I thought I should provide some proof to my statements in a post yesterday accusing Aspartame® of breaking down into toxic methanol.
From the page:
http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661299/

From our study, it seems that fructose is not the only risk factor of liver disease, because 40% of our cohort were drinking Diet Coke sweetened with aspartame. Aspartame is absorbed from the intestine and metabolized by the liver to form phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol. This process causes mitochondrial dysfunction and ATP depletion, which contribute to accumulation of fat (29). Also, regarding obesity and aspartame, formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol accumulates in the cells and damages mitochondrial DNA, with most toxicity effects occurring in the liver. Finally, the effect of caramel colourant has been incriminated as a cause of elevated liver enzymes and may be a potential source of advanced glycation end product, which may promote insulin resistance and can be proinflammatory (5,6,20). The extent to which fructose, aspartame and caramel contributed to severe fatty liver could not be concluded due to the small size of the cohort.

Last edited by Gnarlodious (06-13-2010 11:45 pm)