Asparatame controversy hits the NY TIMES Fan.

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February 21, 2006

Editorial

The Safety of Aspartame Aspartame, an artificial sweetener used by more

than 200 million people around the world, has passed numerous safety evaluations

in the past quarter-century. It is used as a tabletop sweetener (Equal,

NutraSweet) and as an ingredient in more than 6,000 processed foods, including

diet sodas, desserts, candy and yogurt, among others. But now comes a

provocative if inconclusive report that says aspartame may cause cancer, even at

levels long considered safe. There is no reason for panic, but surely good

reason for regulatory authorities to look again at this much-studied sweetener.

The new alarm was raised by a large study in laboratory rats conducted at the

European Ramazzini Foundation in Italy. The study found a statistically

significant increase in lymphomas, leukemias and other cancers in rats that were

fed aspartame for a lifetime and compared with rats that were not. Excess

cancers were found even in rats fed doses equal to 20 milligrams per kilogram of

body weight, well below the 50-milligram level currently deemed acceptable for

humans in the United States. If these results hold up under further scrutiny,

the guidelines will need re-evaluation.

 

Please read the entire article as:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/opinion/21tues4.html

 

 

 

" Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest

of life by the power of the spirit. " - Aurobindo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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