Aspartame, an artificial sweetener sold to consumers under the brand-name “Equal,” can be found on tables at restaurants and in diet soda, yogurt and sometimes milk. Even though this is a no-calorie sugar substitute that many weight-conscious Americans gravitate to, the potential side effects may outweigh the calorie-free benefits.
Aspartame has been used in the United States since the early 1980s and now can be found in thousands of food products. This substitute is so popular because it is roughly 200 times sweeter than sugar, so it takes less to obtain the same level of sweetness as traditional sugar. However, researchers are suggesting that artificial sweeteners can interfere with brain chemistry and hormones that regulate appetite and satiety.
Effects of Aspartame on Consumer Health
Sugar substitutes, such as sucralose and aspartame, are more intensely sweet than sugar. The result is that healthier, less sweet foods are not as likely to be enjoyable. This would shift taste preference to higher calorie, sweeter food, according to Dana Small, a researcher at Yale.
“The sweet taste is no longer signaling energy and so the body adapts,” Small said in an interview with CBC news. “It’s no longer going to release insulin when it senses sweet because sweet now is not such a good predictor of the arrival of energy.”
The inability to predict the arrival of energy is just one issue being studied. Other researchers are studying the connection between these artificial sweeteners and obesity.
Susan Swithers, a psychology professor at Purdue University, says, “A number of epidemiological studies show that people who do consume high intensity sweeteners show differences in metabolic response, have an increased risk for things like Type 2 diabetes and also have an increased risk for overweight and obesity.” Obesity is a great concern because it is an epidemic that is sweeping America. According to the Center for Disease Control, 35.7 percent of American adults are obese and approximately 15 percent of children. What may seem like a healthy substitute may actually be facilitating this problem.
Small and Swithers agree that no longer being able to rely on the body’s built-in subconscious process for regulating eating makes it more difficult to manage weight.
Hidden Aspartame
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently allows the dairy industry to use the “unmodified milk” label for unsweetened milk and milk containing sweeteners with calories, such as high-fructose corn syrup and sugar, and is considered ‘nutritive.’
The difference between nutritive and non-nutritive substances is the presence of calories. Nutritive sweeteners are additives that can be broken down by the body and therefore contain calories. Nonnutritive cannot be broken down by the body, which allows them to be considered calorie-free.
Many consumers would not think the milk they are purchasing in the store may contain aspartame. However, chocolate and strawberry varieties often do to make the product sweeter.
The International Dairy Foods Association (IFDA) is currently petitioning the FDA to drop the requirement to label milk and other dairy products as “artificially sweetened” when they contain sweeteners such as aspartame.
The IDFA claims that allowing aspartame in milk would make it a healthier product and help reduce childhood obesity by offering milk with fewer calories and a sweet taste. The IDFA also states that school children are more inclined to drink flavored milk than unflavored milk in school.
This labeling move comes at a very critical time in the dairy industry. The consumption of milk has been steadily declining since 1975 and Tom Gallagher, CEO of Dairy Management Inc., says the industry “is coming to recognize this as a crisis.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, contributing reasons for this decline are the rise in popularity of bottled water and the concerns of some consumers that milk is high in calories. Using aspartame as an artificial sweetener would reduce the calories in milk.
Making the Decision
Comments are welcome about this proposed labeling change until May 21 to the FDA. However, many students on campus do not need that long to decide and are opposing the addition of the sweetener altogether.
“I think people should know what they are consuming, especially if it is harmful to them. Especially if they are drinking a lot of milk,” said Hannah Cox, a junior journalism major. “I think if it is in the drink, people should know. It’s like smoking —you don’t sell cigarettes after taking the cancer warning label off. It is just wrong.”
