New Book By Dr. Hull!

Splenda^®: Is It Safe Or Not?
Dr. Janet Hull reveals the scientific evidence strongly suggesting the chemical sweetener sucralose may harm your body. Visit Is Splenda Safe.com for more information!

Artificial Sweeteners Create An Artificial Need

By Dr. Janet Starr Hull

People forget that originally, sweetness was actually a by-product of food: nature’s way to encourage living creatures to consume nutritious foods. Forced sweetness, revved-up sweetness, and artificial sweetness - all altered foods - are a trap that addict people to sweeter tastes. 

Artificial sweeteners are marketed as  “being super-sized with more sweetness and no penalty.” People with eating disorders, children who are first learning about healthy food habits, diabetics and those with degenerative illnesses are being seduced by crafty advertising campaigns.  “And the added plethora of laboratory chemicals are entirely unnecessary to put in the public food supply,” says Kelly Goyen, CEO of Empirical Labs.

It’s time to admit that there is no free ticket to eating all the sugar-free products you desire without paying the high price of harming your body in the long run.  The “technology of foods” (artificial sweeteners and manmade foods) has gone too far, and will not secure eternal health, beauty, slimness, or youth.  Laboratory chemicals are not the answer and create an artificial need for more.

“We’ve done a great job of redefining sweetness, and it’s great to see it pay off,” says Anne Rewey, Splenda marketing director for Ft. Washington, Pennsylvania-based McNeil. “We’re committed to the leadership position in this market.”

According to the Conference of the American College of Physicians “we are talking about a plague of neurological diseases caused by these deadly poisons.” (aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame-K)

As an educated consumer, you have a choice.  You can protect yourself from avoidable illnesses by simply being aware of the sweet deception from the chemical sweeteners surrounding you.

What Are Artificial Sweeteners and Why Are They Harmful?

Artificial sweeteners are a mix of unnatural chemicals, combined in a laboratory that the body can’t naturally process.  Basically, these chemicals either accumulate in your vital organs (causing possible damage later), pollute your bloodstream (causing possible damage later), or form the basis for eventual mutations of your cells (causing possible damage later).

NATURE VERSUS MANMADE:  The Key To “Safe” Food

In a nutshell, what nature generally creates for food is typically safe for your body:  whatever man creates for food (from chemicals in the laboratory) may not be accepted by your body as safe and can result in illness.  Our bodies are like machines (only natural) that operate today just as they did thousands of years ago. They don’t “understand” manmade chemicals as a source of nourishment and cannot fully process them. Forcing “foreign” materials into your body is like pouring shampoo into your car’s gas tank: it wasn’t meant to process it, so the engine stalls and stops working, and the chemical by-products obstruct your body systems.

Which Artificial Sweeteners Should You Avoid?

• Sucralose (Splenda®)
• Aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal®)
• Acesulfame-K (Sunett®)
• Neotame®
• Alitame®
• Cyclamate

SPLENDA: THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

What Exactly Is Splenda?

Splenda is the trade name for sucralose, a relatively new manmade, artificial sweetener. Johnson & Johnson bought the rights in 1998 to sell sucralose in the United States as Splenda. Its basic characteristics are:

• Its taste is nearly identical to sugar because it’s made from sugar
• Its “trademark” inability to break down in processing or in storage

So why is Splenda potentially harmful?

It contains chlorine, which is a carcinogen.  The Splenda marketers insure the chlorine is chemically “bound” so it cannot be “released” in the body during digestion.  I question that, and wonder if this artificial chemical can safely pass through the human body.  Wait until you read what chlorine can do to the body.  Bad news.

Sucralose (Splenda) is a chlorocarbon - a chlorine-containing compound. The chlorocarbons have long been known for causing organ, genetic, and reproductive damage. It should be no surprise, then, that testing of sucralose revealed organ, genetic, and reproductive damage.  Research on lab rats showed up to forty percent shrinkage of the thymus gland: a gland that is the very foundation of our immune system.  The contamination of water supplies by chlorocarbons is a serious problem in most European countries today, making many people very ill and warranting cancer studies. Due to the chlorine content in Splenda, sucralose can inflame swelling of the liver and kidneys, and calcification of the kidney, as shown in animal studies.  If you experience kidney pain, cramping, or an irritated bladder after using sucralose, stop using it immediately.

Sucralose is patented as a manmade “chlorinated sucrose sweetener” and it is registered as “chlorinated sucrose.”  Chlorinated sucrose is not found anywhere in nature, like real sugar (sucrose) that is extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets. If it were, it would be a carcinogen!

Why is chlorine harmful? Doesn’t it kill germs in my tap water?

Let’s deviate for a moment: Manmade chlorine (found in Splenda) is essentially bleach.  There is natural chlorine found in nature, but it is compounded totally differently from Splenda’s laboratory concoction and the form of chlorine you sterilize your bathroom tile.

Splenda marketers stress that sucralose is “made from sugarbut is derived from this sugar through a process that selectively substitutes three atoms of chlorine for three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sucrose molecule.”  While this is true, it is a deceptively simple description, implying that sucrose is a simple benign sugar substituted with chlorine, thereby, safe for consumption.  According to research on the hydrolysis of sugars, just the process of inserting chlorine into the sugar molecule (hydrolysis means breaking it into smaller molecules) ultimately allows these chemicals to penetrate the intestinal wall.

As an environmental engineer, I always reference what OSHA (the Federal Occupational Safety and Hazard Association) says in its regulations for toxic chemicals. Here’s what OSHA states concerning manmade chlorine, again the chemical used in Splenda.

OSHA States: Any animal that eats or drinks chlorine (especially on a regular basis) is at risk of cancer. The Merck Manuel and OSHA 40 SARA 120 Hazardous Waste Handbook states that chlorine is a carcinogen and emergency procedures should be taken when exposed via swallowing, inhaling, or through the skin.  Currently in Norwegian studies, the safety of chlorine added to the public water supply is being questioned as a cause of cancer.

References

Bellin J. New Scientist. pg 13. Nov 23, 1991.

Federal Register. Vol. 63. No. 64. Rules and Regulations 16417-16433. Friday. April 3, 1998.

Patent info: http://www.cas.org/motw/sucrapub2.html

Chlorine facts: http://www.bidness.com/esd/cl2facts.htm

Grant D.L. Toxicological Evaluation. Division Health and Welfare Canada. For the entire research report, visit the following link: http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scf/out68_en.pdf

Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. RC 46.H333, 2001.

Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment. RC 71.A14, 2004.

Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. RC 55.M4, 1999.

Posted on April 8, 2005 in Artificial Sweeteners | Link To This Entry | Comments (1)

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Posted by: Marsha Morris on October 27, 2006 11:49 AM