Diet Drinks Declared Unsafe . . . Well Duuhh?

By James Donahue

It appears that researchers at Harvard Medical School and the International Stroke Conference meeting in California have their heads deliberately thrust in the sand when it comes to discussing the dangers lurking in diet soft drinks.

The conference heard a report last week that Harvard researchers have found that people who drink diet drinks face a higher risk for stroke and heart attack, although they said they were unable to determine the reason.

One news report that made national headlines said: “doctors have no chemical or biological explanation for why diet soda may be risky.”

It seems to us that if those researchers really wanted to know, all they needed to do was read the list of ingredients on the side of the bottle or can of the diet soda. It has been no secret that these drinks, plus a lot of other prepared foods now available in our grocery stores, are laced with the artificial sweetener aspartame.

It is well known in medical circles that aspartame is a dangerous excitotoxin that is highly addictive, gives users a rush of dopamine that gives them a temporary “high,” while it kills brain cells and increases the risk of a stroke and heart attack.

So why would intelligent medical researchers at Harvard’s distinguished school of medicine deliver a flawed report like this to the International Stroke Conference? Could it be that they were daring to issue a veiled warning to the general public but lacking the courage to attack the real elephant in the room?

Aspartame is a product of big business, with billions of dollars at stake. A lot of people in high places went to great pains to push this product on the market and they appear to still have the power to block any adverse publicity.

Aspartame, produced under the brand names NutraSweet, Equal and Canderel, was introduced to the American market by the G. D. Searle Company in the 1960s. When the Food and Drug Administration conducted extensive testing of the sweetener and began questioning the validity of the testing reportedly conducted by Searle, the company turned to Nixon and Ford administration operative Donald Rumsfeld to save the day. Rumsfeld was elected chairman of the Searle board. Suddenly all information about the poisonous aspect of aspartame was magically swept under the rug and forgotten.

Aspartame is now a multi-billion dollar operation. The stuff is found in almost every prepared food you buy on the grocery shelf, including chewing gum, diet sodas, dairy products and even medicine. You have to hunt high and low to find products that do not include either aspartame or monosodium glutamate, or the combination of both of them.

Both aspartame and monosodium glutamate are identified as excitotoxins. That is because they “excite” brain neurons, giving people a slight rush similar to what they might get with a light dose of cocaine. Dopamine levels skyrocket so people enjoy the rush. But they also get addicted and crave more of it.

In addition to being addictive, both of these food additives are highly toxic. While we think they are giving us a mid-day boost, somewhat like a strong cup of coffee, they are busy stimulating the neural cells in our brains to death. They also have been proven to be linked to retardation in children.

All of this information is well known to medical people. Doctors have written about the dangers of these ingredients in our food chain for years. Some companies that manufacture prepared foods are beginning to advertised products that are free of monosodium glutamate, but the use of aspartame appears to continue unabated.

The bottom line: Don’t drink diet soda. And if you must consume prepared foods, read the labels carefully before you buy. You may be shocked at what you may find in the food you thought was safe.