The inevitability of avoiding sugar intake by those afflicted by diabetes or obesity had spawned an entirely new industry which provides non-sugar sweeteners to satisfy the weakness for sweet taste among such consumers. Also cutting down on natural sugar is now recommended as a desirable practice and there are extensive campaigns to pressure food industry to offer products containing lower levels of sugar. Artificial sweeteners like Saccharine, Aspartame, Sucralose etc have been ruling the roost at some time or the other though their absolute safety has never been established unequivocally till to date. From time to time such safety questions get focused and here is another such commentary on these non-sugar sweeteners offering some valuable insight.
"Most people who receive e-mails will have seen the "Aspartame e-mail" which links this non-nutritive sweetener to every ill known to mankind. Most people will have dismissed this as scare mongering, but there have been legitimate concerns that aspartame may have behavioural effects or be linked to nervous system damage. These concerns were based on the fact that aspartame contains 2 amino acids (phenylalanine and aspartyl) and a so-called methyl ester. When aspartame is metabolised, the compound is broken down into phenylalanine, aspartate and methanol. Phenylalanine and aspartate are found in large quantities in all protein foods, so unless an individual suffers from phenylketonuria (a genetic disorder in which the body cannot process part of a protein called phenylalanine), no harm should be caused by these two common amino acids. It is, however, the methanol which is formed from the methyl ester mentioned above, that has come under suspicion and had been held responsible for damage to the nervous system and aberrant behaviour. Dr Magnuson (2012) pointed out that methanol is also formed in the human body from a variety of standard foods such as fruits and vegetables, something most people probably never take into consideration. For example 1 medium banana produces 21 mg of methanol in the human body, while a 340 ml glass of orange juice is responsible for 23 mg of methanol, both of which compare well with the 18 mg of methanol which our bodies produce if we drink 340 ml of a cold drink that has been sweetened with aspartame. The basic chemical evidence, therefore, does not support the theory that the methanol produced from aspartame will cause nervous system damage or change human behaviour".
It is interesting to read the logical argument that helps a common man understand the complexities involved in assessing the safety of a sweetener like Aspartame and probably the commentator above has valid basis to counter the scare mongering that goes around in the name of this ingredient. What is forgotten in these discussions is that there is nothing in the world which can be considered as absolutely safe and even water can be toxic under certain circumstances! Therefore modern man living in an environment mostly created by himself for comfort and convenience must be prepared for the risk that comes along with such paraphernalia. Life must go on in spite of such hiccups.
V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com
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