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The trouble with sweeteners - aritificial sweeteners, the pancreas, and diabetes

Nutrition Health Review, Spring, 2003 by H.J. Roberts

Q. What is the role of the pancreas?

A. The pancreas is a vital organ with several major functions. It has a digestive function by virtue of making the pancreatic enzymes that digest the food and an important endocrine function by virtue of having the islets that secrete insulin and other hormones.

Q. What are some of these hormones?

A. In addition to insulin, there is glucagon, along with several others.

Q. What is aspartame?

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A. Aspartame is a chemical that originally was conceived as a treatment for peptic ulcer. The molecule closely simulates the hormone gastrin, which is involved with hydrochloric acid secretion. Aspartame consists of three components--phenylalanine and aspartic acid (both amino acids) and a methyl ester, which becomes free methyl alcohol when it enters the stomach. The combination is approximately 50 percent phenylalanine, 40 percent aspartic acid, and 10 percent methyl alcohol. Around 1965, this chemical was found to taste sweet. It was therefore submitted as a sweetening supplement and the drug application withdrawn.

Q. Was aspartame ineffective as a drug?

A. It was never really marketed as a drug for a peptic ulcer, although that was the original intent.

Q. Are artificial sweeteners that contain aspartame safe?

A. A number of artificial sweeteners, including saccharin, have been around for a long time. In my opinion, aspartame has many hazards. Saccharin is essentially safe. The sweetener called stevia, which is increasingly being used, comes from a shrub found in Paraguay, South America. It tastes very sweet. In my experience, it is also safe.

I have reservations about the other sweeteners, such as acesulfame-K (e.g., Sunette, Sweet One[R]), sucralose (Splenda[R] No Calorie Sweetener), and the cyclamates. Then there are the analogues of aspartame, such as the high-intensity product Neotame[R]. For example, acesulfame-K induces chromosomal aberrations; sucralose is associated with several effects in animals, is weakly mutagenic, and increases the glycosylated hemoglobin in diabetic patients.

The cyclamates were initially withdrawn in the U.S. because of concern about bladder tumors. The National Academy of Science has subsequently concluded that cyclamates were not carcinogenic in humans. However, there is a great deal of concern in Europe about their widespread use, especially in children. As for Neotame[R] and other analogues of aspartame, they pose problems similar to those of aspartame.

Again, stevia and saccharin appear to be safe, but I am uncertain about the other substances.

Q. How do sweeteners affect the pancreas?

A. They can have direct and indirect effects. One result, of course, is the secretion of insulin. When humans take something that is sweet, the body infers that sugar is being ingested. In anticipation of its arrival, the pancreas reflexively releases insulin. This is one way in which aspartame affects the pancreas. It can also cause considerable stimulation of the exocrine part of the pancreas that involves the pancreatic juices. This may even produce pancreatitis--inflammation of the pancreas--which in the process might disturb the islet cells.

There is an enormous reserve of pancreatic juices. At least 60 percent or more of the pancreas would have to be destroyed before interfering with pancreatic function would occur. One way to stimulate the pancreas to produce its secretions is to give amino acids, including phenylalanine, with or without another amino acid.

In my experience, aspartame products have produced clinical pancreatitis. To my knowledge, neither the long-term effects to the secretory pancreas nor the relationship to the subsequent overstimulation of the pancreas, in terms of tumors, has been studied.

Q. If the safety of aspartame has been questioned, why has no one been able to prove the dangers?

A. To me, it is quite clear that aspartame products can cause severe illness. Indeed, I feel that this product should not have been approved for human consumption, as it was in 1981. The sweetener was released over the violent objections of in-house FDA [Food and Drug Administration] scientists, consultants for the General Accounting Office, and even a public board of inquiry in 1980--all of whom were emphatic that it should not be released, especially in light of the high incidence of brain tumors in animals.

I have repeatedly listed and detailed the many complications and side effects of aspartame products. My recent book, Aspartame Disease, has more than 1000 pages of what I consider direct complications of the use of these products.

In regard to those who say this is not so, it seems to be a phenomenon of denial on the part of the FDA. This is a multibillion-dollar industry that has proponents for self-serving economic interests who maintain that all reservations are nonsense. There is an overwhelming input of complaints indicating that this is a frequent and severe disorder, which I call "aspartame disease."

Now the problem with many of these studies they refer to is that protocols were flawed in terms of how the product was prepared and administered and how subjects were followed. It has been very difficult to detail these objections about published studies asserting that aspartame is safe for various reasons, including the power of this industry.

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The trouble with sweeteners - aritificial sweeteners, the pancreas, and diabetes

Nutrition Health Review, Spring, 2003 by H.J. Roberts

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