Marshall Family Chiropractic
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Marshall Family Chiropractic
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Aspartame to Blame? Say No to Diet Drinks The Artificial sweetener aspartame, which is sold as brand names Equal and NutraSweet, is widely used in soft drinks, sugarfree gum, and thousands of other products. Shortly after it was first approved for such use decades ago, there was some talk that it might be related to an increase in brain tumors, at least in rats at high doses. But since a number of other studies did not find this risk, despite being either small or funded by its manufacturer, it was approved for use. Now a fairly large study of 1800 rats found a connection to cancer again.1 The Food and Drug Administration allows up to 50 mg per kilogram of body weight per day as an acceptable intake. That is equal to about 20 cans of diet soda for a normal weight person.2 The researchers in the new study gave seven groups of rats drinking water with either no aspartame or between 4 mg and 5000 mg per kilogram of body weight of aspartame. Even at the low dose end (which might be equivalent to just under two cans of diet soda per day for humans) there were more cancers, particularly lymphomas and leukemia's, in that group than in the group with no aspartame in the water. The most noteworthy think of this study, however, was that cancers increased in proportion to the amount of the sweetener added to the water. That dose-response relationship and the size of the study give this study a fair amount of power according to researchers.3 Other experts are still not convinced, but we would rather you avoid strange chemicals in your beverages. Dr. Marshall would certainly rater err on the side of caution and recommends you drink purified water or sparkling water or perhaps tea either iced or hot. Limited amounts of pure fruit juices (preferable diluted somewhat with water) as well as vegetable juices like tomato or V-8 can also be healthy alternatives to soda 1B. Harder, "Not So Sweet", February 18, 2006, Science News, Vol. 169, No. 7, p. 101 2 lbid. 3 lbid |
Contact InformationMarshall Family Chiropractic
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