Artificial Sweetners Crash the Party: The Potent Toxins Strikes Many

The Party Crasher

Last December, the eight Crosby kids—no longer kids--gave a surprise birthday bash for our dear mother who was turning 39 (okay, maybe add a few decades and one to that):-

So we all arrived early to decorate the local Center where the event was to be held later that afternoon, early evening. Soon after my arrival, my six-year old nephew (maybe he’s 7 by now) started complaining that he had a headache. And it had to be a very bad headache. So bad that he did not wish to run around or play with or interact with any of his young cousins who were all scattered about the place. This was unusual scene. One I had never witnessed before. And being an auntie to more than 20 + nieces and nephews, I had seen a lot throughout the years.

We eventually told him to lie down and rest on one of the sofas in the place. But before he did, I questioned him about what he had eaten. Nothing unusual there. Then I asked him what he had drank, and he said a diet Coke.

Artificial Sweeteners, the Culprit

Ah, I said. That’s the problem. It was the diet drink. I told him he must never drink diet soft drinks. No, not ever I told him. I told him that if any one offered him one ever again, he was to tell them “No, I do not want it!”

You see, I had no doubt in my mind that it was the artificial sweetener in the diet soft drink that was the culprit and the reason he had this severe headache.

Because, in the past I too would develop severe headache after drinking a diet-anything and had subsequently given up buying diet drinks or purchasing any product that was sweetened with artificial sweeteners. No matter what the product, if it contained nutrasweet or other, the results would be the same, I would get an instant and severe headache and feel jittery, shaky and nervous.

Instant Headaches, Nervousness, the Shakes from a Potent SystemWide Toxin

This incident with my young nephew came back to mind recently after hearing my sister-in-law make a comment that diet sodas gave her headaches too.

Now, what always perplexed me about this artificial sweetener’s health threat was the fact that with diet soft drinks, when I drank them I would get headaches instantly. Not 15 minutes later but almost instantly. To me that indicated that whatever substance is in the sweetener that causes this health problem has to be a very potent one, one that accesses the bloodstream very very quickly and has a direct route to the brain and central nervous system.

In my estimation, such a potent chemical with the ability to cause such immediate detrimental effects to the health of susceptible individuals has to have some residual detrimental effects even to those who do not experience such immediate symptoms.

So why are these products still on the market and flourishing? I could guess but that is a blog for another time.

Informal Investigation from a Certifiable Sugar Addict

Being a sugar addict, I currently read a lot about sugar and its detrimental effects on health. I keep hoping that this knowledge will help me finally realize that sugar is not my friend and do something to break this addiction. Sugar Blues is an excellent read and gives a history of how sugar became such a dominant part of our diet and culture.

But here’s a page I found on a chiropractor’s site that talks a little about the dangers of the artificial sweetener aspartame. The article enlightens us about how the FDA in 1991 banned the importation of Stevia, an alternative sweetener that has been used for 100s of years in Japan with no reported adverse side effects, and gives a possible reason for this ban at the time.

Here’s the link to the article located at http://www.americanchiropractic.net/Sweeteners/sweeteners.htm

Aspartame: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You