Sweet Poison: How The World's Most Popular Artificial Sweetener is Killing Us - My Story, Janet Starr Hull, New Horizon Press, 1999
This is the story of an average woman who wanted to lose weight after having three children. She did what most people would do: work out religiously, eat low-fat frozen food and drink diet cola. Instead, her health began to deteriorate: she suffered blinding migraine headaches, night sweats, her hair fell out in clumps, and her heart raced to 180 beats per minute.
In the hospital, she was diagnosed with Graves' Disease, and was told that her thyroid gland would have to be destroyed; also, she would have to take expensive thyroid medicine for the rest of her life. Hull had the presence of mind to put on the brakes, and, after a lot of research, found the cause of her near death: aspartame, also called Nutrasweet, an artificial sweetener in more than 5000 different foods.
Since the 1970s, the FDA has known about independent studies on aspartame in lab mice that document brain seizures, holes in the brain, dead and deformed fetuses, mammary gland tumors, etc. Researchers for the Nutrasweet Corporation say that it is safe for public consumption. That's all the FDA needed for its approval.
Since aspartame's approval, over 5000 complaints have been registered with the FDA, including vomiting, diarrhea, hives, fatigue, dizziness and headaches, along with four deaths. In over 100 years of saccharin use, for instance, there have been a grand total of six complaints.
Aspartame was approved by an FDA Commissioner who later resigned to take a position with the company that makes Nutrasweet. It was originally intended as an ulcer drug, whose sweet taste was discovered by accident. Did you know that ten percent of aspartame is methyl alcohol, which, when heated to 86 degrees, produces formaldehyde, an embalming fluid?
This is a more-than-must-read Wow of a book. It's especially recommended for those who think that convenience in food is more important than nutrition.
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