Aspartame Headaches

Aspartame and Migraines - not a problem?
There is controversy as to whether aspartame is responsible for causing headaches in people who ingest it. The FDA requested more research on aspartame food additive ever approved.

While there have been several reports of users experiencing the sudden and severe headache after using aspartame studies by various institutions suggest the link is not causal. The FDA said they have received the results of over 100 clinical trials and studies doxological, and after review, they concluded that aspartame is safe for ingestion by the human population.

The search for a new type of artificial sweetener came in the late 1970s, after concerns were raised about the safety of saccharin, the artificial sugar sold under the name n 'Low Sweet. Saccharin has been placed on the list of carcinogens and remains on this list because it is known to cause cancer in animals but even so, it remains a popular sweetener.

Aspartame, marketed under brand names such as NutraSweet and Equal, has been approved by the FDA in 1981, and is present in many diet drinks, food and gum while being marketed heavily as tabletop sweetener.

Aspartame is considered a useful tool for programs on the diet because it can be used to cut the sugar from the diet. As a low calorie product, it has found favor with calorie counters in the world.

In the last decade, numerous reports have been made by users of aspartame on adverse effects, particularly in the case of migraine. A detailed study was conducted at Duke University Medical Center with a subset of patients comprised of individuals who claimed that aspartame caused them severe headaches when they have used.

Dr. Susan Schiffman has conducted the study, with Monsanto / NutraSweet make a contribution to costs. NutraSweet, you will recall, is a brand under which aspartame is marketed. The researchers evaluated 40 patients with headaches related aspartame.

Some study subjects were treated with 30mg/kg bw three days and five of the double-blind study. Others received a placebo. Among the volunteers who participated in the study, 35% who consumed aspartame headache developed, but 45% in the placebo group developed headache.

It has been often criticized the study because of its short term and under optimal conditions. Researchers cons arguing that all CDC guidelines had been met, if the results were valid.

These study results, which were published in The New England Journal of Medicine, argued that there is no correlation between consumption of aspartame and migraines (1).

Allegations of aspartame migraines promotion are many on the world wide web. Researchers have conducted over 200 studies to evaluate the safety of aspartame while watching a lymphoma epilepsy. It is totally harmless, in the opinion of the FDA.

The European Food Safety Authority has published a study showing that aspartame has indeed caused lymphoma in laboratory rats, but no other studies showed similar results, concluded their study was flawed and refused to raise concerns about aspartame (3).

The U.S. National Cancer Institute evaluated nearly half a million young artists 50-69 and women and found no correlation between aspartame consumption and lymphoma, leukemia and tumors of the brain during a period of five years (4).

The Scientific Committee on Food has made an exhaustive review of more than 500 articles on the subject of aspartame and concluded that concerns about aspartame causes no adverse reactions have been established (5).

Proponents of using aspartame have raised concerns that the "myth of headaches aspartame.