The big health news from this past week is the petitioning of the FDA by two very powerful dairy organizations, The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), to allow aspartame and other artificial sweeteners to be added to milk and other dairy products without a label.
Aspartame, also known by the brand name Nutrasweet, is made up of three components: 50% phenylalanine (a chemical that affects human brain activity by transmitting impulses), 40% aspartic acid and 10% methanol (poisonous wood alcohol).
Based on the FDA’s track record in handling the aspartame issue, things are not looking good to stop approval of this outrageous measure.
For one, back in 1996 when aspartame was first approved for use in thousands of food products, the FDA used 15 “pivotal” studies as the basis for its decision.
One of these pivotal studies involved oral dosage of aspartame to infant Rhesus monkeys for 52 weeks. The research was conducted by the University of Wisconsin Medical Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
The monkeys were divided into three groups. A low dose group which received 1.0 g of aspartame/kg of body weight per day, a medium dose group receiving 3.0g/kg per day and a high dose group receiving 4-6 g/kg per day.
The high dose group ended up ingesting about the same amount as the medium dose group as the high dose monkeys would not consume intended levels of aspartame possibly because it was too sweet at that amount. There was no control group.
The monkeys in this study were served their aspartame in an orally consumed milk based formula.
Starting about 7 months (218 days) into the experiment, ALL the medium and high dose monkeys began having brain seizures.
“All animals in the medium and high dosage groups exhibited seizure activity. Seizures were observed for the first time following 218 days of treatment… The seizures were of the grand mal type… One monkey, m38, of the high dose group, died after 300 days of treatment. The cause of death was not determined…”
Grand mal seizures also known as tonic clonic seizures are horrific – a very dangerous seizure which affects the entire brain.
The low dose monkeys might have started to have seizures as well, but the death of one of the researchers, H. A. Waisman, caused a lack of staffing for the study. As a result, the low dose monkeys were withdrawn from the group at 200 days which is before the seizures in the medium and high dose group began occurring.
As soon as the aspartame was withdrawn from the monkey’s diets, the seizures stopped.
How the FDA could call a study “pivotal” for approving aspartame’s use in thousands of products where every single monkey suffered from grand mal seizures and one died while consuming milk based formula containing this artificial sweetener is incomprehensible.
According to Robert Cohen of Oradell, New Jersey, who rediscovered this study which was reported in 1972, the dairy formula/aspartame milk which the monkeys ingested would have been a key reason for the brain seizures.
Cohen, who holds a degree in brain chemistry, suggests that the ingestion of dairy has the effect of elevating the pH of the stomach. He contends that drinking a single 12 oz. glass of milk would have the effect of buffering the pH of the human stomach from 2 to 6.
When the stomach pH is 6, Cohen explains that the simple proteins that comprise aspartame would pass through undigested and hence move into the blood intact.
Testing of the monkeys in this study showed that there was in fact phenylalanine (which comprises 50% of aspartame) in their blood which proves that it is absorbed. Phenylalanine affects human brain activity by transmitting impulses and the brain seizures started occurring after this compound was detected in the monkey’s blood.
With aspartame, aka Nutrasweet, already used but still included on the label of many dairy products, it’s not a big leap for the FDA to take it to unlabeled status based on the petition from Big Dairy.
This is especially probable given the FDA’s backward interpretation of the Rhesus monkey study which it called “pivotal” in proving human safety and yet all the monkeys suffered from grand mal seizures while ingesting aspartame laced dairy formula.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources: Aspartame in Milk Without a Label? Big Dairy Petitions FDA for Approval
FDA Pivotal Safety Study: Aspartame Caused Brain Seizures
Kassie Shepard read this
I can understand how the greedy companies would want to add stuff thats bad for us without labeling it but I dont understand why our government would ever allow it!!!
The FDA can be bought off by those companies. Do research on how aspartame was approved. You’ll find it was due to politics, not science.
