New Study Questions Aspartame Safety - NewsGrabs 6 April 2008

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NewsGrabs

Health Supreme's NewsGrabs - a selection of contrary and underprivileged news in health and a wide range of (mostly) related sectors. Find what trends you may have missed - watch out for the weekly News Grabs.

Here is this week's selection for you:

Review raises questions over aspartame and brain health
Excessive intake of aspartame may inhibit the ability of enzymes in the brain to function normally, suggests a new review that could fan the flames of controversy over the sweetener.

The review, by scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo and published recently in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, indicated that high consumption of the sweetener may lead to neurodegeneration.

The researchers found a number of direct and indirect changes that occur in the brain as a result of high consumption levels of aspartame, leading to neurodegeneration. They found aspartame can disturb the metabolism of amino acids, protein structure and metabolism, the integrity of nucleic acids, neuronal function and endocrine balances. It also may change the brain concentrations of catecholamines, which include norepinephrine, epinephrine and domapine.

Additionally, they said the breakdown of aspartame causes nerves to fire excessively, which can indirectly lead to a high rate of neuron depolarisation.

The researchers added: "The energy systems for certain required enzyme reactions become compromised, thus indirectly leading to the inability of enzymes to function optimally.

"The ATP stores [adenosine triphosphate] in the cells are depleted, indicating that low concentrations of glucose are present in the cells, and this in turn will indirectly decrease the synthesis of acetylcholine, glutamate and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)."

Furthermore, the functioning of glutamate as an excitatory neurotransmitter is inhibited as a result of the intracellular calcium uptake being altered, and mitochondria are damaged, which the researchers said could lead to apoptosis (cell death) of cells and also a decreased rate of oxidative metabolism.

Critics of aspartame have been saying as much for years, but it is nice to see an actual study published that confirms.

Perhaps our government agencies could start asking themselves whether it isn't time to "review the available evidence"?

For anyone interested in the dirty details, here is a PDF of the actual study.

Micronutrients, education keys to end hunger: study
Governments could take a big step towards ending world hunger by spending just $1.2 billion a year in developing nations on dietary supplements and education about the food needs of babies, a study showed on Friday.

Such targeted spending to help a billion of the poorest people in Africa and Asia could save millions of lives and bring annual economic benefits of more than $15 billion in lower health bills and longer and more productive lives, it said.

From time to time, officials realize that nutrients would be very positive for people who don't have enough of them, but then normally, nothing gets done.

Now since most starving people need food, what about teaching them how to grow their own vegetables in a sustainable way? Give them a plot of land and some seeds to start with and watch them take care of their families' nutritional needs.

Video: Food Matters: 'Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine' - Hippocrates
This is a trailer of a film to be released soon...
The focus of the film is in helping us rethink the belief systems fed to us by our modern medical and health care establishments. Our teachers point out that not every problem requires costly, major medical attention and reveal many alternative therapies that can be more effective, more economical, less harmful and less invasive.

Action - Sign Petition: Help protect natural baby food and anthroposophic medicine
(From the European Alliance of Initiatives for Applied Anthroposophy / ELIANT)
"The European Parliament and bureaucracy has decided that things like Weleda and Wala medicines and Biodynamic babyfoods and such like are too small a market for special laws of protection to be made for them, and instead are demanding they fit into laws made for synthetic products to protect the population from poor quality.

For example a perfectly good Biodynamic babyfood company has been put out of business by being forced to put synthetic vitamins into its packs, when the food already had more natural vitamins than the EU standards. Hence the people who want good quality babyfood stopped buying it.

This is a direct and immediate threat to freedom of choice throughout Europe and after that the rest of the world. This will affect Biodynamic and organic agriculture, perfectly good scientific alternative anthroposophic medicines, Waldorf/Steiner education and other initiatives coming specially from the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. 80 years of most fruitful work for humanity is being seriously threatened..."

(After filling out your details and sending, you will receive a confirmation email. You must respond to that email to be counted!)

Country doctor cures cancer - with baking soda & maple syrup

Mix one part baking soda with three parts maple syrup in a small saucepan.
Stir briskly.
Heat for five minutes.
Take one teaspoon daily, as needed.

Note by by Healing Cancer Naturally: Make sure to use only aluminium-free baking soda

Interesting. Maple syrup gets gobbled up by cancer cells (they need sugar for their metabolism) and the baking soda that's bound with it then does its work which, according to Italian oncologist Simoncini, is to shrink tumors.

Salmonella Bacteria Fights Cancer
Neil Forbes of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has received a four-year grant of more than $1 million from the National Institutes of Health to research killing cancer tumors with Salmonella bacteria. Forbes turns the bacteria into tiny terminator robots that use their own flagella to venture deep into tumors where conventional chemotherapy can’t reach. Once in place, the bacteria manufacture drugs that trigger cancer cells to kill themselves.

Perhaps an indication that we should re-think our relation with bacteria and other microbes? We have been on an all-out war on bacteria for well over a century now, and it has only got us in trouble. Think anti-biotic resistant germs and systemic candida overgrowth. We blame a mysterious virus for AIDS and fear the mighty chicken flu. It's all good business, but is it useful?

Hundreds of germs in soil eat up antibiotics
Antibiotics are supposed to kill bacteria, not feed them. Yet Harvard University researchers have discovered hundreds of germs in soil that literally gobble up antibiotics, able to thrive with the potent drugs as their sole source of nutrition.

...the work explains why the soil does not harbor big antibiotic buildups despite use of the drugs in livestock plus human disposal and, well, excretion, too.

"Thank goodness we have those bacteria to eat at least some of the antibiotics," said bacteriologist Jo Handelsman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the study. "Nature's pretty effective."

Action: Amalgams pose no risk to human health, EU report says
The report was prepared by the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) and is made up of external experts. (PDF of report here)

Mercury is bad in the environment where it should be eliminated, but it's quite ok to have it in your mouth! So much for scientific committees on health.

"The committee behind the report consists of seven members. In this group four of them are dentists, and they have all declared, that they have connections with the dental industry."

Scientists have expressed their opposition to the report. You can sign a protest here.

Autism's Simmering Controversy
As a baby, Austin Pope seemed to be developing normally -- even at an advanced pace, saying 75 words at 18 months. But a month after getting five vaccines in one day, an unusually high number at the time, Austin began regressing, said his mother, Janet Pope of Crestwood. One morning, he woke up with a stiff neck and just flopped in her arms. Ultimately, he stopped talking, stopped making eye contact and retreated into the world of autism.

Ex-drug salesman: We lured docs with gifts
“We were the beautiful people,” Shahram Ahari, a former Eli Lilly “drug detailer,” told a group of Boston University medical students last week. Ahari, who spent two years promoting drugs such as Prozac and Zyprexa, is telling the medical students what to watch out for when the sales reps come calling. He is working with The Prescription Project, a group fighting the impact of pharmaceutical marketing on physicians’ prescription decisions.