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Sweet truth
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Dispelling myths about artificial sweeteners, saccharin has proved to be safe and popular
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SACCHARIN IS the prototype artificial sweetener. Seven hundred times sweeter than sugar, it was truly revolutionary when it first appeared on the market in 1879, but it also raised more hopes than it could fulfil.
Saccharin's metallic aftertaste made it unacceptable to many, and because it altered the weight and cooking time when substituted for sugar, it never really caught on with chefs, although some experimented with it. Its niche clientele were the diabetics and the obese, and even they threatened to desert it when some reports in the late 1970s suggested a link between bladder cancer and saccharin.
Little came of these fears and saccharin stayed in the market, but it spurred the search for other artificial sweeteners. Aspartame's advent in 1981 promised to usher in the age of safe sweeteners. Aspartame is only a third as sweet as saccharin, but that still makes it a couple of hundred times sweeter than table sugar. Open a can of diet cola and you are drinking aspartame-sweetened carbonated water. Most sugar substitutes, biscuits, and low calorie sweets marketed for diabetics are likely to contain it.
Aspartame is popular, no doubt about it. But is it safe? Yes, it is, as proved emphatically by more than a 100 studies. But questions about aspartame's safety have the repetitiveness and staying power of Laurence Olivier's "Is it safe?" line in The Marathon Man. And like Dustin Hoffmann who was at the receiving end of that question in the movie, there is nothing anyone can say or do to prove it to the satisfaction of all those legend makers on the Internet who insist on linking it to everything from cancer to multiple sclerosis.
Modern medicine's faith in aspartame's safety comes from its simple structure and our profound knowledge of how the body metabolises this molecule. Aspartame breaks down into aspartic acid, phenylalanine and minute amounts of methanol in the body. All three metabolites are widespread in the body, and common foodstuffs give rise to far greater quantities of these substances.
The few legitimate health issues with aspartame concern people with the rare genetic disease called phenylketonuria (PKU), breastfeeding women, and growing children. Phenylketonurics cannot metabolise phenylalanine, and its presence in the diet can lead to severe mental defects in growing children with this disease. Keeping aspartame out of the diet of phenylketonurics is actually part of a larger strategy of eliminating phenylalanine from their diet.
Lactating women and growing children have higher calorie needs than the rest of the population. Lack of adequate calories in the form of carbohydrate causes their bodies to break down protein for energy. The solution is to ensure adequate calorie intake from a healthful balanced diet, leaving aspartame for the occasional carbonated drink.
RAJIV. M
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