Post by Rhonda on Feb 22, 2006 3:35:20 GMT -5
I suggest most people know my take on this stuff (boy I cleaned that one up!)
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February 21, 2006
Editorial
The Safety of Aspartame Aspartame, an artificial sweetener used by more
than 200 million people around the world, has passed numerous safety evaluations
in the past quarter-century. It is used as a tabletop sweetener (Equal,
NutraSweet) and as an ingredient in more than 6,000 processed foods, including
diet sodas, desserts, candy and yogurt, among others. But now comes a
provocative if inconclusive report that says aspartame may cause cancer, even at
levels long considered safe. There is no reason for panic, but surely good
reason for regulatory authorities to look again at this much-studied sweetener.
The new alarm was raised by a large study in laboratory rats conducted at the
European Ramazzini Foundation in Italy. The study found a statistically
significant increase in lymphomas, leukemias and other cancers in rats that were
fed aspartame for a lifetime and compared with rats that were not. Excess
cancers were found even in rats fed doses equal to 20 milligrams per kilogram of
body weight, well below the 50-milligram level currently deemed acceptable for
humans in the United States. If these results hold up under further scrutiny,
the guidelines will need re-evaluation.
Please read the entire article as:
www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/opinion/21tues4.html