Why This Toxic Sweetener is FAR Worse than High Fructose Corn Syrup...

Posted By Dr. Mercola | September 15 2010 | 184,780 views

Some People are Naturally More Prone to Formaldehyde Poisoning

An interesting tidbit that can help explain why some people experience ill effects from aspartame quite rapidly, whereas others can ingest aspartame for some time without noticing any ill effects, is that you may have more or less of a particular enzyme that breaks down alcohols that could otherwise be toxic.

Woodrow C. Monte, PhD, a retired professor of food science, explains this in his 2009 article Methanol: A chemical Trojan Horse as the root of the Inscrutable U^[i].  Aspartame contains about 10 percent methanol by weight, also known as wood alcohol, which is broken down into formaldehyde, and then formic acid, in your body.  The only human enzyme capable of metabolizing methanol to formaldehyde is an enzyme called Class I alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH I).

Formaldehyde, in turn, damages your body by “attacking proteins and embalming them” – a simple layman’s description of what happens, courtesy of PBD.org. According to PBD.org, “small amounts of methanol can cause blindness, as the sensitive proteins in the retina are attacked…” And visual disturbance, including retinal detachment, is one of the reported side effects of aspartame consumption.

Now, Dr. Monte offers a clue as to why methanol may harm some more than others:

“Variability in sensitivity to exogenous methanol consumption may be accounted for in part by the presence of aldehyde dehydrogenase sufficient to reduce the toxic effect of formaldehyde production in tissue through its conversion to the much less toxic formic acid.”

Please remember that just like other artificial sweeteners, there are no long-term safety studies in humans that support its use as they were never required by the FDA. In addition, as I’ll discuss below, if you consume aspartame while pregnant, you may unwittingly expose your unborn child to completely unnecessary health risks, even if you feel that aspartame is not affecting you in a negative way.

Why Aspartame is NOT a Dieters Best Friend

Low-calorie artificial sweeteners were originally marketed primarily to diabetics and dieters, but now you find them in a variety of processed foodstuffs and snacks that are not specifically aimed at this target market. But do these zero- or low-calorie products really help you lose weight and/or keep it off? Well, the research and the epidemiologic data suggest the opposite is true, and that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame tend to lead to weight gain. As I’ve often said, there’s more to weight gain or weigh loss than mere calorie intake.

One reason for aspartame’s potential to cause weight gain is because phenylalanine and aspartic acid – the two amino acids that make up 90 percent of aspartame -- are known to rapidly stimulate the release of insulin and leptin; two hormones that are intricately involved with satiety and fat storage. Insulin and leptin are also the primary hormones that regulate your metabolism.

So although you’re not ingesting calories in the form of sugar, aspartame can still raise your insulin and leptin levels.

Elevated insulin and leptin levels, in turn, are two of the driving forces behind obesity, diabetes, and a number of our current chronic disease epidemics.

Over time, if your body is exposed to too much leptin, it will become resistant to it, just as your body can become resistant to insulin, and once that happens, your body can no longer “hear” the hormonal messages instructing your body to stop eating, burn fat, and maintain good sensitivity to sweet tastes in your taste buds.

What happens then? You remain hungry; you crave sweets, and your body stores more fat.

Leptin-resistance also causes an increase in visceral fat, sending you on a vicious cycle of hunger, fat storage and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and more.