Phenylketonurics Beware! (Debate With 75% Less Sugar) READ FIRST POST

[TheFightingPikachu]

So you've heard the stereotypes, right? Some are convinced that all artificial sweeteners thoroughly rot people from the inside out. Others say there is absolutely no problem with any artificial sweetener. Too often, nothing even remotely resembling a scholarly source is presented to show the utter danger of these artificial sweeteners. Others callously state that they don't care what damage it causes--"It tastes good, so I'll drink it!"

Let's get past that, shall we? The topic shouldn't be treated like some conspiracy theory.

I personally believe that most artificial sweeteners are at least relatively safe when used in moderation. I've done a bit of (offline) research into the subject, and don't find reason to be terribly concerned.

But perhaps some of them are less than healthy. It's certainly possible. Because of that, I want to hear what people have to say. I also want to debate this because I haven't had much opportunity to discuss this with people with whom I disagree. On the few occasions I have, I haven't heard any sources given.

So that should be the first guideline. You must not go making unfounded statements. It is very useful to bring some kind of source. I don't think it should be absolutely required, but it is important, especially for stronger claims. For example, if you want to assert that every artificial sweetener is unhealthy, the burden of proof is on you. If you claim that artificial sweetener causes lab rats to become sterile, develop cancer, or get religion, you had better have a good source.

So, let's get to the debating!

 

[CSolarstorm]

I'll list the sweeteners I've known and studied - mostly online.

Sorbitol/Xylitol/Mannitol - These are some natural sugar alcohols occuring in berries and mushrooms. They aren't as sweet as cane sugar, and they taste pretty different, but they don't seem to have especially harmful side effects. Besides being laxatives. So don't eat them before class. :/

Aspartame - There's a big controversy over this one, and personally I believe that, logically, if there's such a big outcry against it, and you can eat something else (not like you need to eat a sweet food in the first place), there's no reason to risk your health by eating it. What I've heard is that aspartame decomposes into several elements that can't be digested. Sort of like when you swallow chewing gum and it stays in body for years.

It breaks up into methanol, which is a neurotoxin - the breakdown comes from SweetPoison.com, and the claim that methanol is a neurotoxin is confirmed by Wikipedia.

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol#Toxicity

I would like to say, yes, Wikipedia does say that Methanol derived from aspartame does not hurt you - however, this one statement is followed by [citation needed] which means it has no source. It follows up by saying that the body cannot process Methanol in bulk, which means like anything else, you don't want to eat tons of it.

And you could argue that anything will hurt you if you eat too much of it, but consider the consequences. Too much sugar can give you diabetes, high blood pressure, the works - but too much methanol can permanently damage your nervous system. Brain tumors, migranes, eye damage - that's potentially a more severe consequence than eating too much sugar.

High Fructose Corn Syrup - That "get the facts - you're in for a sweet surprise" commercial really pisses me off. First of all, these commercials are funded by the Corn Refiners Association. They mock their opponents - which include informed professors and nutritionalists, and even much of the consensus of the UK - by portraying them as bullying big brothers and ditzy best freinds who are just following peer pressure and a fashionable conspiracy theory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BJJGzbN3fg&feature=related

People who are against corn syrup aren't trying to follow a fad - they're simply concerned for their health and the health of others. And trying to smear their concerns just seems to me totally dishonest and insensitive. It's flagrant propaganda.

The problem that I have with corn syrup is that it's so readily available and it can be put in just about everything. Not just sodas or drinks, (although, especially so) but regular bread, buns, sauces like ketchup, basically anything tangy or in need of a taste element of "sweet". And it is put in all these things. If everything you eat in a day has corn syrup in it, then you end up eating a lot of it. And logically the manufacturers of corn syrup want to put it into everything, because it makes the food more pleasing and makes it sell better, and it's inexpensive to do so. So the main point of the commercial, "it's fine in moderation"...is just moot. Because it's not presented in moderation.

There are other studies that claim that high fructose corn syrup is more likely to cause diabetes and obesity than sugar.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/532433/

I'm personally satisfied with my first point though. We already know syrup and sugar consumption - any kind - can lead to obesity and diabetes - so the reason why anyone would want to promote anything that is even nutritionally equal to sugar - eludes me.

 

[The_Boss_Giygas]

As long as they don't put Swine Flu viruses or Cancer causing chemicals I think artificial sweeteners are not a big deal, though natural is still better since it's how it was meant to be and it has natural vitamins. Artificial or real, sugar intake still needs to be in moderation, but I got a feeling artificial is just a tad bit more likely to cause obesity it's just a conspiracy belief I have.

 

[TheFightingPikachu]

How Artificial?

