I’ve never met a person who drank “diet” soda who was loosing weight: in fact, the opposite. Not only does obesity seem to be on a rampage but diabetes as well. The commonality might be aspartame. Anyway, this is the basis for my hypothetical and it would be ironic if proven in that aspartame is considered an element in the treatment of diabetes.
Aspartame has three basic components, phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol all three are neurotoxins and appear to cross the brain/blood barrier. This “excitotoxin” concern and resulting cancers and Alzheimer’s is the basis of most study. All three can pass directly through the stomach into the blood stream as well. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid one of its uses is in the production of peptides in the pancreas. It is similar to and metabolizes to tyrosine with the addition of a hydroxyl tail. Aspartic acid is also one of the 20 essential amino acids and is used by the body in glucose production during gluconeogenesis primarily in the liver, though mitochondrial gluconeogenesis occurs in certain cases including diabetics. Methanol is an indirect toxin which breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde. In addition to the toxicity, formaldehyde causes proteins to irreversibly bind to and adulterate DNA, a probable cause of cancer in the US and a known cause of cancer to the rest of the world. All three are “natural” ingredients found in most food sources, though methanol is not found naturally without mitigating ethanol present.
Curiously, aspartame, being a series of amino acids and methyl alcohol that are relatively common and of known toxicity (especially toxic overtime), studies are extremely rare and secretive. We do know that the FDA originally did not wish this product approved and much has been written about the flawed process that brought it to market (Talk about conspiracies! You’d almost think Don Rumsfeld pushed it to destroy Cuba’s economy??). The studies that exist appear to concentrate on cancer and brain chemistry. I believe that more studies need to concentrate on gastrointestinal, specifically, pancreas/duodenal effects of aspartame and its by-products. It is this chemical relationship that maybe the issue with the current epidemics.
In general manufacturers of these sweeteners say the quantities and concentrations used are so small as to be inconsequential. To this I would say, first, the sweeteners work, that is you actually think you are consuming six tablespoons of sugar in your sixteen ounce soda, second, when dealing with amino acids and proteins a little goes a long way. New exenatide drugs used to combat diabetes use injections of .02 ml or 1/3 of the .06 ml of aspartame claimed to be in a serving of diet soda. So I would presume the quantity arguments are simply romantic interpretations for the uneducated.
Another issue of safety is the “naturalness” and therefore obvious safety of the products. Most poisons are natural, radiation is natural, nature is far from harmless, though it is totally unaffected. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid and found in proteins produced by plants. Phenylalanine is not produced by animals but is acquired by ingestion. An argument for the safety of aspartame is that eating any protein food would have a person ingesting hundreds of times the phenylalanine found in the artificially sweetener. I think this is a poor argument; it does not take into account what is required to isolate the phenylalanine from the protein if indeed the protein is metabolized to that degree nor where in the digestive process that isolation occurs, the safe guards present at that point, and the body’s purpose for that isolation. Conversely, we do know that radioactive iodine l-phenylalanine is used in cancer treatment of the pancreas because it enters the blood stream directly and is absorbed immediately by the pancreas. Phenylalanine absorption by the pancreas appears to be part of the glucose cycle, in that, from what I have read phenylalanine enters the blood stream after proteins in the duodenum are broken down. The phenylalanine is then picked up by the pancreas where it is quantified resulting in more or less insulin and prephenate enzymes as the digestive process continues. However, in the case of aspartame the amino acids are already “digested” and bypass the digestive system. In electricity this would be called a short circuit.
While phenylalanine is disrupting the pancreas, in this hypothesis, aspartic acid maybe rampaging at the liver and possibly at the cellular level in the mitochondria. I would propose that the quantities of free aspartic acid may signal starvation, flooding the system with glucose and disregarding normal gastro-intestinal signals, another short-circuit.
For some who have genetic dietary requirements this over excitement of the pancreas and liver might result in Type II diabetes. It may not be so much flawed genetics that presupposes certain flavors of diabetes but simply that the genes can’t stand up to the punishment. Type II diabetes covers a number of ailments but in general it is not insulin production but insulin tolerance that is the problem with glucose levels. The possibility of aspartame poisoning contributing to diabetic conditions certainly seems logical within my very limited understanding of chemistry and experience with pre-diabetes and diet soda.
