Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No,

Dumbass. Here’s Why.
By Aadam on July 3, 2017

In 1965, chemist James Schlatter was working on an anti-ulcer drug when,

unbeknownst to him, he accidentally contaminated his finger with a white
substance.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

Later that day, Schlatter was sat reading and while licking his finger to turn

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

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the page, he noted the sweet taste of aspartame.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

Little did he know that this serendipitous discovery would spawn an entire
industry and a shitstorm that would divide the entire health and fitness
industry.

Chances are, something like this has

happened to you:

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

But is it true? Will you die if you consume aspartame? Will it cause weight
gain? Spike insulin? Cause cancer and the plethora of other maladies people
claim? Well, let’s find out.

What is Aspartame?
Aspartame is a popular artificial sweetener used in many foods and drinks –
most notably diet, or zero-calorie, sodas.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

FYI: Coke cans are impossibly fucking hard to draw.

Contrary to popular belief, aspartame does contain calories: 4 calories per

gram. However, seeing that aspartame is 200x sweeter than table sugar, the
amount required to sweeten food is so small the calories are negligible –
making it essentially “calorie-free”.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

What’s With the Aspartame Hype?

In 2005, a study found more lymphomas and leukaemias in rats fed very high
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doses of aspartame. So the media did this:

And people did this:

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

However.
While there was a dose-response relationship between aspartame
consumption and the prevalence of cancer, the rats were given an absurdly
large amount: between 4 mg/kg all the way up to 5,000 mg /kg of bodyweight.

Let’s put this into context: an average rat weighed 400 grams (0.4kg).

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

But, hold on. Let’s apply these numbers

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

to a human.

Furthermore.
The FDA has set the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for aspartame at 50 mg/kg
of bodyweight.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

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As the editors of Examine.com point out :

But, Wait! There’s More

In 2002, “Aspartame: Review of Safety” was published in the monthly
peer-reviewed scientific journal, Regulatory Toxicology and
Pharmacology, concluding:

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

More than 30 years have elapsed since the foundations of today’s aspartame
safety database were laid. Since that time the portfolio of studies assessing
the safety of aspartame has continued to grow. A search of the scientific
literature on the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINE reveals almost
700 citations for aspartame with a number of these relevant to aspartame
safety. The extensive body of research undertaken on aspartame clearly and
overwhelmingly demonstrates its safety for its intended use. The aspartame
safety data have been evaluated and found satisfactory by regulatory
scientists in all major regulatory agencies and expert committees, including
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the EU Scientific Committee
for Food (SCF), and the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food
Additives (JECFA). Further, aspartame has been approved for human
consumption by regulatory agencies in more than 100 countries and
received wide consumer acceptance with consumption by hundreds of
millions of people over the past 20 years, representing billions of man-
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years of safe exposure.” 

Read that last bit – that I’ve bolded – again: consumption by hundreds of
millions of people over the past 20 years, representing billions of man-years
of safe exposure.”

If aspartame was killing us, we’d know by now because there’d probably be a
bunch of dead people whose deaths would be linked back to aspartame, but
there isn’t, wanna know why? Because it’s safe.

But, I’m not done yet.

In 2006 researchers from the National Cancer Institute looked at cancer

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rates in more than 500,000 older adults.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

One last thing because ‘OMG,

CHEMICALS’.
When you consume aspartame…

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

…the body breaks it down into its constituent parts.

Aspartic acid and phenylalanine are amino acids and can be found in most
sources of dietary protein. In fact, the amount of aspartic acid and
phenylalanine found in food-based sources of protein far exceeds the amount
found in aspartame.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

Methanol tends to be the one people lose their shit over, and yes, methanol
can be a hazard as it’s converted to formaldehyde in the body – a known
carcinogen. HOWEVER, the dose makes the poison, and the amount found in
aspartame is completely safe. Additionally, methanol is also found in fruits
and vegetables.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

Aspartame and Weight Gain

Some people will vehemently argue that aspartame causes weight gain.
Firstly, this makes zero fucking sense because, as I noted earlier –
aspartame is essentially calorie-free. You’d have to consume an impossible
amount of diet drinks for it to have an impact on your weight, and seeing as
you’d die from water intoxication first weight gain would probably be the least
of your worries.

Secondly, research disagrees with this idea. 

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In one study, 41 overweight men and women were split into two groups.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

Guess what happened? That’s right: the group consuming the sucrose
supplement – you know, the one that contained calories – saw increases in
energy intake, body weight, fat mass, and blood pressure; while “these effects
were not observed in a similar group of subjects who consumed artificial
sweeteners.” Because that’s what happens when you control calorie intake.

To add, in another six-month long randomised clinical trial, researchers had

participants replace caloric beverages with noncaloric beverages.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

And, once again, participants that replaced caloric beverages with noncaloric
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beverages lost weight.

WHAT A SHOCKER.

So then why do people think aspartame causes weight gain?

Because people are dumb. Ok, I’m sorry. It’s because people make false
correlations. People who drink calorie-free drinks tend to fall for the Health
Halo of Food effect: they assume because they’re drinking zero-calorie drinks
they can eat more food. This leads them to consume a greater number of
calories and gaining more weight (and fat). People then make a faulty
correlation between the two: “Diet drinks cause weight gain”, instead of,
“People end up eating more calories leading them to gain more weight”.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

Does Aspartame ‘Spike Insulin’?

No. It doesn’t. There is zero evidence to suggest that aspartame spikes
insulin levels – in both healthy and diabetic individuals. And the only studies
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that have found this to be the case were done on, surprise surprise, rats.

Even if it did spike insulin – it doesn’t, but if it did in some alternate reality – so
what? Insulin spikes are a perfectly normal function of a perfectly normal and
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healthy functioning body. Even protein spikes insulin . And if you’re still
subscribing to the “insulin causes fat gain” dumbfuckery – it’s time you
updated your factz. Yeah, with a Z, because fuck you I do what I want.

Take Home Points

1. There are over 200 studies that confirm aspartame to be safe for
human consumption.

1a.If you believe that the Illuminati or some dark secret society is trying to
poison you, I suggest you stop watching conspiracy theories on YouTube.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

I mean, I’m no Illuminati expert but I’m pretty sure a bunch of old rich
billionaires have more important things to address than poisoning people
through Diet Coke.

2. Unless you’re a rat and/or injecting diet drinks straight into your blood,
you have nothing to worry about from consuming aspartame-based foods
and beverages.

3. The only real concern is that diet drinks can rot your teeth if consumed
in large amounts.

3a. If you have the extremely rare, genetic disorder phenylketonuria then

you should avoid aspartame. If you are suffering from a super rare
disorder you probably already know this but seeing as people were losing
their shit over me not putting this point here, I’m putting this point here.

4. There is some emerging research that aspartame can have a negative

impact on the gut microbiome. This is still up for debate and I’ll hazard a
guess that as long as you’re not being a complete dumbfuck with your
consumption of artificial sweeteners, you’ll be fine. Danny Lennon did a
great podcast on that topic and artificial sweeteners in general, here.

5. While there aren’t any studies confirming this, anecdotally, some of my

clients have noted that drinking diet drinks tend to increase “sugar
cravings”. If this happens to you, then simply don’t drink them or reduce
your intake.

6. Constantly consuming really sweet food and drink changes your taste

palate. I know people who can’t drink plain water as they don’t “like the
taste” and need to sweeten everything. This isn’t exactly ideal.

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Will Aspartame Kill You? No, Dumbass. Here’s Why.

7. Once again, just don’t be an idiot with these things and you’ll be fine.

8. Drink more goddamn water.

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