This is an excellent article on Aspartame.  Be sure to click on the links for a plethora of health information

July 2007 Issue

The following is the transcript of a radio interview I recently granted for a station in Perth, Western Australia. Reporter Christie Bell-Bray was doing a radio package about Motor Neuron Disease when she found my work on the dangers of aspartame.

Bell-Bray: Why is aspartame unsafe?

Dr. Hull: Aspartame is a man-made chemical with NO nutritional value that tricks the body into thinking you have eaten something sweet. Therefore, the body produces insulin expecting to have a glucose interaction. Nothing is there, so insulin remains high in the blood, you stay hungry, and eventually this can lead to diabetic issues and weight gain.

Research in France has recently made a connection between insulin found in the human brain in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Bell-Bray: Can you name some studies that support your claims?

Dr. Hull: Go to this webpage in my newsletter archives http://www.janethull.com/newsletter/main_articles/ and scroll down to Feb 2006 in the Main Article section. I have provided the original research studies for anyone to download or just preview. These major research studies from Europe prove the dangers of aspartame. Sadly in America, our government agencies and corporations manufacturing these artificial sweetener products do not recognize these studies as being valid - we can all surmise as to why not.

Sadly, America's scientific research is falling as far behind as our educational system appears to be doing. Europeans are moving way ahead of us in quality research proving aspartame is a toxic chemical that human beings, especially children, should not be consuming on any level. As Europeans get healthier, Americans remain sicker and fatter at younger and younger ages due to these junk chemicals we insist are safe. Americans, unfortunately, are exemplifying ignorance, all for profit over good science and good health.

Bell-Bray: Has anyone died from aspartame? If so who and how many?

Dr. Hull: Yes, people have died from aspartame, and are still dying from aspartame. The American FDA stopped recording reported deaths due to aspartame in 1991, after 5 deaths had already been reported to them. Countless deaths have occurred since then, but these deaths are now listed as "caused by other factors", such as death from seizures, diabetes, or the infamous "death by causes unknown."

I used to run EMS for my community fire department, and we would transport numerous patients to the hospital that had suffered strokes and Grand Mal seizures. The connection was obvious to us, the Emergency Responders, that the heavy use of aspartame, particularly diet colas, was a common dominator in these emergency transports. Nothing was ever done about it in the hospitals, though, and if that person died, the death was never officially connected to aspartame use - just linked to what took them out, such as the seizure.

The increasing number of deaths due to seizures, as an example, can easily be traced through the record books. And if these deaths were properly documented as "death by seizure caused by aspartame", then we would have a very clear track record of WHY that person suffered a seizure. But in America, we stop short of WHY people die. We seem to accept "no reason" for sudden deaths. Again, this is an example of bad forensic science.

Bell-Bray: Coca Cola believes that "claims about aspartame's lack of safety have been part of Internet/urban legend lore for many years, and after thorough investigations, no claims of harm have ever been substantiated." What do you think?

Dr. Hull: As I mentioned, earlier, (question #2, I believe) reference this webpage in my newsletter archives http://www.janethull.com/newsletter/main_articles/ and scroll down to Feb 2006 in the Main Article section. Here, you can read the research studies from Europe proving the dangers of aspartame to human health.

The corporations manufacturing these artificial sweetener products, such as Coca Cola Corp, do not want to validate these studies because this would not only mean a major loss of billions of profit dollars each year, but this opens the door to major lawsuits.

The various corporations marketing aspartame have been aware of the truth about its dangers since the 1960s. That makes them accountable for all the harm it has caused consumers, and for the horrible retardation and behavior problems scarring infants and children. When this truth is finally unleashed, can you fathom the chaos?

Bell-Bray: If aspartame is so unsafe and there is research to prove this, why is it still being used?

