For those who haven't seen it or the New York Times article yet, the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the European Ramazzini Foundation has recently conducted a long-term study on aspartame that everyone should be aware of.
The results of this mega-experiment indicate that APM is a multipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg body weight, much less than the current acceptable daily intake. On the basis of these results, a reevaluation of the present guidelines on the use and consumption of APM is urgent and cannot be delayed.
(Emphasis mine; full paper in HTML here, PDF here)
Stay away from that shit, folks. Not only is it nasty, there's growing evidence it can really screw you up in an increasing number of ways.
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Lots of papers on both sides of the Aspartame debate here (http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/aspartame.php).
Also, 20 mg/kg per day doesn't sound like much, but for a 100-kg man (220 lbs), that's 2000 mg/day, which is more than 20 cans of diet soda. Even I don't drink that much.
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It's far from the only finding. Consider:
I think there's plenty of reason to avoid the stuff. Unfortunately, in the US we have a dual standard regarding drug and food additive approvals. Drugs can generally not be prescribed, even to people for whom they offer the only hope for relief or even live, unless proven safe. Food additives, on the other hand, can de facto generally be used pretty much freely unless and until proven to be dangerous.