The Sweet Poison

Is aspartame actually bad for you? Aspartame is an artificial, non-saccharide sweetener used as a sugar substitute. There have been many tests and lots of speculation surrounding the dangers of aspartame.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set the acceptable daily intake (ADI) value for aspartame at 50 milligram per kilogram.  That is the equivalent of drinking 21 diet sodas in a 24 hour period.

To know if aspartame is dangerous to your health you need to know what it is made of.  Aspartame is made when you combine aspartic acid, methanol, and phenylalanine through peptide synthesis.  That is just a complex way in stating the combination of three compounds into one.  Most of the controversies surrounding aspartame are formed around the methanol compound in it.  Health Canada has composed several tests surrounding the concentrations of methanol in aspartame.  500 mg of aspartame will produce 55 mg of methanol which is well below the danger threshold of methanol.

In conclusion studies show that aspartame in not toxic and not dangerous to your health.  Though to some it may taste a little metallic I would strongly suggest you stick to regular table sugar.  There is no LD50 (which is a measurement of toxicity) for aspartame.  I would also recommend not to drink 21 cans of diet cola because that could be unhealthy in other aspects.

References:

Aspartame (2013). Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.

Health Canada. Retrieved March 25, 2015, from http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/securit/addit/sweeten-edulcor/aspartame-eng.php

Household Products Database. Retrieved March 25, 2015, from http://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=chem&id=3104

National Toxicology Program. (2005). Toxicology Studies of Aspartame. P.O. Box 12233 Research Triangle Park, NC: NIH Publication

Thomas, P. (2005). Aspartame: 1. The Ecologist H.W.Wilson - GS, 35(7), 36.

U.S. National Library of Medicine. HSDB: ASPARTAME. Retrieved March 25, 2015, from http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search2/f?./temp/~TpK0mE:1