Re: Aspartame poisoning?

Hi all,

My sister sent his to me today…I’m on one year with MAV / MDDS symptoms after a cruise- dizziness, visual vertigo, rocking, seeing things tilted, tinnitus, headache with aura, etc. I have been doing better since taking inderal starting 2 months ago (which still makes me think I have MAV) but I’m wondering if Aspartame could be a factor…thought this may be of interest.

http://rhondagessner.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/a-killer-in-your-fridge-sweet-poison-a-must-read/

Aspartame is a known trigger and should probably be avoided by most migraineurs.

However, there is no real evidence that it is a health issue. Robust systematic reviews show that at the doses typically consumed by people the effect is nil.

S

— Begin quote from “scott”

Aspartame is a known trigger and should probably be avoided by most migraineurs.

However, there is no real evidence that it is a health issue. Robust systematic reviews show that at the doses typically consumed by people the effect is nil.

S

— End quote

This. Aspartame is a very strong trigger for me, and makes me seriously dizzier and in more pain, but parsing through the research I don’t believe the concept that it is “poisoning” me. I’m sure if you consumed ungodly amounts of the stuff in a short period, you could create some sort of serious health issue, since anything in major excess can screw us up (including water). Even in heavy diet soda drinkers, I think it would be anywhere from really hard to nearly impossible to hit that limit though - I would bet on it being a trigger, not a toxicity.

Thx Scott and Dizzy,

Thanks for your replies. I think you are right… I’m still working on the first commandment to accept my diagnosis. I have to stop reading all the other things it could be where there is a “quick fix”. It makes me hope I have that instead of MAV which takes longer to get the right mix of changes to feel better.

I’m also subconsciously hoping it’s something else so I can go back to eating cobb salad and buffalo wings with blue cheese! Both of these give me massive headaches now within an hour…football season with no wings, what a nightmare!

Sio

Aspartame is a big trigger for me, gave me terrible migraines.

Christine

Out of curiosity, I looked up the ADI for aspartame. Per the American Cancer Society website:

— Begin quote from ____

In the United States, artificial sweeteners such as aspartame are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These products must be tested for safety and approved by the FDA before they can be used. The FDA also sets an acceptable daily intake (ADI) for each sweetener, which is the maximum amount considered safe to consume each day during a person’s lifetime. The ADI is set to be about 100 times less than the smallest amount that might cause health concerns, based on studies done in lab animals.

The FDA has set the ADI for aspartame at 50 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) of body weight. (In the European Union, the European Food Safety Authority has recommended a slightly lower ADI for aspartame, at 40 mg/kg.)

To put the ADI for aspartame in perspective, this would be 3,750 milligrams per day for a typical adult weighing 75 kilograms (about 165 pounds), far more than most adults take in daily. A can of diet soda usually contains about 180 milligrams of aspartame, so a typical adult would have to drink about 21 cans of diet soda a day to go over the recommended level.

— End quote

So yeah, next to impossible to hit the currently accepted toxicity level… it’s still a trigger for me though, and for many others. I do just fine with Sweet n Low, so I use that when I want an artificial sugar.