High Fructose Corn Syrup -

I'm sorry, but high fructose corn syrup is simply...corn syrup...with a high concentration of fructose. The concentration might be less than healthy, but since fructose is undoubtedly a natural sugar, that technically falls outside of the scope of this debate.

Nothing personal, but now I have to ban you. I'm kidding.



Your other point was interesting. I may respond to it in more detail later.

However, one thing I want to note is that some have questioned artificial sweeteners in general as being "made from totally artificial stuff that nobody should eat." But according to several encyclopedias, Aspartame is an interesting counterpoint:

"It is derived from aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two chemicals that occur naturally in certain foods."
(World Book, 1992 edition, "Artificial Sweetener" article; A:761)

"Aspartame (NutraSweet) consists of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine. Foods containing this substance must be labeled so as to notify individuals with phenylketonuria, a rare disease that requires control of dietary phenylalanine. The sweetener is currently approved for use in a variety of products in the United States, Canada, and 22 other nations."
(Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2005, "Artificial Sweetener"; emphasis added)

Just wanted to point this out.

 

[CSolarstorm]

I'm sorry, but high fructose corn syrup is simply...corn syrup...with a high concentration of fructose. The concentration might be less than healthy, but since fructose is undoubtedly a natural sugar, that technically falls outside of the scope of this debate.

Nothing personal, but now I have to ban you. I'm kidding.

No worries, I'll just open my own thread to talk about HFCS. I suppose I had taken the topic to be non-sugar sweeteners. Sorbitol/Xylitol/Mannitol are also off subject with that criteria.

Your other point was interesting. I may respond to it in more detail later.

I look forward to a challenging and insightful response.

However, one thing I want to note is that some have questioned artificial sweeteners in general as being "made from totally artificial stuff that nobody should eat." But according to several encyclopedias, Aspartame is an interesting counterpoint:

"It is derived from aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two chemicals that occur naturally in certain foods."
(World Book, 1992 edition, "Artificial Sweetener" article; A:761)

"Aspartame (NutraSweet) consists of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine. Foods containing this substance must be labeled so as to notify individuals with phenylketonuria, a rare disease that requires control of dietary phenylalanine. The sweetener is currently approved for use in a variety of products in the United States, Canada, and 22 other nations."
(Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2005, "Artificial Sweetener"; emphasis added)

Just wanted to point this out.

All ingredients inevitably come from nature, it's how we separate them, what we do with them that makes them "unnatrual". The third ingredient, methanol, is what I took issue with. Not the aspartic acid and the phenylenaline.

I could argue against those, however. The aspartic acid and phenylenaline occur naturally in food, but that doesn't mean that they are good for people to eat when isolated and assembled in larger amounts. After all, there's arsenic in apples, and we eat those, but that doesn't mean we can separate the arsenic from a hundred apples and eat that. This is a tangent though, I might expand on it more later.

 

[Kutie Pie]

As long as they don't put Swine Flu viruses or Cancer causing chemicals I think artificial sweeteners are not a big deal, though natural is still better since it's how it was meant to be and it has natural vitamins. Artificial or real, sugar intake still needs to be in moderation, but I got a feeling artificial is just a tad bit more likely to cause obesity it's just a conspiracy belief I have.

Lol. Well, considering that they do put in a chemical in junk food that contain artificial sweeteners to make you addicted to it, that's a high possibility.

I have been watching a six-part special on E! called What's Eating You?, and the last episode dealt with a 36-year-old woman who won't eat anything during the day except hundreds of packets of artificial sweeteners she would mix into a soup or whatever. Then when she does eat something that night, she'd still put sweeteners on top of it (it's usually a salad). Because she had been consuming all this for years, she was on the brink of killing her brain, because it wasn't getting the protein needed, and there are chemicals in artificial sweeteners that will basically dissolve it.

I unfortunately don't know where to find full episodes, so I can't give a link to it. It has been recently aired, so it may not show up for a while, unless they're still showing repeats on E!. But nevertheless, it was a rather interesting, but disturbing fact. So in a way, you're risking your health consuming these sweeteners, but if you only take it in minute measures and not have it on a daily basis, then there should be no harm in it (again: should). But if you are finding yourself addicted to it, then you shouldn't be using it.

 

[Bill Nye the Sneasel Guy]

I have been watching a six-part special on E! called What's Eating You?, and the last episode dealt with a 36-year-old woman who won't eat anything during the day except hundreds of packets of artificial sweeteners she would mix into a soup or whatever. Then when she does eat something that night, she'd still put sweeteners on top of it (it's usually a salad). Because she had been consuming all this for years, she was on the brink of killing her brain, because it wasn't getting the protein needed, and there are chemicals in artificial sweeteners that will basically dissolve it.

