I have stopped consuming artificial sweeteners and any type of "diet" labeled food with fake sweeteners. This was based upon a bunch of reading I had been doing about the chemicals in the sweeteners and how they fool the body into thinking you're consuming sugar and DO effect your insulin levels. In that case, I'll take the extra calories and just have real sugar... I'd rather do that than put the chemicals in there. But, I wasn't really sure if those artificial sweeteners had any effect on my migraines. I feel pretty sure that they do now.
I've been off them for quite a long time (maybe a year now). I am trying to stop drinking any type of sugar soda because I'm wanting to lose weight, and I know those are just empty, useless calories. So, I thought I'd start doing a regular lemonade mix (the sugar kind - Country Time) or a cranberry juice, and mix it with a diet 7-up and that will be my "weaning" off the pop for the next couple weeks. I had just had the lemonade for a few weeks and was enjoying it. I've had a good 5 days or so with only mild head pain. Yesterday, I made my first mixture of 1/2 lemonade and 1/2 diet 7-up and drank it with my standard lunch sandwich... and within 30 minutes, I had a raging migraine and had to take medicine, get my ice and lay down. I couldn't believe it. It was that fast... and the only thing I did differently was put that diet 7-up in my drink. Yes... it could have been a coincidence... but I have other items (raw onions, msg, chewing gum) that do the same thing... so it seemed pretty obvious that it must be the diet soda.
By the evening, I was feeling a bit better and went to dinner with my parents. I had an ice tea and put regular sugar in it... and a baked potato and some mixed veggies... and by the time I came home, I felt great. So, I think there is something to this artificial sweetener claim that's out there. I know that aspartame eventually turns to formaldehyde in our systems. I think you'd have to be consuming a lot of it for this to be anything hugely toxic or damaging... but still... the idea of purposefully putting a chemical like that in my body is pretty yucky.
So, I will experiment with this again on a day when I know I don't have anywhere I need to be... and see if the same thing happens. If anybody else has had similar experiences... please feel free to comment. (I apologize for requiring the sign up/registration - it's only because if I don't, the spammers go crazy and post porn links, etc.)
No more migraines,
Kelli :)
Actually aspartame use might coincide with headache occurrence, but aspartame doesn't cause them. It is most probable that your own biochemistry makes you susceptible to this occurrence. Folate (deficiency and genetic) issues including a consequence, high blood homocysteine, have been directly connected to headache susceptibility and in tests of people with one of these not infrequent genetic folate problems, folate supplementation actually prevented headaches. The connection between folate and aspartame both in animals and people is explained below, starting with a little known fact about aspartame.
All aspartame research prior to 2009 is seriously and fatally flawed. It was all done in a scientifically unacceptable manner as was established in preliminary work presented at the Society of Toxicology (Seattle, USA) and the American Chemical Society (New Orleans, USA) national meetings in early 2008 and which is currently being preparing for regular publication. In those locations it was demonstrated that inappropriate controls were used in all aspartame research starting with the original Searle work and extending through the oft-cited Soffritti et al work published over the past several years (and even other work thereafter). The standard control-versus-treated animal experiments are simply invalid for aspartame, because aspartame is hydrolyzed to methanol and methanol (actually through its oxidation products formaldehyde and formate) has long been known to deplete a vitamin, namely folic acid. No properly done experiment can deplete a vitamin, but all experiments to date claiming problems have done just that! Hence, both controlled and treated groups of animals must be provided either the appropriate amounts of folic acid supplement to counter methanol-induced loss OR both controlled and treated groups of animals must be provided the same intake of methanol, one directly and the other from aspartame. However, the latter is an experimentally more challenging option. Various other studies found “no effect” from aspartame. Such animal studies were either of such short duration that folate depletion was not evident or more likely were performed with corn/soybean or other diets rich in folate and would not be expected to show any effect.
The second reality is that this same underlying folate issue explains human problems attributed by critics to aspartame. The folate enzyme system metabolizes the common dietary ingredient methanol and methanol’s oxidation products formaldehyde and formate, which are innate metabolites of many substances. Although required only in 400-500 microgram quantities, many people are folate deficient both because some people refuse to take vitamin supplements and avoid folate fortified grain products (donuts, etc), but also because some people (~20%) have genetic problems that increase their need for folate above that required by others. You should realize the adverse effects claimed by antiaspartame critics can be systematically linked to shortage of this vitamin (and possibly also the connected B12). This includes “migraines, dizziness, shaking and tremors, seizures, mental confusion, change in mood, Alzheimer’s and permanent blindness or other issues” linked to aspartame. A simple review of the primary literature at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ will show these issues are far better connected to folate and specifically folate deficiency, folate genetics issues, and homocysteine accrual than to aspartame [for example, type “folate,headache” without the quotes into the search line and find 43 references compared with “aspartame,headache” without the quotes for which there are 33 references.] Folate deficiency also underlies birth defects, many cancers (including breast cancer), and other conditions, so people susceptible to headaches from aspartame might actually be susceptible to many other more threatening health-related issues. But it is these underlying folate issues and not aspartame that explain much of this internet issue. The antiaspartame critics just don’t understand the issues involved, preferring instead to manufacture a controversy where none exists.
For either animal or man the consequences of the folate deficiency that result are the incorporation of structurally weak uridylate (uracil, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uracil) bases in DNA in place of stronger thymidylate (methyluridylate called thymine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymine) and/or the accrual of toxic homocysteine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homocysteine), most likely because of insufficient methylation of homocysteine to afford methionine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methionine). Much has been written about the “excitotoxic” amino acids that form the aspartame framework (phenylalanine and aspartic acid) by aspartame critics. However, those excitotoxic amino acids occur at far greater concentrations in everyday food, so neither of these amino acids are issues for most people. However, what seems to be consistently missed by the antiaspartame critics is that homocysteine is a far stronger excitotoxin than any constituent of aspartame.
In summary, there is no valid science questioning aspartame’s safety, but there is substantial direct and indirect evidence that any personal issues with aspartame reflect not aspartame per se, but a personal folate deficiency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate_deficiency), folate polymorphism genetic issues (for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenetetrahydrofolate_reductase), and/or issues with related biochemistry linked to vitamin B12 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12). There is no data suggesting any adverse effect for aspartame than cannot simply and completely be explained by the folate deficiency, folate genetics, and homocysteine paradigm. This new information only suggests aspartame is even safer, now that what I have reported above is known to all the regulatory authorities. Given these new, stronger indications of safety, science no longer has any reason to doubt the safety of aspartame. And the European equivalent of the US FDA on April 20 just again validated the safety of aspartame, http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/efsa_locale-1178620753812_1211902454309.htm.
John E. Garst, Ph.D. (Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Nutrition)
(FYI, the author has absolutely no financial or biasing connection with the aspartame, the soft drink or their related industries and have made not one penny from my opposition, unlike many antiaspartame critics who sell books and offer irrelevant treatment. Their clearly stated goals are lawsuits, where none are justified. The author has an undergraduate degree in chemistry (with emphasis in organic and biological chemistry) from the University of Kansas, a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry (Pharmacy) from the University of Iowa, postdoctoral experience at Yale University (Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry) and two postdoctoral fellowships at Vanderbilt University (physiology-pharmacology (mentor moved), then nutritional toxicology) and taught nutritional toxicology at the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana, UIUC) besides having conducted federally funded research at Vanderbilt, UIUC, and at several other universities before recently entering into semi-retirement.)
Posted by: John E. Garst | May 19, 2009 at 12:15 PM