Equal’s ‘The Sweet Truth’ resource book is now available for your patients. The easy-to-read guide includes fun recipe ideas and information on daily nutritional intake because everyone has an equal right to tasty food without the calories.

Simply click here to send us an email with your contact details and we’ll be in touch to arrange your delivery.

Although it has a sweet taste, aspartame is actually made by linking the amino acid aspartic acid to the methyl ester of a second amino acid called phenylalanine. These two amino acids in aspartame occur naturally and the building blocks for nearly every protein in the diet. Methyl esters are natural structural components of fruit and vegetables. Such natural methyl esters include the gum known as pectin, a natural carbohydrate found in many fruits, including apples, plums, gooseberries, lemons, limes, grapefruits and oranges. Back to top

Studies conducted with taste-test panels show that aspartame’s taste is very similar to the taste of sugar. Aspartame has the ability to intensify and extend fruit flavours in foods and beverages. Aspartame can reduce the kilojoules and replace the sugar in foods and beverages while still maintaining great taste.

Aspartame is around 180 times sweeter than sugar, so a little goes a long way. For example, a can of Diet Coke supplies less than 4kJ from aspartame, while the high-fructose corn syrup in normal Coca-Cola packs 420kJ. Back to top

Aspartame is fully metabolised by the body, just like protein and other food components.

Aspartame is quickly broken down into its three components – aspartate, phenylalanine and methanol. These components are utilized in the body in the same way as when they are derived from common foods. The amount of methanol released from dietary exposure to aspartame is less than that from fruits, vegetables and their juices. For example, one serving of tomato juice provides about six times more methanol than an equivalent beverage sweetened 100 percent with aspartame. This methanol is then further converted to formate, which is quickly eliminated by the body in the form of carbon dioxide and water.

Because neither aspartame nor its components accumulate in the body over time, it can be safely used by the entire family except for the few individuals born with a rare but serious genetic defect called phenylketonuria or PKU. People born with PKU are unable to properly metabolise the amino acid phenylalanine. Back to top

The ADI is the amount of a food additive that can be ingested daily over an entire lifetime without any risk to health. The ADI is measured in units of milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day. The Food Standards Australia New Zealand has set the ADI for aspartame at 40mg/kg body weight/day and 15mg/kg body weight/day for Ace-K. Back to top

Aspartame has undergone extensive safety testing. Over 200 toxicological and clinical studies during the past 30 years have been conducted and reviewed by regulatory authorities throughout the world.

Agencies that have approved aspartame include:

• Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)
• US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• FAO/WHO Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)
• Scientific Committee on Food of the European Commission (SCF)

European Food Safety Authority Reconfirms Aspartame’s Clean Bill of Health (December, 2002) - The Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) of the European Commission has reconfirmed aspartame’s clean bill of health following a comprehensive review of the sweetener’s safety.

The Committee concluded that on the basis of its review of all the data in animals and humans available to date, there is no evidence to suggest that there is a need to revise the outcome of the prior endorsement of aspartame’s safety.

U.K. Food Standards Agency

On December 18, 2002, the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued a statement announcing that

…the Agency supports the conclusions of the Committee’s [Scientific Committee on Food] thorough and timely review on the safety of the sweetener [aspartame].

American Dietetic Association (ADA) Supports Safety and Usefulness of Aspartame — The 2004 updated position paper on nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners from the ADA was released in February 2004

A comprehensive review of the safety of aspartame has recently been published. The review covers previous publications as well as new information that support the safety of aspartame as a food additive and negates claims of its association with a range of health problems.

British Medical Journal (BMJ) — An October 2004 issue of the BMJ carries an editorial concluding that aspartame has been “demonised unfairly” in sections of the press and on the Internet.

Evidence does not support links between aspartame and cancer, hair loss, depression, dementia, behavioural disturbances, or any of the other conditions appearing in websites. Agencies such as the Food Standards Agency, European Food Standards Authority, and the Food and Drug Administration have a duty to monitor relations between foodstuffs and health and to commission research when reasonable doubt emerges…

Aspartame has also been tested for safety in several special population groups, including:

• Young children (Filer et al 1983; Stegink et al. 1983)
• Elderly people (Puthrasingam et al. 1996)
• People with diabetes (Nehrling et al. 1985; Okuno et al. 1986)
• People who carry the gene for phenylketonuria but do not have the disease [heterozygotes] (Stegink et al. 1989a; Curtius et al. 1994; Trefz et al. 1994)
• Healthy adults (reviewed by Butchko et al. 2002)

Recently, in 2007, a comprehensive review of more than 500 studies was conducted by a panel of eight leading experts in the areas of toxicology, epidemiology, metabolism, pathology and biostatistics. The panel conclusively reported that aspartame is safe. The review was published in the scientific journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology. Back to top

Visit the Aspartame Resource Center for more information
http://www.aboutaspartame.com/pdf/Critical_Reviews_evaluation_summary.pdf