If she's eating hundreds of packets of an artificial sweetener, the only thing of some substance occasionally being a salad, wouldn't it be obvious that that's unhealthy? Anything in excess can cause you harm, even water. I would think it's safe to say that her case isn't typical. Most people will have, what, maybe a packet or two with their coffee?

It's not like eating hundreds of packets of actual sugar with maybe a salad once in a blue moon would be healthy, either. Don't be suprised to hear about how a person is messed up when they've been following some screwed up, obviouly unhealthy diet day after day for years.

 

[TheFightingPikachu]

Looking Carefully

Well I finally get around to doing the research for this thread, then, as i'm trying to respond, my power supply and internet connection get...

. . . Squirrel-bombed!

(Please don't ask. Okay please ask, just not here.)

Aspartame - There's a big controversy over this one, and personally I believe that, logically, if there's such a big outcry against it, and you can eat something else (not like you need to eat a sweet food in the first place), there's no reason to risk your health by eating it. What I've heard is that aspartame decomposes into several elements that can't be digested. Sort of like when you swallow chewing gum and it stays in body for years.

It breaks up into methanol, which is a neurotoxin - the breakdown comes from SweetPoison.com, and the claim that methanol is a neurotoxin is confirmed by Wikipedia.

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol#Toxicity

I would like to say, yes, Wikipedia does say that Methanol derived from aspartame does not hurt you - however, this one statement is followed by [citation needed] which means it has no source. It follows up by saying that the body cannot process Methanol in bulk, which means like anything else, you don't want to eat tons of it.

I checked the Wikipedia article on Methanol. Here are the exact words that come immediately after the [citation needed]:

Small amounts of methanol are produced by the metabolism of food and are generally harmless, being metabolized quickly and completely; it is the human body's inability to metabolize the compound in bulk (as it can with ethanol) which leads to its toxicity.

Why does it say, "the metabolism of food," instead of, "the metabolism of aspartame"? The Wikipedia article "aspartame controversy" helps explain this:

The methanol produced by the metabolism of aspartame is absorbed and quickly converted into formaldehyde and then completely converted to formic acid. The methanol from aspartame is unlikely to be a safety concern for several reasons. The amount of methanol in aspartame is less than that found in fruit juices and citrus fruits, and there are other dietary sources for methanol such as fermented beverages. Therefore, the amount of methanol produced from aspartame is likely to be less than that from natural sources. With regards to formaldehyde, it is rapidly converted in the body, and the amounts of formaldehyde from the metabolism of aspartame is trivial when compared to the amounts produced routinely by the human body and from other foods and drugs. Ingesting aspartame at the 90th percentile of intake would produce 25 times less methanol than would be considered toxic.

(Emphasis added)

So it isn't just "don't eat too much of it." It's more like, "It's extremely difficult to eat enough for it to be toxic." To exaggerate, when you said, "you don't want to eat tons of it," you almost got it correct: You'd almost need to eat tons of it to have a methanol poison problem!

Speaking of which:

If she's eating hundreds of packets of an artificial sweetener, the only thing of some substance occasionally being a salad, wouldn't it be obvious that that's unhealthy? Anything in excess can cause you harm, even water. I would think it's safe to say that her case isn't typical. Most people will have, what, maybe a packet or two with their coffee?

It's not like eating hundreds of packets of actual sugar with maybe a salad once in a blue moon would be healthy, either. Don't be suprised to hear about how a person is messed up when they've been following some screwed up, obviouly unhealthy diet day after day for years.

Bill Nye the Sneasel Guy, I agree wholeheartedly. I'd go further, though. That documentary (or perhaps Kutie Pie) seemed to indicate that the artificial sweetener actually caused the woman's unusual behavior, that it was some sort of biological addiction. But it is more likely the odd behavior was simply the woman's personality defect. Did the documentary give any evidence to indicate that sweeteners do this to lots of people? Based on the information given, it is unreasonable to blame artificial sweeteners for this.

 

[CSolarstorm]

Why does it say, "the metabolism of food," instead of, "the metabolism of aspartame"? The Wikipedia article "aspartame controversy" helps explain this:

So it isn't just "don't eat too much of it." It's more like, "It's extremely difficult to eat enough for it to be toxic." To exaggerate, when you said, "you don't want to eat tons of it," you almost got it correct: You'd almost need to eat tons of it to have a methanol poison problem!

That's a very often used and formidable rebuttal, and one I've heard before and I knew I'd have to deal with. I don't think isolated methanol can be compared to the methanol found in natural foods.

