published a study that showed feeding rats aspartame at levels per body weight
close to those of humans led to an increase in brain tumors, lymphomas and
leukemia in the females.

Aspartame, familiar to consumers as brand names NutraSweet and Equal, is an
artificial sweetener found globally in approximately 6,000 products.

It's contained in candy, desserts and yogurts. It's in diet sodas and hot
chocolate and those sugar-free packets for coffee and tea in restaurants. It's
also in some pharmaceutical products, like cough lozenges and vitamins.
Some chewing gum is aspartame-sweetened.

At this level of saturation, it represents 62 percent of the artificial
sweetener market.

As reported by Eat To Live last May, the FDA rejected the foundation's
conclusions, saying they weren't consistent with other studies that the FDA had
evaluated that confirmed aspartame was safe as a sweet alternative to sugar.

So the Ramazzini Foundation went back to the drawing board.

This time, it put 4,000 rats on doses of aspartame equivalent in respective body
weight to the amount consumed by some people.

With this second investigation, they also began exposing rats to aspartame
before they were born.
And they allowed them to live until they died a natural death, instead of
killing them at two years as in other studies elsewhere.

Their conclusions have just been published in Environmental Health Perspectives,
the journal of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Parents should take particular note.

Again, they found significant increases in lymphomas and leukemia.
When fetuses were exposed to the sweetener, the potential carcinogenic effects
increased.

A study last year from the National Cancer Institute involving 340,045 men and
226,945 women found no significant link between aspartame and cancer.

But the men and women studied were all between the ages of 50 and 69 and had
only begun consuming the sweetener in adulthood.

Children are considerable consumers of aspartame through Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi,
Kool-Aid, Jell-O gelatin dessert and pudding mixes and certain Popsicles.

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the acceptable daily
intake of aspartame is equivalent to a child weighing 50 pounds drinking two
cans of diet soda daily, or a 150 pound adult drinking just over seven.

It encourages people not to panic. Just to stop buying products containing
aspartame.

However, the Ramazzini Foundation researchers write in their study: "On the
basis of the present findings, we believe that a review of the current
regulations governing the use of aspartame cannot be delayed.

"This review is particularly urgent with regard to aspartame-containing
beverages, heavily consumed by children."

The FDA says it has not yet reviewed the report.
But it appears it still finds no reason to revise its opinion or advice to
consumers.

Since the study's publication, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, on
its Web site Chemical Cuisine directory, has now demoted aspartame from the "use
caution" category to "everyone should avoid".
It also gives thumbs down to acesulfame.

If you want a sweet alternative to sugar, it recommends sucralose, commonly
known by the brand name Splenda.

To satisfy a sweet tooth craving, try chewing on dried apricots or a handful of
dried prunes or raisins.
Stewing then pureeing dried apricots provides a very sweet sauce to pour round
or over ice cream or slices of cake that already contain enough of the sugar you
crave that you don't need to increase the amount with a butterscotch or
chocolate sauce.
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"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority,
to actively find, quickly share, and positively act upon
the facts about healthy and safe food, drink, and
environment."

Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@...
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 78 members, 1,446 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNMmessage/1443
Safe Food Campaign wants ban on aspartame in schools in New Zealand:
Murray 2007.06.21

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1442
Wellington, NZ lady, 25, free by 24 hours of severe muscle cramps (5
months) after quitting 4-8 packs daily aspartame chewing gum (past few
years): Murray 2007.06.20

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1441
Lifetime exposure to low doses of aspartame beginning during prenatal
life increases cancer effects in rats, Morando Soffritti et al,
European Ramazzini Foundation, USA EPA Environmental Health
Perspectives 2007.06.13 free full text 24 pages: Murray 2007.06.16

www.ehponline.org/members/2007/10271/10271.pdf free full text 24
pages

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNMmessage/1444
expert Greek group finds aspartame (or its parts, methanol,
phenylalanine, aspartic acid) harm infant rat brain enzyme activity,
KH Schulpis et al, Pharmacol. Res. 2007.05.13: Murray 2007.06.23

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNMmessage/1437
stevia to be approved and cyclamates limited by Food Standards
Australia New Zealand: JMC Geuns critiques of two recent stevia
studies by Nunes: Murray 2007.05.29

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1427
more from The Independent, UK, Martin Hickman, re ASDA
(unit of Wal-Mart Stores) and Marks & Spencer ban of aspartame,
MSG, artificial chemical additives and dyes to prevent ADHD in kids:
Murray 2007.05.16
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2548747.ece

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1426
ASDA (unit of Wal-Mart Stores WMT.N) and Marks & Spencer
will join Tesco and also Sainsbury to ban and limit aspartame,
MSG, artificial flavors dyes preservatives additives, trans fats,
salt "nasties" to protect kids from ADHD: leading UK media:
Murray 2007.05.15

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1271
combining aspartame and quinoline yellow, or MSG and
brilliant blue, harms nerve cells, eminent C. Vyvyan
Howard et al, 2005 education.guardian.co.uk,
Felicity Lawrence: Murray 2005.12.21

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1277
50% UK baby food is now organic -- aspartame or MSG
with food dyes harm nerve cells, CV Howard 3 year study
funded by Lizzy Vann, CEO, Organix Brands,
Children's Food Advisory Service: Murray 2006.01.13

formaldehyde as a potent unexamined cofactor in cancer research --
sources include methanol, dark wines and liquors, aspartame, wood and
tobacco smoke: IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks
to Humans implicate formaldehyde in #88 and alcohol drinks in #96:
some related abstracts: Murray 2007.05.15
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1417

aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde) toxicity research summary:
Rich Murray 2007.06.16
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1404

One liter aspartame diet soda, about 3 12-oz cans,
gives 61.5 mg methanol,
so if 30% is turned into formaldehyde, the formaldehyde
dose of 18.5 mg is 37 times the recent EPA limit of
0.5 mg per liter daily drinking water for a 10-kg child:
www.epa.gov/teach/chem_summ/Formaldehyde_summary.pdf
2007.01.05 [ does not discuss formaldehyde from methanol
or aspartame ]
http://www.epa.gov/teach/teachsurvey.html comments
teach@...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1340
aspartame groups and books: updated research review of
2004.07.16: Murray 2006.05.11

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1395
Aspartame Controversy, in Wikipedia democratic
encyclopedia, 72 references (including AspartameNM # 864
and 1173 by Murray), brief fair summary of much more
research: Murray 2007.01.01

Dark wines and liquors, as well as aspartame, provide
similar levels of methanol, above 120 mg daily, for
long-term heavy users, 2 L daily, about 6 cans.

Within hours, methanol is inevitably largely turned into
formaldehyde, and thence largely into formic acid -- the
major causes of the dreaded symptoms of "next morning"
hangover.

Fully 11% of aspartame is methanol -- 1,120 mg aspartame
in 2 L diet soda, almost six 12-oz cans, gives 123 mg
methanol (wood alcohol). If 30% of the methanol is turned
into formaldehyde, the amount of formaldehyde, 37 mg,
is 18.5 times the USA EPA limit for daily formaldehyde in
drinking water, 2.0 mg in 2 L average daily drinking water.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1286
methanol products (formaldehyde and formic acid) are main
cause of alcohol hangover symptoms [same as from similar
amounts of methanol, the 11% part of aspartame]:
YS Woo et al, 2005 Dec: Murray 2006.01.20

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1143
methanol (formaldehyde, formic acid) disposition:
Bouchard M et al, full plain text, 2001: substantial
sources are degradation of fruit pectins, liquors,
aspartame, smoke: Murray 2005.04.02
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