http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454639/
Narrator Cori Brackett had a strange cause-and-effect experience with the diet cokes she was drinking and quickly found herself disabled and diagnosed with MS. Slowly able to walk and speak again, she believes her illness is linked to aspartame.
She is a co-owner of a video/film production company. After 7000 miles, and 25 hours of footage, "Sweet Misery" will reveal one of the most pervasive, insidious forms of corporate negligence since tobacco.
The toxic long-term effects of aspartame are often dismissed as a hoax by the sweetener industry and at least five other internet websites. The real footwork, however, unravels something less comforting than a mere hoax.
"Sweet Misery" is the working title of a documentary released by Sound and Fury in June of 2004. The primary investigation includes interviews with doctors, lawyers, people who have had health problems which they associate with aspartame usage, advocates, and many others.
"Aspartame is inherently, markedly and uniquely unstable in aqueous media" is a quote from the congressional record in 1985, and yet it was approved for use in soft drinks and other beverages.
So what happened?
Is there credible evidence if you look beyond the smokescreen of corporate medicine? The primary research and interviews have been quite disturbing.
Dr. Woodrow C. Monte wrote: "Methanol [one of the breakdown products of aspartame] has no therapeutic properties and is considered only as a toxicant. The ingestion of two teaspoons is considered lethal in humans" (Monte, Woodrow, "Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health", Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol. 36, Number 1, 1984, p. 44).
Though it can hardly be considered good fortune to have an immediate reaction to aspartame, at least you are spared the potential long-term ticking time-bomb of a large array of neurological illnesses. These include, but are not limited to Brain Cancer, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Graves Disease, Chronic Fatigue, MS and Epilepsy.
In 1981 Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle, makers of Aspartame.
from http://www.aspartamesafety.com
QUOTE
What Exactly Is Aspartame?
Aspartame, ( C14H1805 : L-Aspartyl-L Phenylalanine Methyl Ester, is its official chemical name ), is made up of three chemicals, 40% - Aspartic Acid, 50% - Phenylalanine and 10% - Methanol. It is argued by those who want you to believe that Aspartame is something good is because they state that phenylalanine and aspartic acid are important amino acids and are commonly found in many foods bound to proteins. However, there are people who are very sensitive to phenylalanine. It causes a disease called PKU which can be fatal.
There is a huge problem with anyone saying that Aspartame is good. These amino acids in Aspartame are absorbed and metabolized differently from those found in normal foods. Why? Proteins in foods are broken down very gradually and amino acids which comprise a full range of proteins are gradually absorbed slowly. This gradual absorption leads to a very slow and small increase in some of the plasma amino acids into cells.
With Aspartame however, the aspartic acid and phenylalanine are free and unbound to any proteins. They are very quickly absorbed into the human body. This causes a rush of amino acids into the system which leads to spikes in plasma amino acids. For reference pertaining to this process, refer to the medical journal Metabolism (36/5):507-512.
Some fruit juices and alcoholic beverages contain small amounts of methanol which is 10% of Aspartame. It is very important to remember, methanol never appears alone. In every case, ethanol is present and usually at much higher amounts. Ethanol is an antidote for methanol toxicity to the body. All natural foods that contain methanol contain ethanol. It is mother natures way of protecting the body from methanol toxicity.
However...in Aspartame, THERE IS NO ETHANOL to counter the methanol that is produced!
Aspartame is made of phenylalanine (50% by weight) and aspartic acid (39%), both ordinary amino acids, bound loosely together by methanol (wood alcohol, 11%). Similar amounts of methanol are found in many fruits and vegetables and is locked up in complex pectin molecules, however, this methanol from natural food sources is always paired with ethanol, the ethanol is the body's natural antidote to the methanol from food sources and are not usually released by human digestion and so the this methanol from food sources is harmless.
This is different though with aspartame. The readily released methanol from aspartame is within hours largely turned by the liver into formaldehyde and then formic acid, both potent, cumulative toxins.
In 1997, Jennifer conducted an experiment proving that aspartame, the artificial sweetener in diet soda, breaks down into two deadly neurotoxins when stored at room temperature and under refrigeration.
...
Jennifer spent $1250.00 in lab testing to prove this. This may not be a lot of money to a drug company but it sure was to an 11 year old. Jennifer wound up baby-sitting the summer of 1997 to pay for this excellent study that showed the following:
* ~ The aspartame contained in diet soda stored over time breaks down into formaldehyde and DKP, two very dangerous poisons. Taste tests revealed a noticeable difference among tasters as well. The higher the heat of storage, the worse the taste.
