Will aspartame studies prove side-effects?

A study has been commissioned by the Food Standards Agency into the sensitivity of people to the artificial sweetener aspartame. This sweetener is marketed under a number of trademark names, including Equal, NutraSweet, and Canderel, and it appears on ingredient lists either as 'aspartame' or 'E951'.

Some people have claimed that they react badly after eating or drinking products with the substance and suffer symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhoea and fatigue. The sweetener is around 200 times sweeter than sugar and is used in thousands of products including soft drinks, cereal bars, yoghurts and chewing gum.

The 18-month project is set to be led by Professor Stephen Atkin, who is the head of diabetes and endocrinology at the University of Hull.

He said, "This study is not to determine whether aspartame can be consumed safely; this has already been established by the Food Standards Agency and the European Food Safety Authority, but rather to see whether certain people are sensitive to it."

"We will look at the effects of eating a snack bar which may or may not contain aspartame in people who say they have a problem eating it and those who normally consumer foods with aspartame with no problems."

For the study, a hundred volunteers are being recruited. Half will be those who have complained about side-effects from eating products with aspartame and these will be matched by sex and age with 50 who can eat it without any problem.

In the study, individuals will be randomly assigned an aspartame or aspartame-free cereal bar and given psychological and medical checks up to four hours after consuming it. The following week, the experiment will be repeated with each volunteer receiving the other type of cereal bar. The scientists will take blood and urine samples before and after each test.

Aspartame breaks down in the digestive system into aspartic acid, methanol and phenylalanine. Some individuals believe it is these chemicals that cause their symptoms. The tests will allow scientists to link any ill effects to levels of the chemicals in the volunteers' blood and urine.

"This is a fundamental study for the people who believe they are sensitive to aspartame, because it will hopefully prove or disprove whether or not aspartame can cause problems," Prof Atkin said.

A spokeswoman for the Aspartame Information Service, an industry body, said, "Aspartame has been on the market for more than 25 years and studies have been done on it from every angle. We get more of these breakdown products from the rest of our diets than we get from aspartame. The whole anecdotal area [of sensitivity] has been looked at before, so why start another round of research? Our concern is that people might be attributing to aspartame something that might have a more serious cause."

23/09/2009

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