So here's the basis for being afraid of, or in other words, the risk factor, of Methanol poisoning:

Methanol has a high toxicity in humans. If ingested, as little as 10 mL can cause permanent blindness by destruction of the optic nerve and 30 mL is potentially fatal,[9] although a fatal dose is typically 100–125 mL (4 fl oz). Toxic effects take hours to start and effective antidotes can often prevent permanent damage.

My question is, if Methanol is that poisonous to humans, what is it about the methanol in foods that makes it safe and digestible, or able to be excreted?

It could be because Methanol is often bonded with ethanol in nature. It's only when it isolated that it becomes a poison.

"With any heavy use of alcoholic drinks, traces of methyl alcohol in those beverages could cause acute methanol poisoning, but the ethanol (a methanol antidote), prevents the methanol toxic axis from developing, so the methanol merely accumulates. As the ethyl alcohol is metabolized and deleted from your blood stream, the residual methanol is metabolized and you get methanol poisoning: hangover!"

So naturally occurring methanol is usually bonded to something else. And the common sense question to this quote is; why doesn't every food containing methanol then cause a hangover? There's another chemical commonly bonded to methanol that helps people digest it in foods: pectic acid. That is not in aspartame.

I don't feel like this argument is very well constructed yet, but at least I've opened the portal to investigating this area of study further. You're free to refute what I've presented so far.

 

[Oxymoron?]

To harm the temple of the mind is to create hallowed halls and dead thoughts. To nurture? A crosswise result. Guide the tongue, else the serpent will defy its cohorts and regulate you. My view is so.

 

[Tim the turtle]

Would someone please shut that **** up!

 

[Hakajin]

I think they're fine in moderation, and people should be free to eat them if they want. However, it is a problem when it's in everything and it becomes so hard to avoid.

Personally, I wish there would be more clear warning labels for aspertame. I have IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and aspertame messes up my stomach. Not seriously, but it's an inconvenience. I've learned to stay away from "lite" and "fat-free" products, but sometimes I still eat it by accident. And then my bowels get irritable and I am not happy.

 

[chuboy]

That's a very often used and formidable rebuttal, and one I've heard before and I knew I'd have to deal with. I don't think isolated methanol can be compared to the methanol found in natural foods.

Why not? That is like saying artificial flavour and natural flavour are somehow different because of how they are made (which is not true). Methanol has one chemical structure regardless of where it came from and that chemical structure is what the body reacts to.

My question is, if Methanol is that poisonous to humans, what is it about the methanol in foods that makes it safe and digestible, or able to be excreted?

The fact that it is present in such miniscule volumes.

It could be because Methanol is often bonded with ethanol in nature. It's only when it isolated that it becomes a poison.

That's not necessarily true; while poorly brewed alcoholic beverages do indeed contain traces of methanol, it is incorrect to claim methanol is 'bonded' to ethanol. Chemically speaking there is no such interaction; ethanol and methanol merely happen to be mixed together with water.

In the body, the liver finds it difficult to metabolize methanol - when there is ethanol present it preferentially metabolizes ethanol first. It has nothing to do with any sort of 'bonding'. This is why drinking more alcohol gets rid of a hangover, as the liver stops breaking down methanol and goes back to breaking down ethanol.

So naturally occurring methanol is usually bonded to something else. And the common sense question to this quote is; why doesn't every food containing methanol then cause a hangover? There's another chemical commonly bonded to methanol that helps people digest it in foods: pectic acid. That is not in aspartame.

I don't feel like this argument is very well constructed yet, but at least I've opened the portal to investigating this area of study further. You're free to refute what I've presented so far.

Again, you have used this claim about chemical bonding. Further clarification about what you mean by that is necessary to back up the claims you make as there is no chemical bonding that I am aware of between ethanol that would affect metabolism.

As for aspartame and the OP, I happily drink 1-3 cans of Pepsi Max every day and feel no ill effect (other than a great disdain for the taste of common water).

 

[GhostAnime]

happily drink 1-3 cans of Pepsi Max every day and feel no ill effect

You may not feel it now but probably in the future!

 

[CSolarstorm]

Eh, I have no rebuttal for you yet, chuboy. You win for now.

As for aspartame and the OP, I happily drink 1-3 cans of Pepsi Max every day and feel no ill effect (other than a great disdain for the taste of common water).

*facepalm* Dear lord...you have double the amount of caffeine of a normal Pepsi sometimes three times a day? With all the acids accompanying that, assuming there's no corn syrup partnered with the aspartame, that can wreak havoc to someone's teeth and intestines...

 

[The Director]

Personally, I reckon its always about moderation. A small enough amount of Nightshade isn't going to do any lasting damage, but enough pure water will make you drown.

And I apply this to sweeteners as well.
But beyond this, I can't debate further, without further research.

Just putting my bit in.