Killing Me Softly ... With Artificial Sweeteners

They say you're supposed to remember the exact day you broke a bad habit. Well, I don't. I remember my last diet coke was on a Monday. The next day, I was off the poison for good. Could've been 3 weeks ago or coming up to 4.

You were expecting me to say something more outrageous, weren't you? A shopping addiction, perhaps? A proclivity for binge eating?  Or at the very least, cigarettes?

Chuckle, chuckle ... I'm sorry to disappoint and divulge dropping something so innocuous, but since I imbibed my very last caramel coloured, favourite 330ml drink of tinkling fizz, a number of issues have cleared up that has led me to believe that aspartame, or any form of artificial sweetener, is more dangerous than cigarettes. Small disclaimer here, in case this blog ever gets found by the Legal Eagles of the soda companies: the following information is based on my personal experiences only and only my opinions.

What, what, you say. A number of issues have cleared up? From a shiny can of diet soda? The stuff that can fill you up, quench your thirst and is a fave alcohol mixer to boot? It's friendly, versatile and even cleans toilets! All that at practically zero calories ... oh wait up ... even that bit of marketing is a lie. Drinks can marketed as 'less than 1 calorie' if in fact they are 4 calories or less.

We all know that sodas are bad. Everyone's pretty clued up that even the diet stuff is not the best stuff to chug down our golden pipes on a regular basis. Will one soda a day kill you? Probably not. But as with all habitual use of something artificial, the effects are cumulative over the years, and the damage is done so slowly that it can easily be passed off as the aging process.

In my little experiment so far (I will never touch the stuff again) I've come to realize that humans are not supposed to put things down to aging and feel as crap as we do these days. It is perfectly possible to feel young, healthy and vital into the 80s and beyond. There's plenty of people out there to attest to it, but they are in the minority. It literally depends on your diet. As the often-quoted Hippocrates said, 'Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.' I believe him. He had better food in those days too - real food. It really was medicine. Gotta love the Greeks - I swear they introduced the concept of common sense into the world. It wasn't there before and quite possibly, it hasn't been around much since.

Now onto the nitty gritty. The reason why any artificial sweetener is so lethal is because, well it's artificial. We might have 21st century brains but our DNA hasn't caught up yet. So anything that is artificial, the body simply doesn't know how to digest.

Case in point for me was diet cokes. I used to drink lots and lots, especially at uni. Since uni, I would say it's a one a day habit. Plus the odd bit of chewing gum here and there. Yes, aspartame is contained in that stuff too. Sugar-free lollipops, condiments, sauces, soups, cheap vitamins, you name it. Buy anything packaged then you better read the ingredients label. No doubt, our life-sucking friend is listed. Was it going to send me to an early grave? I believe so. Another week on the stuff and I feel I would've ended up in hospital or perhaps dropped dead of a sudden heart attack jogging on my neighbourhood track. I had all the symptoms of aspartame poisoning. Well, several of them - let me not dramatize in my usual theatrical way. There's 92 symptoms in total. Addictions are insidious things: even if you feel you have it under control and it's not that bad, you begin to accept a certain level of crappiness as normal. Before I get into all that, let me break down the biology of aspartame.

When you take a swig of diet coke, diet pepsi, coke zero, chew some Trident, whatever is your poison of choice, the aspartame is metabolically impossible for the body to digest. Instead, it goes straight to the bloodstream where its molecular structure is composed of 3 components (I am reluctant to say amino acids): 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid and 10% methanol (wood alcohol). Lovely stuff wood alcohol. People die from that. Fruit also contains methanol, which is any soda company's rebuttal about this particular component. However, in fruit, where methanol is present, it is bonded firmly to pectin, which neutralizes the methanol. Back to soda's methanol (or chewing gum's methanol or your diet salad dressing): in the body, methanol then gets broken down into formaldehyde (oh more lovely stuff) and formic acid.