* ~ Diet soda stored for ten weeks loses flavor. The aspartame in the soda broke down into two products, formaldehyde and DKP. In addition, the study showed, the warmer the temperature, the greater the loss of aspartame and the greater the increase in DKP.
...
But the " aspartame industry" has never done this type of testing because as Jennifer's study proves, the results would showed how aspartame breaks down into these deadly other chemicals of methanol, formaldehye and DPK.
Jennifer made a comment after she completed her study.. She said, "The FDA says, concerning aspartame, that they believe that based on all the information that we received to date that this is a safe product."
Jennifer's comment to the public, "Decide for yourself."
Aspartame, ( C14H1805 : L-Aspartyl-L Phenylalanine Methyl Ester, is its official chemical name ), is made up of three chemicals, 40% - Aspartic Acid, 50% - Phenylalanine and 10% - Methanol. It is argued by those who want you to believe that Aspartame is something good is because they state that phenylalanine and aspartic acid are important amino acids and are commonly found in many foods bound to proteins. However, there are people who are very sensitive to phenylalanine. It causes a disease called PKU which can be fatal.
There is a huge problem with anyone saying that Aspartame is good. These amino acids in Aspartame are absorbed and metabolized differently from those found in normal foods. Why? Proteins in foods are broken down very gradually and amino acids which comprise a full range of proteins are gradually absorbed slowly. This gradual absorption leads to a very slow and small increase in some of the plasma amino acids into cells.
With Aspartame however, the aspartic acid and phenylalanine are free and unbound to any proteins. They are very quickly absorbed into the human body. This causes a rush of amino acids into the system which leads to spikes in plasma amino acids. For reference pertaining to this process, refer to the medical journal Metabolism (36/5):507-512.
Some fruit juices and alcoholic beverages contain small amounts of methanol which is 10% of Aspartame. It is very important to remember, methanol never appears alone. In every case, ethanol is present and usually at much higher amounts. Ethanol is an antidote for methanol toxicity to the body. All natural foods that contain methanol contain ethanol. It is mother natures way of protecting the body from methanol toxicity.
However...in Aspartame, THERE IS NO ETHANOL to counter the methanol that is produced!
Aspartame is made of phenylalanine (50% by weight) and aspartic acid (39%), both ordinary amino acids, bound loosely together by methanol (wood alcohol, 11%). Similar amounts of methanol are found in many fruits and vegetables and is locked up in complex pectin molecules, however, this methanol from natural food sources is always paired with ethanol, the ethanol is the body's natural antidote to the methanol from food sources and are not usually released by human digestion and so the this methanol from food sources is harmless.
This is different though with aspartame. The readily released methanol from aspartame is within hours largely turned by the liver into formaldehyde and then formic acid, both potent, cumulative toxins.
In 1997, Jennifer conducted an experiment proving that aspartame, the artificial sweetener in diet soda, breaks down into two deadly neurotoxins when stored at room temperature and under refrigeration.
...
Jennifer spent $1250.00 in lab testing to prove this. This may not be a lot of money to a drug company but it sure was to an 11 year old. Jennifer wound up baby-sitting the summer of 1997 to pay for this excellent study that showed the following:
* ~ The aspartame contained in diet soda stored over time breaks down into formaldehyde and DKP, two very dangerous poisons. Taste tests revealed a noticeable difference among tasters as well. The higher the heat of storage, the worse the taste.
* ~ Diet soda stored for ten weeks loses flavor. The aspartame in the soda broke down into two products, formaldehyde and DKP. In addition, the study showed, the warmer the temperature, the greater the loss of aspartame and the greater the increase in DKP.
...
But the " aspartame industry" has never done this type of testing because as Jennifer's study proves, the results would showed how aspartame breaks down into these deadly other chemicals of methanol, formaldehye and DPK.
Jennifer made a comment after she completed her study.. She said, "The FDA says, concerning aspartame, that they believe that based on all the information that we received to date that this is a safe product."
Jennifer's comment to the public, "Decide for yourself."
Additionally, it should be noted that pilots are very aware of the dangers of aspartame. As ex-cabin crew, I have been witness to several conversations about it, dating back to 1993. It appears to me that there are warnings published in pilots' magazines & or flight safety literature, but these warnings aren't being passed on to the general public.
Why?
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Azureus Magnet: Sweet Misery, a Poisoned World