Sharing Sweet Information: Is aspartame, neotame, or advantame harmful? We don't know, but secrecy certainly is.
IS ASPARTAME, NEOTAME, OR ADVANTAME HARMFUL? WE DON’T
KNOW, BUT SECRECY CERTAINLY IS.
Many people will know of aspartame, fewer perhaps will
have heard of neotame or advantame. This is because neither of these substances
usually shows on the labels of foods or drinks.
What they have in common is phenylalanine as the
active ingredient. Neotame is a concentrated derivative of aspartame; advantame
is a mixture of aspartame and vanillin.
The safety of aspartame has come into question many
times since the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) first approved it in 1974,
and with good reasons, which we will come to. It is disingenuous for the NHS
website to claim it is giving The truth
about aspartame and undermining to describe serious scientific challenges as scare stories.
This has
become a serious and disturbing issue. It follows on from the August statement
of 2016, relating to the Sugary Drinks Industry Levy (known as the sugar tax),
which made clear that a key part of the
government’s childhood obesity strategy (is) to promote diet drinks – and such an approach to be extended to the
entire food and drinks industry.
The deliberate promotion of artificially sweetened
products to children, under the banner as ‘healthy’ and ‘better for’ has put
professionals across several disciplines, who welcome moves to address obesity,
in a difficult position.
Respected studies have identified an association with
sweeteners and long-term effects (an increased risk of obesity and type II diabetes) that are directly counter to the objectives of this policy, and which,
therefore, bring into question any justification for their promotion.
In addition, but by no means least of the objections
is the green light given to an escalation in the use of phenylalanine as an
isolate (that is, separate from the protein in which it is naturally present) –
as in aspartame, neotame and advantame. And, as there is no monitoring of
neotame and advantame, and schools are advised to follow government guidelines
in procuring and providing food and drinks in school, it is a real fear that
these substances could be imposed on our schoolchildren.
I will try to avoid repeating much of what is covered
elsewhere (a link to other Pulse articles is given at the end of this piece).
Firstly, it must be emphasized that there is no
dispute about the fact that phenylalanine causes mental retardation when, at
raised blood levels or ratios, it crosses the blood brain barrier. This we know
from study of a genetic condition called phenylketonuria (PKU), of whom 1 in
10,000 are sufferers, and for whom a strict dietary regime is instigated soon
after birth: damage is far greater in
the developing brain of a child than in an adult.
The effects of phenylalanine, when consumed as an
isolate, are not known: phenylalanine never
exists naturally in isolation. The complex interrelationships of metabolic
and neurological pathways leaves unanswered, as yet, the precise mechanism by which phenylalanine causes mental retardation in untreated PKU. This is key. Until more is known,
phenylalanine cannot be ‘proved to be safe’.
In spite of the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority)
review of 2013 cited on the NHS website, controversy persists regarding
phenylalanine. The conclusion of ‘safe’ within acceptable daily intakes (*ADIs)
is disputed: attempts to evaluate safety, based on Mode of Action and
weight-of-evidence analysis remain inadequate, largely, though not totally,
because of reasons given in the previous paragraph. NOAEL (no
observed-adverse-effect-level) at higher than ADIs, does not reassure. Even if
it were ethical to use children as the cohort, how would one determine whether
the potential intelligence of a child had been affected?
*Discussion of ADIs is barely appropriate, given the
premise of ‘safety’, but the absurdity of the situation is further illustrated
by the fact that estimates of intakes are admittedly flawed: it is not possible to match all food categories in
the consumption database. All toppings and coatings are excluded on this
basis. (Note the review was on aspartame only. Neotame and advantame were not
considered. We have no knowledge of where the quantities of neat neotame/newtame
sold on eBay, for example, ends up.) Incidentally, the review used consumption
data from 17 European countries; none was available from the UK for children
and yet the UK is the only one, of which I am currently aware, that has
instigated a policy to specifically promote sweeteners to children.
Whatever the level of risk may be, it is my choice to
avoid aspartame – use of phenylalanine
as an isolate – and most definitely not to impose any level of risk on a child.
This, until 2010, I could do because aspartame
will appear on food and drink labels.
Aspartame has drawbacks for food manufacturers in that
it is unstable at high temperatures and not suitable for use in many baked
products. Neotame on the other hand is stable and its use can be widespread.
The problem for consumers is that neotame does not need to appear on the label
and consequently any choice to avoid phenylalanine, as an isolate, has been
taken away.
Similarly, advantame does not have to be declared. In
2014, before the approval for its general use (food production, table-top
product or in powdered beverages) there was an opportunity for comments. One
was an objection to its use without declaration on the food label. The
objection was dismissed on the grounds that this
comment is not relevant to the safety of advantame.
The position regarding evidence of safety versus
evidence of harm is made clear in the words of the Food and Drug Administration
once we make a finding of safety, the
burden shifts to an objector, who must come forward with evidence that calls
into question our conclusion (see section 409(f)(1) of the FD &C Act).
It is little comfort that we use EU legislation not US.
It is much of the same ‘evidence’ that is considered, and it may take a little
longer to come through (neotame was approved for use in the US in 2002 and 2010
in the EU), but the result is usually the same. Extra caution will be needed if
a US trade deal is negotiated that uses the US proposal reported by Arthur
Neslen in the Guardian, 1/5/16, that would allow employees of companies such as BASF, Nestle and Coca Cola to sit on –
and sometimes lead – national delegations on food safety issues.
Secrecy about the use of neotame
and advantame is one thing; undisclosed use is legal. Lobbying for silence is
quite another.
The August 2016 statement refers to the support from
public health organisations for the tax
on sugary drinks and reformulation,
and promises that the public and experts will
have a say.
True reformulation of products
would be welcomed, but that is not what is happening: sugar is being replaced
with sweeteners. Delegates at the ‘Food Matters Live’ event in November 2016
were from the food industry and health organisations, and yet simple questions
about the exclusion of sweeteners from the levy were interrupted and blocked on
the grounds of being too technical. I
was one, asking questions – and denied answers (I have a background in both
dietetics and health policy but am retired: I have no position to protect; no
need for public funding to survive; I am resistant to bullying).
Enabling healthy behaviour is complex. This damaging
aspect of the childhood obesity strategy undermines all other efforts: low
implementation costs (helped by low cost, high benefits commercially) have been
considered in favour of true health benefits. It worsens, rather than doing
anything to redress, the vast amount of poor and misinformation being pedaled
across media, accessible to all ages.
Time to demand transparency.
Pamela Gardner
September 2017
Link to related Pulse articles
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