Quote Originally Posted by josh View Post
I hate Mercola with a passion. So many fall victim to his quackery and pseudoscience rants
As compared to the hundreds of thousands of people who die each year from correctly-practiced Western medicine which is supposedly founded on science? Oh wait, that's right, the science gets polluted with money, profit and motives.

Whether you like or don't like Joe Mercola - whether you disagree with him on certain points, aspartame is THE most controversial food additive in history with a story of approval laden with collusion, controversy and outright dishonesty.

You also cannot dispute that there are more adverse effects reported to the FDA on aspartame than any other food additive in the history of the FDA. Still, the FDA does nothing.

And to the guy who compared the methanol in steak and apples, I'd suggest doing more research, because methanol in fruits and veggies differs from methanol in aspartame

Aspartame is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol. This is in sharp contrast to naturally-occurring methanol found in certain fruits and vegetables, where it is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing the methanol to be safely passed through your digestive tract.

Methanol acts as a Trojan horse: It's carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone marrow, where the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme converts it into formaldehyde, which wreaks havoc with sensitive proteins and DNA.

All other animals have a protective mechanism that allows methanol to be broken down into harmless formic acid, but there's a major biochemical problem with methanol in humans, because of the difference in how it's metabolized compared to all other animals. This is why toxicology testing on animals is a flawed model. It doesn't fully apply to humans.

I've had two friends suffer ill effects from excessive aspartame consumption. Both individuals saw their symptoms resolve when they kicked their heavy diet soda use.

One was thought to have MS, too.

You will never convince me this stuff's safe. And if it was so damn safe, you wouldn't have food and supplement companies running from it and using sucralose (Splenda) and ace K.