The price of “the sweet life”: dangerous sweetener aspartame
Why the high-calorie sugar aspartame, for whom he is deadly, what kind of poison formed in the body of this sweetener and how much soda you need to drink to be poisoned, understood Indicator.Ru.
26 July 1974 the American Management on sanitary inspection behind quality of foodstuff and medicines (Food and Drug Administration, or FDA) approved the artificial sweetener — aspartame.
Nine years earlier this substance was accidentally discovered by the American chemist, James Schlatter, working in G. D. Searle & Company. Slater was engaged in the search for drugs that would stimulate the production of gastric juice. He wanted to synthesize a synthetic analogue of the hormone gastrin, which is responsible for the secretion of gastric juice in the body. During the search it was discovered that one of the intermediate products of the synthesis was the substance of the two amino acids with metoxygroup, the taste of which is familiar to many of us.
Slater tried white powder accidentally licked his finger before turning the page. The finger was extremely sweet. The researcher began studying substance: one gram of the compound of two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, sweetness was equal to 180 or even 200 grams of sugar — and without the bitter aftertaste, which was typical of other known at the time the sweetener is saccharin. If to believe the version that supports the company itself, it is almost fairy — began the epic studies of aspartame. In 1970, Slater received a patent, and in four years has achieved FDA approval.
However, the other half of the tale sounds scary enticed by the taste of sugar without his usual calories, crowds of tooth leaned on the white powder E951 (aspartame so called in the international classification), who promised a sweet life without consequences for the figure. He paid the price with their health. It turned out that aspartame breaks down when heated.
If you add a sweetener, for example in pastries or hot tea, it emits methanol, a toxic alcohol that causes blindness and death.
Moreover, it was found that in the human body even drunk in the composition of cold Cola aspartame turns into a harmful methanol, which is then converted into an even more dangerous poison formaldehyde.
All studies of aspartame company Searle & Co immediately rechecked and found numerous inconsistencies, but he, nevertheless, remained. This was followed by several studies proving that aspartame causes cancer in mice — not only himself, but all of its components separately: phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol. And then the company that produces aspartame and is bought by the Monsanto Corporation, which to many is seen as the epitome of the evil of the world (largely due to the production of herbicides, insecticides of the type of DDT and genetically modified foods, despite the fact that the harm of GMOs has not been proved). But this horror story is true and what is rumor?