Avoiding Sugar with Diet, Low-Calorie, and Sugar-Free Alternatives? Think Again...

By: Liz Lang

Avoiding Sugar with Diet, Low-Calorie, and Sugar-Free Alternatives? Think Again...

A good majority of people seeking out health and food advice are looking for those easy remedies to losing weight. Diet labels have done a tremendously great job driving up sales for all sorts of diet food products and often claim that the product is “low-calorie”  or “sugar-free”.  What these attention grabbing labels fail to tell us is the actual ingredients. Always be sure to check the nutrition facts labels to get the full scope of what you are putting into your body because although sugar is a major culprit to weight gain, other chemicals such as aspartame may have just as bad of side effects if not worse.

Being healthy is not all about being skinny, many people forget this. On television, magazines, and in the movies celebrities are always persuading the public to jump on some sort of bandwagon. When making decisions to change up your diet, it’s important to understand that every chemical ingredient will have a metabolic reaction with your body and that “low-fat” and “low-calorie” labels mean that these components have replaced natural chemicals with fake ones. Aspartame in particular is found in many cereals, sugar-free chewing gums, soft drinks, breath mints, juice drinks, sugar-free and fat-free yogurts, protein bars, the list goes on! In the U.S. if a product contains aspartame, it must be listed on the ingredients label. Though the FDA has affirmed the safety of aspartame 26 times in the past 23 years, clinical trials have begun to show otherwise.

Aspartame was originally discovered in the mid-1960s accidentally. Its public release did not happen until the early 1980s when a mysterious rise in brain diseases began to surface. Because of how young the chemical is, it is very difficult to determine any long term effects. In the 1990s and 2000s, researchers have been able to solidify some more of a conclusion about the safety of aspartame. Recent studies hint that aspartame may play a major role in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Another emerging concept is that maternal nutrition has a huge effect on newborns. Prenatal consumption of aspartame has shown higher risk of mental retardation.

Many adverse effects of aspartame ingestion on the cellular level have been observed such as mitochondria damage, decreased production of essential neurotransmitters like glutamate and, destruction of cell walls (specifically the endothelium of the capillaries). Further testing and research must be taken into consideration before any negative and concrete claims can climb their way up to the FDA. These possible damages are a steep price to pay compared to having self-discipline with your eating habits. Avoid synthetic chemicals when possible to optimize your health.

Direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain (Humphries, Pretorius & Naudé, 2008) (attached)