Now formaldehyde, an embalming fluid, it goes without saying, is known to cause cancer, accumulating slowly without detection until it is too late. That's sad. Really this stuff is the most evil product on the face of the universe. Formaldehyde is super dangerous for its ability to kill you slowly and in various ways. Forget the cancer for now. It's a neurotoxin (kills off brain cells), it particularly has a dastardly attraction to the retinas, choking off their blood supply, causing blindness at most and vision deterioration at best. It interferes with DNA production. Fucks up neural and vision development for babies. Pregnant women are not allowed to drink soda for the birth defects they cause.

What does the body do with this formaldehyde? Well, it can't metabolize it. So it stores it, namely in the liver where the stuff eventually embalms the liver and stops it from doing its job. It's also stored in various other organs of the body, where the body has no option but to retain water (edema) to protect those vital organs.

Let's move onto formic acid. Formic acid is like a paint stripper. Ugh. Doesn't sound nice. What this delightful compound does is reduce oxygen metabolism. Oxygen metabolism is needed by the brain to make healthy decisions and keep your heart beating. It's another neurotoxin to add to the list. Chronic exposure to formic acid will cause eventual liver damage or kidney failure. Animals can metabolize formic acid better than us humans. That's the flaw in animal testing, you see.

Next: phenylalanine and aspartic acid (a tongue twister right there). Totally neurotoxic. Enough said.

Now the overall compound called Asparatame, according to Ralph G. Walton (and I am quoting here, so read this link for the full story: click me ) says that it is "a psycho drug that alters brain chemistry." Re-read those words for maximum impact, please. Click. Got it? A 'psycho drug' he said.

"The dipeptide component of the molecule can alter brain chemistry, significantly changing the ratio of catecholamines to indolamines, with resultant lowering of seizure threshold, production of carbohydrate craving and in vulnerable individuals leading to panic, depressive and cognitive symptoms."    

 

What this means in layman's terms is that your brain chemistry is transformed - and not for the better - you are more susceptible to seizures (there are 4 different types and this includes them all, epileptic, grand mal, petit mal and something else), you crave more carbohydrates than you normally would (blast you diet coke and it's marketed at assisting in weight loss 'as part of a calorie controlled diet' - well that blows if the stuff makes you crave sugar, grains and starches) and for some unlucky folks they wander around under a black cloud of malaise, depression, fatigue, cloudy thinking, lack of zest and so forth. Basically, your life seems like it sucks and you can't get out of the funk. Work suffers, relationships suffer, health suffers, energy levels decline, ergo you suffer.

Anybody fancy a diet soda now? Or a stick of sugar-free gum?

Futhermore, aspartame messes up the delicate balance of serotonin (the happy neurotransmitter) and norepinephrine (a very important neurotransmitter).

I could get into the mechanics of all that, but that would make this post far too long. Aspartame has also had a dodgy history in being approved and released onto the market. I won't get into that either. Everything is searchable on the web.

I will add another crucial bit on the disasters of artificial sweeteners: they mess up your ability to process protein, carbohydrates and fat. Not immediately of course, but cumulatively over the years. The liver is abused eventually, embalmed in formaldehyde so, naturally, it won't be working with utmost efficiency. Diet coke as harsh as it is (2.7 on the acidity scale, right next to battery fluid) will razor the intestinal villi which protects the intestines. Without that, holes are poked through the intestines, leading to leaky gut. It wrecks havoc with gut flora reducing it dramatically and increases the pH level of your intestines. Once that happens your body is open to an avalanche of autoimmune disorders. More on that on another post. But the two things I want you to take away from this paragraph are:

1. Artificial sweeteners will eventually make you fat and pave the way for a metabolic disorder.
2. If you have an existing stomach condition (Crohn's, Celiac, or if you simply don't produce enough hydrochloric acid) then you are asking for stomach cancer. Please stop ingesting this stuff.

