Dylan Smith wrote in message ...
In article , Paul G wrote:
Let's keep out of the debate over aspartame's safety. This is an
exercise in getting some primary source evidence. I just want to find
out if SWA does indeed have such a policy. Are there any crew out
there who can confirm or deny?

It sounds pretty silly on the face of it. Aspartame is consumed in vast
quantities - if it was dangerous, it'd have shown up by now.

Peanuts have been consumed in vast quantities for a long time too.
I've *never* personally known or even heard of anyone having having
any peanut allergy problems, yet we see all kinds of warnings labels
on products containing peanuts these days.

Aspartame metabolizes into 10% methyl alchohol, a potent neurotoxin,
in the human body. Methanol, as we know, then metabolizes into
formaldehyde. Nice stuff.

Here's just one of thousands of references:

TI: Neuropsychological and biochemical investigations in
heterozygotes for
phenylketonuria during ingestion of high dose aspartame (a sweetener
containing
phenylalanine).
AU: Trefz-F; de-Sonneville-L; Matthis-P; Benninger-C; Lanz-Englert-B;
Bickel-
H
SO: Hum-Genet. 1994 Apr; 93(4): 369-74
JN: HUMAN-GENETICS

"Upon ingestion, aspartame is completely metabolized to two amino
acids and
methanol (approximately 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid, and 10%
methanol)."


In the body, virtually all of the Aspartame gets metabolized thru the
liver too, it doesn't pass thru and get excreted unmetabolized like
many other chemical substances.

When Aspartame-sweetened diet sodas first became popular in the
mid-late 1980's, I drank them like crazy, until I began getting bad
"eye socket" headaches with a strange toxic feeling to them, a
hangover-like feeling a lot like after breathing lacquer thinner fumes
in a paint booth, then the bad news stories about aspartame started
emerging and I began reading all I could about it. Sure enough, I
drink two cans of diet soda, and within an hour or two... bad headache
with that characteristic toxic feeling to it. I ceased drinking these
diet sodas after learning about the methanol problem and never had
that kind of headache again, and it's been almost 15 years since I
ceased drinking diet sodas. However, I can still consume small amounts
of candy or chewing gum sweetened with aspartame and it doesn't bother
me, but I dare not drink a can of diet soda.