Last Diet U Try

The short answer is NO. Ensure that none of the foods that you eat while dieting contain Aspartame. Putting it very briefly, Aspartame will slow down your weight loss and could even prevent you from losing weight.

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener (of the non-saccharide type for those interested in the chemical side of it). It is known in Europe as the additive E951, but is probably better known around the world as Canderel, NutraSweet or Equal, to mention just a few trade-names. It is used in over 6,000 foods and beverages world-wide including some so-called diet products.

The Chemical Technical Stuff

As Aspartame is chemically manufactured, it can be produced to meet different requirements. This generally means altering the pH of the final product. (pH is a measure of how acidic or alkaline a substance is.) Aspartame is most stable at a pH of 4.3 where it has a half-life of around 300 days. This can be taken to mean that after 300 days, half of it has disintegrated into other components and is no longer recognised as Aspartame. When manufactured with a pH of 7, the half-life reduces to only a few days.

When used in “diet” soft-drinks, it generally has a pH of between 3 and 5.

Aspartame was discovered (by accident) in 1965, but it was not until 1994 (in Europe) and 1996 (in the USA) that it was given full unrestricted approval for use in all foods.

When consumed, it breaks down into (to list the main chemicals in no particular order) methanol, aspartic acid, formic acid, formaldehyde and phenylalanine.

What It Does

In a typical situation, Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than natural sugar without the energy value. This means that used as a sweetener replacement it has a very low number of calories which is one reason why it has become popular as a diet-food additive. However, it has now been show to inhibit weight-loss!

Another important point is that the high levels of phenylalanine produced in the body when Aspartame breaks down is a recognised health hazard to sufferers of phenylketonuria .

As Aspartame breaks down inside the body, its components can travel anywhere in the body and be deposited anywhere in the body. Currently 92 reactions to and side-effects of Aspartame have been identified including decreased night vision, problems with contact lenses, hearing problems, dizziness, slurring of speech and ulcers.

Oh, did I mention that in some situations E. coli that has been genetically modified is used in the manufacture of Aspartame?

Well, I have now.

© 2009 LastDietUTry

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 10:37 am and is filed under Dieting Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.