When I was 52, I had a "sudden death" heart attack.  When I arrested I was fortunately in the ER.   I had an emergency angioplasty.  The strange part were my symptoms.  For six months before the heart attack, I was coughing violently!   I coughed 24/7 and went through a battery of tests.   At that time I was heavily using aspartame.   My hands and feet were swollen and tingly.  Until I read this article, I never realized the connection but experienced the same conditions described by the first person.  The cough disappeared after the heart attack and although I did lots of on-line research to try and determine was caused it, I never did.

I've been off of aspertame for about 5 years and often use stevia to sweeten my foods.  I am also a type II diabetic.   I am now 61, I've lost 65 pounds, my A1C is 6.4 and my blood pressure in 110/60.   I walk every day and try to eat only non processed foods.   Sometimes when I am at a restaurant and all they have in Aspertame, I noted that even occasionally using 2 packets will cause me to feel headachy, bloated and depressed.

Well now, keep the different "colored" sweetener packs straight. The BLUE pack is aspartame and has been proven in many lab studies to cause cancer and brain damage. The YELLOW pack is Splenda and is 3/4 industrialized chlorine. Chlorine is  also a known carcinogen.  The PINK pack is saccharin, and I consider this the lesser of the sweetener evils - saccharin has never caused cancer in humans. The cancer warning has been lifted from the packets because it IS the safest of the three colored packets.