Aspartame (Nutrasweet and Equal)

by guest author, Science and Medical Writer Gailon Totheroh

In 1981 and 1983 respectively, the Food and Drug Administration approved the artificial sweetener aspartame for use in dry goods and soft drinks. NutraSweet and Equal from drug maker G.D. Searle became an international sensation. Prior to the 1983 approval, Arizona State University food scientist Woodrow Monte went to the FDA to analyze the research files Searle had submitted. The National Soft Drink Association sponsored his visit – seemingly on a route to stop aspartame’s approval. When the NSDA backed out of an FDA complaint, Monte filed anyway – based on what he calls “damning evidence.’ The complaint had no effect on the outcome.

Monte was not alone — from early on in the testing and approval process. After the accidental discovery of aspartame in 1965, Searle had biochemist Harold Waisman at the University of Wisconsin conduct safety tests with infant monkeys. Among seven animals, one died and five had grand mal seizures. Dr. John Olney, an expert on excitatory amino acids (“excitotoxins”) at Washington University in St. Louis, found in 1971 that one of those amino acids found in the aspartame molecule could produce lesions in the brains of infant mice. Objections like Olney’s to the 1974 provisional approval for aspartame’s dry use raised more scientific concerns and culminated in the FDA’s 1977 Bressler report analyzing some of the Searle-sponsored research. The report concluded, “The cumulative findings of problems within and across the studies we investigated reveal a pattern of conduct which compromises the scientific integrity of the studies.”

In the early 90s, psychiatrist Ralph Walton noted in his practice that patients seemed especially susceptible to heightened mental problems from consuming aspartame. So he ran a double-blind human study using 30 mg. per kilogram of weight – well under the FDA’s safe limit of 50 mg. per kilogram — for the test subjects. Walton had to stop the study after serious reactions in the subjects arose. Later Walton did a simple comparison of the roughly 150 aspartame studies then available. He found that the funding source determined the outcome. Independent studies found problems over 95% of the time; industry-funded research found no problems whatsoever.

Of all the researchers, Monte has stayed with the issue of aspartame. His research has focused on the mechanism and effects of the methanol component of the aspartame molecule. Methanol is turned into toxic formaldehyde by an enzyme inside cells, most extensively in the brain and lungs. In addition, studies show humans are much more sensitive to methanol than other mammals. The food scientist is about to release a book on the subject, While Science Sleeps. Aspartame now costs a fraction of the price of sugar for equivalent sweetness; poor countries are finding in aspartame short-term economic benefits — in exchange for probable long-term health deficits.

Gailon Totheroh is an independent journalist whose stories as Science and Medical Reporter for CBN News regularly covered researchers’ scientific disquiet over aspartame. He is currently writing a book on scientific integrity that will include a chapter on aspartame. He can be contacted at gailon.totheroh@gmail.com.