( PKU variant-employed by Wisdom Natural Brands, SweetLeaf Stevia)
Some critics suggest there was politics involved in the approval process by the FDA. As to that argument, any issues that may have existed around that time arose because of an unrecognized, but now well-documented population-wide deficiency in the vitamin folic acid. That has been documented in rats and people. Why do you think folate grain fortification was mandated in the USA starting in 1998? It was because women were giving birth to babies with neural tube deformities because of folate deficiency (see .
All the “FDA people” critics cite as originally questioning its safety, no doubt saw concerning issues with the original Sprague-Dawley short-term rat study. While they didn’t know why, today we know why—it was folate deficiency in the rats. When the same study was repeated with corn based diets (rich in folate) no problems were seen. That is also why the aspartame approval delay critics implicate in a political decision. But today we know that a documentable folate deficiency exists in this Sprague-Dawley rat breed by one year of age (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12042458). So using a diet already deficient in folate would obviously have shown problem signs earlier. Hundreds of studies later, including many by completely different agencies of the federal government, have found nothing scientifically relevant to aspartame’s safety, especially since the 1998 USA-mandated folate grain-product supplementation.
Simply put there was no conspiracy theory then or now; there was, however, much ignorance of the very important role of folic acid in metabolism of methanol; this fact was well documented by the work of Tephly starting in the 1970’s (even before aspartame) here, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Tephly%2Cmethanol%2Cfolate. And folate deficiency, not aspartame, is associated with numerous types of disease and cancer. You might appreciate knowing that folate deficiency plays a major role in breast cancer. In fact the last line of an Australian research team’s abstract says, the “results of this study suggest that moderate folate deficiency has a stronger effect on chromosomal instability than BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations found in breast cancer families” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16162645).
John E. Garst, Ph.D. (Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Nutrition)
Jodie Hummel Godush I think you hit the hammer right squarely on the head! Aspartame addiction is what its all about hidden behind Big Dairy’s reasoning that “kids aren’t drinking enough milk so let’s make it sweeter”.
Know your farmer, know your food.
What is the reason behind adding it to milk all of a sudden??
I guess government doesn’t care that it is hypocritical does it? On one side they have pressure from the public to promote health (if you can call ‘big pharma’ health), but secretly they are methodically making people sick and slowly shortening the lifespans of each consecutive generation. They are clever enough to know that it starts with the younger generations too.
Carrie, you are so right! And it’s very scary, isn’t it.
“All along the streets I see so many fast food restaurants waving to us like flower creatures from some strange planet–giant Venus fly trap type flowers–with neon petals enticing people into brightly colored seats to be addicted forever.
‘And we now serve milk,’ they advertise entrancingly.”
Humans shouldn’t drink cow’s milk anyway! Cows have 5 stomachs for a reason, we only have one! lol 🙂
Actually, cows have 1 stomach, divided into four compartments. How can we take your opinions as valid when your facts aren’t straight?
But nick, let’s not be so critical. Dee had a really great and healthy idea: Don’t drink milk! To me, it’s just a highly processed, chemical and hormone laden fast food–and that’s before high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, artificial colors, etc., are even added.
Dee, let’s hope that most Americans will take your advice. In my opinion, sodas and milk are both very unhealthy drinks for children and other humans.
Many of my relatives, friends, and neighbors are now growing gardens–and hopefully, they won’t outlaw gardens to make us eat processed foods at fast food restaurants like automated robots.
We need to love our children enough to feed them real foods–or as real as we can find them.
I wish the FDA was actually concerned with protecting the public health and not focused on growing food industry profits. Besides causing seizures, Aspartame toxicity can mimic neurologic disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis. In my practice I use food sensitivity testing and it’s amazing how many people we find are sensitive to Aspartame — and how hard it is to avoid! Migraines, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue… if you are suffering from an unexplained chronic condition, Aspartame should be on your elimination list!
Another reason not to drink milk.
It is no better than the cigarette companies adding more nicotine to their products…they are trying to create addicts, and, most sinister, they are doing it under the guise of “healthy foods.”