Ban aspartame

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener 200 times sweeter than sugar. It has been licensed for more than 25 years and has become a cheap alternative to sugar, now being used in 6000 food, drink or pharmaceutical products. It has widely penetrated the British market and every day, it is consumed on average by one in fifteen people worldwide, the majority of whom are children. For the last year I have been looking into the safety of aspartame. As a man of science I have no doubt that there is strong scientific evidence that aspartame represents a serious health problem. On the basis of the precautionary principle, I have called on the Government to ban the use and sale of this food additive which has been proved to be carcinogenic in animals, a highly predictive indication of its effects on humans according to the World Health Organisation.

The chemical breakdown of aspartame reveals three basic components: a methyl ester and two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid. In their natural form like meat, fish, dairy products, vegetables and eggs, phenylalanine and aspartic acid help keep humans healthy. When found in a simple artificial chemical compound as in aspartame, they get absorbed into the blood stream in unnatural quantities, which is when damage is most liable to occur. For example, when phenylalanine is released in its free form, it is metabolised into diketopiperazine or DKP, which is a suspected carcinogen and free aspartic acid becomes a toxic molecule that stimulates nerve cells to the point of damage or death. That can have an adverse effect from the twitching of a hand to a grand mal seizure.

But the methyl ester is the most harmful and potentially lethal component of the three. The methyl ester is metabolised by the body into methanol, a well-known poison, from which we are not protected by ethanol or pectin as we would be when we eat fruits, vegetables or even alcohol which also contain methanol. Methanol is also unstable in the human body and is converted into formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a class A poison. Some of the formaldehyde accumulated in the body will be converted into formic acid, a potent toxin, which can cause central nervous system depression and, in sufficient quantity, coma and death. Many independently funded human studies show the adverse effects from chronic, low-level formaldehyde exposure. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website lists more than 9,000 aspartame-related health complaints.

More concerns about the safety of aspartame must surely arise from the monumental Ramazzini study published online in a highly acclaimed and peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives in November 2005. The conclusions of the Ramazzini study deserve careful attention. It was, without a doubt, the most large-scale, comprehensive and independently funded study ever performed on aspartame. The study looked at the effects of aspartame on 1,800 male and female rats, using six different control doses. Most studies use only around 400 rats and three doses. This vast study demonstrated that aspartame administered at varying levels in feed causes a statistically significant increase of lymphomas and leukaemias, malignant tumours of the kidneys in female rats and malignant tumours of peripheral and cranial nerves in male rats. Alarmingly, such tumours occurred even in doses well below the acceptable daily intake recommended as ‘safe’ by regulatory authorities in the EU and the US.

The history of aspartame's approval is one in which sound science seems to be notable by its absence and where bad politics and bad regulation led to aspartame’s approval for sale on the international market. The initial tests carried out by Searle (the company which discovered it) and on which aspartame was approved were reported as counting no fewer than 52 major discrepancies by an investigation lead by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States. These included no clear record being kept of the doses fed to rats; antibiotics being given to animals showing symptoms but not being reported; tumours contracted by rats during the experiment, being surgically removed before dissection and not reported; and, above all, no clear record of death (one such animal was recorded as dead, then alive, then dead, then alive, then dead). Yet despite this, the FDA management ruled it safe for human use in 1981. Don Rumsfeld, who was CEO of Searle and later appointed to Ronald Reagan's transition team in 1981 was certainly instrumental in securing aspartame’s licence. In fact he publicly said he would ‘call in his markers’ to get it approved. There is a recurring pattern of key players in the aspartame licensing process, moving on to lucrative jobs working as solicitors or public relations consultants for the sweetener industry in the US. In the UK, there is also a repeated incidence of key players on the scientific panels responsible for licensing aspartame having direct or indirect working ties to the industry.

I am continuing to press the Department of Health to review the safety of aspartame and ban its use in the UK.

Associated links

Read my speech about the dangers of aspartame ».
 
Read the Ramazzini Institute study of the dangers of aspartame ».
 
Read my Early Day Motion on the approval and licensing of aspartame ».
 
Guardian cover story about my campaign to ban aspartame ».
 
Guardian story about aspartame approval ».
 

Publish date: 30th January 2006
Modified: 27th February 2006

January Campaigns.
Latest Campaigns.