Dr. Hull: This is a multi-billion dollar, maybe trillion dollar, industry, and the pharmaceutical companies making these diet sweeteners, also make the drugs to mask the side-effects caused by aspartame, and now sucralose. As long as people buy the products and become addicted to using them because they are fearful of being fat and ugly if they do not use them, the corporations will continue to market them and bank big bucks.

Notice how these corporations market to the children, getting them addicted to sweeter and sweeter tastes while teaching them that there are no consequences to their "sweet addictions." Eat and drink all you want, kids, and there is no penalty to pay. What child wouldn't go for that? Remember the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel?

Bell-Bray: On your www.sweetpoison.com web page, you wrote an article that states: "For over three decades, the truth about aspartame has been hidden by global companies. But now these big companies are being challenged publicly through new research that has previously been steered away from the public." What research is this referring to?

Dr. Hull: I wrote about the history and discovery of aspartame in my first book on sweeteners, Sweet Poison. I have documented research done on aspartame as early as 1965, and have tracked the research studies showing dangerous side effects from aspartame from 1965 until the present day. The research is there, it is real, and it proves aspartame causes cancer, nerve disorders, memory loss, gene mutations, fetal death and deformities in human beings.

Any good scientist, in my professional and personal opinion, would be open-minded, if not just curious, to these types of research results. To discard them and criticize them is illogical and inhumane.

Bell-Bray: What is the main food aspartame is found in?

Dr. Hull: Diet colas, gums and mints, condiments, and Equal (the blue packet in the United States).

Bell-Bray: It's believed that aspartame causes neurological damage. Do you know of any research that links aspartame and Motor Neuron Disease?

Dr. Hull: Yes. The most recent study from Greece shows a direct link between aspartame and Motor Neuron Disease.

The first research studies beginning in the late 1960s showed aspartame created neurological problems, and Dr. John Olney, Washington School of Medicine, USA proved in the 1970s that brain lesions were caused from aspartame. People need to know aspartame is currently being studied for neurological damage, and the results are showing multiple forms of cancer and nerve disorders, just like they showed over 30 years ago.

The Greek research study concluded that high levels and cumulative toxic concentrations of aspartame resulted in memory loss. Additionally, neurological symptoms, including learning and memory processes, appeared in the study to be related to the high or toxic concentrations of the sweetener metabolites.

Because low doses of aspartame are shown to inhibit acetylchoinesterase, just like pharmaceutical treatments for people with memory loss, when a healthy individual with normal cholinergic functioning, such as a young child for example, starts administering a cholinesterase inhibitor (such as aspartame) when no memory loss has occurred, aspartame ingestion (according to the study) will eventually and ultimately disrupt memory and learning.

Bell-Bray: What do you have to say to the manufacturers of aspartame?

Dr. Hull: From the carnage I have witnessed from aspartame use, I am passionate when I say, the manufacturers are in this for the almighty dollar above long-term health. If concern for human nutrition and health was really a factor, this would have been pulled off the market in the 1970s. Actually, it was pulled in the 1970s, and Monsanto spent 10 years building research centers and employing hundreds of researchers to eventually get it approved; it was mysteriously re-approved overnight in 1981, at the general disapproval of the FDA, actually. Aspartame and the use of diet sweeteners are a game, merely a money game. Look at how the corporations have steered the food industry down the path humans are on today - focusing primarily on manufactured foods being pushed onto societies as delivering beauty, slimness, and the control of weight, weight, and more weight. But, look at the number of epidemic diseases occurring since diet sweeteners have flooded the world's food supply. And record obesity is now rampant in the countries where these food chemicals dominate.

Bell-Bray: How much aspartame can you have before it becomes dangerous?

Dr. Hull: One tiny drop or granule is toxic in my opinion. Everyone is individual in how their bodies react to all nutrients and chemicals, but when a KNOWN toxin is ingested, it can create a health imbalance, whether acute or chronic. The crime in all this is the misinformation given to the public, especially to those pregnant and to children.

http://www.janethull.com/newsletter/0707/aspartame_interview_in_australia.php