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Aspartame In Infant Rhesus Monkeys

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In addition to the scientific, non-lethal hydrolyzed metabolites of aspartame, series of tests have been done over two decades on humans and animals to investigate the safety of aspartame. Over 23 years, the FDA has tested and affirmed the safety of aspartame throughout 200 studies . Furthermore, the product is used in more than 100 countries and 100 million people around the world . In addition to the FDA studies, the American Dietetic Association, the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) of the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization, the Scientific Committee on Food and the European Union (SCF), and other regulatory agencies worldwide have reviewed and approved the safety of aspartame . The most recent …show more content…

However the 52-week toxicity in infant monkeys and the 2010 Swiss mice studies has provided pivotal, contradictory evidence to the aspartame debate. Dr. Waisman at the University of Wisconsin Medical Center located in Madison Wisconsin initiated the 52-week toxicity study in infant monkeys in 1971 . This study orally served Aspartame mixed in milk formula to seven infant Rhesus monkeys over a 52-week period . Waisman put the monkeys into three groups: a low dose group (1.0 g/kg), a medium dose group (3.0 g/kg) and a high dose group (4-6 g/kg) . There was no control group, meaning there was not a group of newborn monkeys that were not fed aspartame. Since monkeys are primates similar to humans—with only a 1.2 percent genetic difference—monkeys were chosen to study the effects of aspartame on primates. Data shows that one monkey from the high dosage group died over 300 days, five of seven suffered grad mal seizures in the low dose group starting on the 218th day of treatment, and all monkeys in the medium and high dose groups exhibited seizures . According to data, the seizures coincided with the levels of phenylalanine . One should note that in the low dose group there was not a significant increase in serum phenylalanine levels; therefore, convulsions were not expected . Overall, the findings of this study correlated brain seizures with high amounts of aspartame particularly phenylalanine ingested by the monkeys, but at low dosages no biologically meaningful alterations occurred . In addition, the study reported food intake and growth rate were reduced when compared to the historical range . (This data can be studied in figures two to four .) Though the evidence of this study correlates aspartame with brain seizures, the FDA still approved aspartame for human consumption. This is because there are issues with the studies sample size and procedures. The study did not use a large sample of

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