What I want to elucidate on, right now, are the benefits since quitting the poison. But first let's start with the poisoning effects I was suddenly experiencing a mere month ago, over the course of several weeks. Some of them had been around for years, but like I said, it's all cumulative and things just got worse suddenly:

• Blurred vision
• Insomnia
• Fatigue - oh, so awful was that fatigue
• Foggy brain
• Slowed reflexes
• Lack of concentration
• Spots and floaty things dancing before my eyes if my eyes lost focus
• Muscle weakness
• Stiff neck and shoulders
• Foot pain - I had to stop wearing high heels.
• Hair loss
• Particularly dry hair
• Brittle nails
• Sudden breathlessness - that was scary
• Endless dizziness
• Constant hunger - which is so annoying. Who wants to be hungry all the time?
• Dry mouth
• Metallic taste in my mouth
• Constant thirst
• Heart palpitations - yes, erm ... bit of a red flag there

I think that's about it. I can't remember them all. Now onto the benefits. Every single day there is an improvement! It is truly remarkable!

• Softer hair!!! I am loving this! No more dry, crackly ends.
• Hair regrowth - bit all over the place at the moment. I've never been blessed with a clean hairline.
• Stronger nails
• Clearer, blackhead free skin. Yaay!
• Pigmentation clearing (for sure aspartame must wreck havoc with female hormones: estrogen and progesterone, upsetting that delicate balance and you will get pigmentation).
• Effortless weightloss. I haven't decreased in weight apart from losing 2 kilos. I haven't changed anything else. But every single day I am losing water retention. Especially that barrel chest which is so prevalent in people with edema.
• Back fat going. Again, another edema-epidemic-side-effect. So unattractive to the hilt!
• Toe nails even seem, I don't know, shiny and happy, cute little things on my feet.
• Hunger has decreased, which I like.
• The old ticker is working perfectly fine; and the sudden bouts of breathlessness went immediately
• Dizziness took about 2 weeks to leave but now it's gone
• Reflexes are coming back.
• I forgot I was such a good driver. I lost my edge, without realizing. The steering wheel is back to being an extension of me. Angles just automatically calculated without conscious thought. It feels good to be back on form again.
• Dry mouth, metallic taste, constant thirst - gone. I can actually have a cigarette without needing liquid. I could do never do that before. Another disclaimer: bearing in mind this is supposed to be a health blog, yes I will quit cigs too. It's all about the journey! Let's make it together peeps! ;-)
• Clarity of thought
• Concentration is back
• My memory has improved
• Speech - less long pauses between words as my neurotoxic brain frantically searches for my trail of thought, or a forgotten word
• Confidence. That's improved. Self-belief. That's improved too. Putting down boundaries without being a bitch
• Insomnia improved
• Longer lashes
• Plumper, redder lips
• Whiter teeth. I smoke, so I anxiously check tar stains at the back of my teeth all the time and whizz religiously for a cleaning every 4 months or so. Tar stains have practically gone. How mysterious. So diet coke was more of a culprit for teeth stains than cigs.
• Teeth feel stronger
• Instant orgasms. 'Nuff said.
• Super soft skin (like rose petals!)
• More of that burning desire to focus on me, stay home and do my thing: this can only be viewed as a good thing
• I can wear high heels again
• Even my feet have slimmed down - my shoes feel more comfortable; fancy that!

The interesting thing about us humans is that we are masochistic. The brain is a remarkable organ. So tiny. Yet so powerful. I've known for years that diet cokes and cigarettes were setting me up for an early death. I could feel it. I masked and rebooted with strong supplements - amino acids, minerals and vitamins. I felt better here and there. But the simple things to regain health: I didn't and haven't completely done. Masochistic. We are all addicts in some shape or form. It's human nature to destroy ourselves one way or another. Be it toxic relationships, toxic food, toxic habits. There's always toxicity lurking about in everyone.

When you're feeling crap, deep down, you know the exact reason why. Your body, mind, that powerful brain, heart and soul always reveals the truth. You know what's going on if you know yourself well enough to just stop and listen to the whispers of fleeting, rational, conscious thought that often pops out of nowhere. That primal gut instinct will always tell you the truth. Then the truth will set you free from whatever pain it is you are hell-bent on inflicting to yourself. You will only listen when you are ready to listen. Until then, your own ego will delude you ... endlessly so.

That is why I won't remember the day I quit aspartame and all artificial sweeteners. There's nothing to remember about those days.

In love and light,
Juicy Lucy xxx