The Breakdown

It is important to know what goes on in your body when you drink a diet soda. The combination of the two amino acids and wood alcohol result in major bodily harm. I will try to explain the makeup of aspartame and the effects it has on your body.

Proteins are made up of a chain of amino acids. Aspartic acid is a nonessential amino acid, meaning that it is produced by the body whereas phenylalanine is an essential amino acid. When ingested, the protein is broken down slowly by your gut and the amino acids are absorbed into the blood system. The amino acids are then picked up by enzymes that carry the amino acid to where it belongs in your body.  However, aspartic acid and phenylalanine are isolates when used in aspartame and do not absorb the same way as a regular amino acid.

An isolate is when an amino acid has been artificially separated from the rest of the protein chain. Once the isolate enters the body it acts as a neurotoxin instead amino acid.

Neurotoxins are poisonous and destructive to nerve tissue. When the isolate aspartic acid and phenylalanine are ingested into the body, they are launched straight into the blood system where they are distributed as excitotoxins. An excitotoxin overstimulates neurotransmitter receptors (the brain’s communication) causing them to become exhausted.

There are three main excitotoxins: aspartate, glutamate, and cysteine which are added to the foods we eat. Most know glutamate as a monosodium glutamate or MSG.

The Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) and the Cervical Spinal Fluid (CSF) are the two ways in which excitotoxins reach the unprotected part of the brain, the hypothalamus.

The hypothalamus job is to keep the body in balance (homeostasis).  It is linked with the nervous system and the endocrine system through the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus stimulates or inhibits your crucial body processes such as:

• Heart rate and blood pressure
• Body temperature
• Fluid and electrolyte balance, including thirst
• Appetite and body weight
• Glandular secretions of the stomach and intestines
• Production of substances that influence the pituitary gland to release hormones
• Sleep cycles

The transportation of the excitotoxins across the BBB and CSF cause several reactions to take place.

1. They trigger the nerves to fire excessively.
2. Normal enzyme actions are negated due to phenylalanine and aspartic acid.  
3. The energy system becomes compromised from
4. Depleted intercellular ATP stores and from
5. The presence of formaldehyde also from
6. Changed intracellular calcium uptake and
7. Damage to cellular mitochondria and
8. Destruction of the cellular wall and the
9. Release of free radicals (unstable molecules looking to steal an electron from a stable molecule causing a chain reaction and disruption of the living cell).
10. All potentially causing oxidative stress and neurodegeneration and
11. Promotion of DNA structural defects.

Within the next 1-12 hours, cellular death occurs. The dead cells leave behind lesions or holes in the brain. 

However, this is only the short-term effect of the amino acids found in aspartame and does not include cumulative or long-term nor formaldehyde damage. I will explain more of the damage of aspartame in the next post.