Ok….. I’m at work drinking my Crystal Light Lemonade and my co-worker asks me what I was drinking and I told her “Crystal Light”. She takes a look at the ingredients and says “Oh it has Aspartame” and I am looking at her thinking and your point, so she says “Aspartame is bad for you, I do not drink anything with Aspartame” then another co-worker jumps in and says how bad it is. So I wondered what exactly is Aspartame and why is it bad, I was concerned. I went home and looked through all the ingredients of juices and foods I had in the house and to my surprise many of the items I consume on a daily basis had Aspartame, including my precious diet coke… ugh!

SO what is Aspartame

Aspartame (or APM) (pronounced /ˈæspərteɪm/ or /əˈspɑrteɪm/) is the name for an artificial, non-saccharide sweetener used as a sugar substitute in many foods and beverages. In the European Union, it is known under the E number (additive code) E951. Aspartame is the methyl ester of aphenylalanine/aspartic acid dipeptide. So in a nut shell its products like Splenda Equal all that stuff.

Here is a cool picture of the Aspartame components

So Why is Aspartame known to be bad?

Aspartame is known to be bad becasue supposedly breaksdown and dissolves into chemical that you body holds on to for long periods of time.

But is is really bad?

Of course anything in an excessive amount is bad for you but there has been alot of research out there that does not link aspartame to cancer or other types of diseases. The National Cancer institute even did studies to find out if aspatame was linked to cancer. Below are some key point the National Cancer institute provided on their findings.

Key Points

• A study of about half a million people, published in 2006, compared people who drank aspartame-containing beverages with those who did not. Results of the study showed that increasing levels of consumption were not associated with any risk of lymphomas, leukemias, or brain cancers in men or women. (Question 2)

• Researchers examined the relationship between aspartame intake and 1,888 lymphomas or leukemias and 315 malignant brain cancers among the participants of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study from 1995 until 2000. Development of these cancers was not associated with estimated aspartame consumption, refuting a recent animal study with positive findings for lymphomas and leukemias and also contradicting claims regarding brain cancer risk

Basically, there is no real  link between cancer and aspartame. Of course anything that is artificial is not really good for you and if you are going to have something with Aspartame just be aware of your daily intake. However, it is all a matter of opinion and this is just information I found, but live your life people, and just remember not to live in excess.