|
Back |
Ninety-two percent of independently funded studies found
aspartame may cause adverse effects, including depression and headaches.15
A study also found the administration of aspartame to rats resulted in
detectable methanol even after 24 hours, which might be responsible for inducing
oxidative stress in the brain.15
Aspartame is made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. But the phenylalanine
has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the
majority of the sweetness.
That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which
allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form
methanol.
When aspartame is in liquid form, it breaks down into methyl alcohol, or
methanol, which is then converted into formaldehyde and represents the
root of the problem with aspartame.
In short, both animals and humans have small structures called peroxisomes in
each cell. There are a couple of hundred in every cell of your body, which are
designed to detoxify a variety of chemicals.
Humans have the same number of peroxisomes in comparable
cells as non-human animals, but human peroxisomes
cannot convert the toxic formaldehyde into harmless formic acid. Formaldehyde is
a known carcinogen that causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication
and may cause birth defects.