MORE REASONS TO AVOID NUTRASWEET
I have been strongly urging people for years to not use NutraSweet at all. Here is additional info regarding its harm. If you or anyone you know is using this product in any form, please stop.
A new long-term animal test from an Italian cancer institute raises new safety questions about the artificial sweetener aspartame, which is marketed generically as well as under the NutraSweet and Equal brand names. A dozen toxicology and epidemiology experts and the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest are calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review the study, which found increases in lymphoma, leukemia, and breast cancer in rats. If the FDA concludes that aspartame does cause cancer in animals, the agency is required by law to revoke its approval for the controversial sweetener, which is used in Diet Pepsi, Diet Coke, tabletop packets, and countless other foods. Aspartame also enters the diet through sugar-free or reduced-sugar gums, candies, yogurts, and hundreds of other products. Many aspartame-containing products are likely to be consumed by kids, including sugar-free Kool-Aid, Jell-O gelatin dessert, pudding mixes, and some Popsicles.
The new study, conducted by the Ramazzini Foundation and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, found statistically significant increases in lymphoma and leukemia in rats that were fed as little as 20 milligrams of the sweetener per kilogram of body weight -- an amount that?€™s in the ballpark of what some people consume. The new study is superior to a similar one released in 2005 in that it began exposing the rats to aspartame before their birth.
As a result of the new study, for the first time CSPI downgraded aspartame on its online Chemical Cuisine directory from a ?€?use caution?€? rating to ?€?everyone should avoid.?€? CSPI also urges everyone to avoid the artificial sweeteners acesulfame potassium and saccharin.
~Susan