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From: mwg@petrus.UUCP (Mark Garrett)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: The Perils of NutraSweet (with reference to a third article)
Message-ID: <416@petrus.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Jul-85 15:54:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: petrus.416
Posted: Mon Jul 22 15:54:05 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jul-85 02:39:52 EDT
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++
> > 
> > 	"There's a bad misconception that aspartame is the same thing as
> > 	protein," [says Seymour Kaufman of the National Institutes of
> >	Mental Health]

> I have a feeling that Kaufman
> is either being misquoted or being misleading.  What I believe to be the
> case here is that administration of free phenylalanine is not quite the
> same as administration of protein containing similar amounts of
> phenylalanine, because of competition by amino acids for transport across
> the blood-brain barrier....

> I'd like to hear from more informed medical and research sources who
> might have more facts.
> /Steve Dyer

I would also like to hear from some medically trained types (of which I am
not one, alas...) about the specifics involved here.  What kind of doses are
we talking about?  Can someone explain the *basic* processes involved with
these chemicals both in terms of digestion and brain chemistry?  (Steve's
comments were good, let's have some more elaboration.)  The problem with
these survey articles is that they quote all kinds of medical people but
don't get into the guts of it because they are intended mainly to address
the political issues rather than the medical ones.  To wit, here is yet
another summary of yet another Common Cause Magazine followup on NutraSweet:

(From Common Cause Magazine, Vol 11, No 4, July/August 1985, pp 20-21)

	Congress' investigative arm, the General Accounting Office,
	begins a probe of how the government approved NutraSweet.
	...
	The investigation is being conducted at the request of Sen.
	Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio).
	...
	Consumer complaints to the FDA obtained by the magazine showed a
	number of people believe they have suffered a variety of symptoms
	after consuming NutraSweet, including headaches, rashes, dizziness,
	menstrual problems, heart palpitations, stomach problems and seizures.
	...
	...Dr. Richard Wurtman, professor of neuroendocrine regulation at
	MIT, reiterated his concerns about the safety of NutraSweet.  "It
	is virtually certain that you can consume and that people do
	consume enough NutraSweet to affect the chemical composition
	of the brain, and the chemicals that are changing are chemicals
	that we know underlie very importatnt types of behavior."

	Dr. William Partridge, associated professor of medicine at UCLA,
	also voiced his concerns on the program, saying there are two
	major group potentially suceptible to the effects of the sweetener,
	seven to 12-year-old children and developing babies or fetuses.

	Dr Louis Elsas, director of medical genetics at Emory University
	Medical School said, "I'm concerned this could be a major health
	hazard that has been totally unexplored.  I don't know what's
	going to happen, but nobody else does either.

	"No one can tell me it's not going to happen," he continued.  "I
	think it's been a whitewashed scientific reveiw, most of which
	has been supported by the industry itself, which has an obvious
	conflict of interest."
	...
	(Some of Elsas' findings [on phenylalanine] were reported in
	the January issued of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.)
	...
	Elsas compared the effects of NutraSweet to a time bomb.  "We may
	not be able to see the effects for a generation.  And then we'll
	suddenly see a lot of kids with behavioral abnormalities, with
	IQs...[whose] mental function is not what we anticipated from
	their education or genetic input."
	...
	How did [then FDA commisioner Arthur Hull] Hayes reconcile his
	decision to approve aspartame with the fact that three of the
	six scientists advising him said the brain tumor tests could
	not be relied on in establishing the safety of aspartame?
	...
	The federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reviewed 200 of
	the more than 600 complaints sent to the FDA by consumers in the
	first half of last year and recommended last November that further
	studies be conducted on humans.

	The senators also asked if the FDA would follow up a study by Dr.
	Keith Connors of Children's Hospital National Medical Center in
	Washington, D.C. "which documented a child's severe behavioral
	reaction to aspartame."...

My two cents:

I wonder if part of the phenylalanine/protein problem is that a protein
molecule is broken down and metabolized slowly and the pure amino acids
in aspartame are immediately absorbed into the bloodstream.  This might
explain the confusing and abbreviated comment I quoted last time (Kaufman).
This is similar to the sugar problem:  refined sucrose is "bad" because
it is so pure that it causes a very sudden rise in blood sugar (glucose)
levels ("sugar high"), whereas fructose takes time to be metabolized.
Slow shifts in blood chemistry would seem to be much better for one's system.

Any knowledgable comments?

-Mark