Has anyone encountered criticism about using sugar substitutes post surgery? With the whole "aspartame causes cancer.." etc etc argument?

A friend sent me a website a few weeks ago and posted this on her facebook, which basically summed up the article

"Drink diet soda? Artificial sweeteners? Anything containing aspartame? I would stop now. It used to be on the biochemical warfare list, took decades to be FDA approved, it's an excitotoxin that causes brain cell and receptor site death which causes neurological disease. When exposed to temps over 85 degrees it is converted into formaldehyde. Your body temp is 98.5 degrees. And to top it all off it is a leading cause of obesity due to increasing the body's insulin resistance and deteriorating healthy tissue to form sugars to give the nutritional component that aspartame lacks. No joke. How do you feel about diet soda now? I'll stick to the real stuff with real sugar thanks!" She's in school in Toronto for health medicine type courses and they covered this topic

I get flack everyday for diet coke or crystal lite etc. Do any of you get the same? Any suggestions on how to deal with this?

Meh, I have seen these type of scare emails etc for the past several years. I'm really disappointed that Toronto universities are basically spreading false information that has been debunked years ago. It's basically the equivalent of sending someone an email and telling them that if they forward it to 100 people they'll get a free iPod. Remember those?

Wikipedia says this: "In 1987, the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that the food additive approval process had been followed properly for aspartame. In spite of this, critics such as activist Betty Martini^[6] have promoted undocumented claims that numerous health risks (such as multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus, methanol toxicity, blindness, spasms, shooting pains, seizures, headaches, depression, anxiety, memory loss, birth defects and death^[7]) are associated with the consumption of aspartame in normal doses. These health risk claims have been examined and debunked by numerous scientific research projects, and are also generally dismissed by governments and major health and food safety organizations."

Publicity of this controversy has been spread through an elaborate health scare^[10] and "Internet smear campaign"^[11] involving hoax^[10][11][12] e-mails repeating Betty Martini's widely circulated conspiracy theory. Her undocumented claims are still repeated by thousands of self-published Web sites.

Aspartame has been found to be safe for human consumption by more than ninety countries worldwide,^[13][14] with FDA officials describing aspartame as "one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved" and its safety as "clear cut".^[4] The weight of existing scientific evidence indicates that aspartame is safe as a non-nutritive sweetener.^[8]

I have arthritis and should not use products with Aspartame. I only use Sweet-N-Low it doesn't contain Aspartame.

Oh awesome, thanks for the responses! I have read a few things debunking the cancer causing agent etc etc, but then you read something that says it causes all of these things so I often flip flop back and forth wondering which is the one I should be believing? I guess it's similar to the margarine vs butter argument? Every time I read a new article I flip flop in my mind of which I should be using!

That's interesting, I didn't know that. Why do they say no aspartame if you have arthritis? How does it affect it?

I get a headache when I have anything containing aspertame so I avoid it for that reason. Fortunately, there are LOTS of alternatives. Nectresse is a good one - made from monk fruit, Truvia/Stevia, Splenda, etc. are pretty easy to find. And many sugar-free products now offer aspertame free options. Crystal Light has a fairly new line, Crystal Light Pure, which is sweetened with Truvia. The popular Torani sugar-free syrups are sweetened with Splenda. You should be able to avoid certain artificial sweetners if you want to

I will keep my eye out for the new Crystal Light line! Although we don't get everything in Canada so I may have to take a little trip to the states to stock up on some Vitamins and other options!

I am addicted to diet coke and thus aspartame so I don't know if I get headaches from aspartame... but I do know I get them if I don't have it. This will NOT be fun cutting the addiction... I've started cutting down though... I have 3 months to stop the diet coke completely... I think I need a 12 step program lol

I cut diet coke cold turkey when I hit my pre op diet. I did NOT want to stop drinking it, I was so addicted! I never thought I'd be able to do it. But other than a few days of headaches from the caffeine withdrawals (I don't drink coffee) it wasn't so bad. I am not craving it now. I only got the aspartame from the diet coke though, other than that my preferred sweetener is Splenda or erythritol. I can't buy Truvia in Canada and I don't like straight stevia.

The week I went without diet coke I think it was hellish for 4 days and got better after that. Was there anything you did that eased the headaches? I know extra strength Advil didn't touch them at all or did you just have to ride it out and wait for it to go away on its own ? I was on a boat in the middle of the ocean lol so I didn't have much I could try!

Right now am like you before, hoping I can stop, but really don't see it happening without having zero choice at the time of surgery.

This is my favorite sugar substitute:

EZ Sweetz

It's basically liquid sucralose. Like nearly straight liquid sucralose. It's stronger than anything you're going to get at the grocery store. One drop is as sweet as a teaspoon of sugar and because it's liquid? Zero carbs. So while you'll get about 1g of carb per packet with stuff like splenda, nutrasweet, etc, you get nothing with this and it really does taste just like sugar.

While the 3 pack is pretty expensive it lasts forever. I've had it for about 2 months and I've not even used up one bottle and I use it in tea, in shakes, in yogurt...

Best stuff ever.

Stevia is the most natural sugar substitute. It does have a bit of an after taste, but it's very sweet. I highly recommend staying away from artificial sweeteners. The world artificial says it all.

This is my favorite sugar substitute:

EZ Sweetz

It's basically liquid sucralose. Like nearly straight liquid sucralose. It's stronger than anything you're going to get at the grocery store. One drop is as sweet as a teaspoon of sugar and because it's liquid? Zero carbs. So while you'll get about 1g of carb per packet with stuff like splenda, nutrasweet, etc, you get nothing with this and it really does taste just like sugar.

While the 3 pack is pretty expensive it lasts forever. I've had it for about 2 months and I've not even used up one bottle and I use it in tea, in shakes, in yogurt...

Best stuff ever.

Where did you find this?

It's available through Amazon and eligible for free super saver shipping. If you click the link in my post it will take you right to the page.

This is the one I use:

http://sweetzfree.com/

Same thing as Ez Sweetz, a small bottle will last you a long time since you only use drops at a time. They're quite concentrated.

(For the caffeine headaches, I don't remember if I tried to take anything to ease them. I would think the only thing that would really ease them is caffeine!)

I'm over 4 months post op and I quit diet soda on my preop diet, after my full liquid stage I stopped using artificial sweetener including crystal light, etc. as soon as I did I lost 15 pounds, I now use stevia and drink coffee and iced tea . The only artificial substitute I use is my sf vanilla creamer in my coffee. Stevia is great and I enjoy it. My brother who is in this nutrition field and personal training always gives me great information and he always seems to be right with what he says, since I don't have a nut, he's the one I go to for help.

How was quitting the diet coke for you? I am just having my first one of the day (far better than before) and it's 4:30pm. I could seriously fall asleep sitting up at work, and in my line of work, lets say that's not the safest! I'm wondering if I should just quit cold turkey or if I should continue weening myself off of it? Am i just prolonging the pain/tiredness and headaches?

How was quitting the diet coke for you? I am just having my first one of the day (far better than before) and it's 4:30pm. I could seriously fall asleep sitting up at work' date=' and in my line of work, lets say that's not the safest! I'm wondering if I should just quit cold turkey or if I should continue weening myself off of it? Am i just prolonging the pain/tiredness and headaches?[/quote']

I quit cold turkey and I hate it now. It's disgusting to me. I love coffee to wake up now. You have to do it what's best for you, but IMHO, I quit cold turkey because I felt if I didn't it would never happen: u can do it, trust me, it was like Water to me.