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Nothing Splendid about
It: Beware of Splenda in Your Food 8/07
It’s no news
aspartame is bad stuff, but unfortunately, it’s not the only artificial
sweetener causing severe problems.
Splenda, now
in over 3,000 products world-wide is wreaking havoc on nervous and
gastrointestinal systems.
Think you’re
doing your body a favor by substituting with calorie-free Splenda? Think again.
Splenda is a foreign molecule, which your body may have trouble processing.
Here’s one
Co-op member’s story of a not-so-pleasant encounter with Splenda.
Last
Thursday afternoon, young Co-op member Jenn Valente had a yogurt for lunch, as
she often does. This time, however, Jenn had mistakenly grabbed a “low calorie”
yogurt at the grocery store.
Within 10
minutes Jenn experienced excruciating abdominal pain. Jenn began pacing with
pain and panic – her breath was short, her stomach began to distend
uncomfortably, and her skin became sweaty and clammy.
Jenn shared:
“I really
thought I was dying. I’m only 28 and in good health, so something had to be
seriously wrong. I thought about calling an ambulance.”
After Jenn
“lost her lunch” she began to feel the panic and searing pain abate just a bit,
but she still felt horribly sick.
Jenn called
the emergency room and recounted her experience and what she had just eaten. The
ER doctor had a very telling first question: “Did your yogurt have Splenda in
it?” Indeed, Jenn’s yogurt had sucralose, the generic name for Splenda. The ER
doctor explained that bad Splenda reactions have become incredibly common and
reassured her that it would just take time for her body to recover.
Feeling
lousy, Jenn went online to check out the “side effects of Splenda” and she found
the following stories from people who experienced bad reactions:
“…I suffered from diarrhea, abdominal
cramping, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, severe depression, became
withdrawn and angry…I thought I was dying of cancer or something.”
“…I felt nauseated, lightheaded, dizzy,
and had a strange weak sensation in my muscles. I felt so terrible that I was
not even able to go to work. My conclusion, Splenda is even worse than the other
artificial sweeteners!”
“I was getting terrible migraines. I got
them for two weeks straight and started to worry about it. In the process of
trying to eliminate causes, I thought about the Splenda. I then started getting
terrible abdominal bloating and a "raw" feeling in my chest. I had felt some
heart flutters, too. I was having heartburn and gas, and was just plain
miserable!”
Detoxification to the Rescue
Jenn’s
symptoms of severe bloating, lethargy, abdominal pain, and weakness continued
over the next couple of days.
Her good
friend and our Marketing Director, Tess Beasley, suggested a few supplements to
aid Jenn’s body in detoxifying itself and recovering:
-
Milk Thistle – to help support detoxification and prevent strain on the
liver.
-
Alpha Lipoic Acid – a powerful antioxidant known to bind with toxins and
help remove them from the body.
-
Probiotics 16 – friendly bacteria especially helpful during times of
gastrointestinal distress.
-
Pancreatic Enzymes – to help support the body’s uptake of vital
nutrients during a detoxification process.
Within just
a couple of hours of taking this combo of supplements, Jenn’s bloating was
relieved, the pain in her belly relaxed, and her appetite returned slowly over
the course of the evening.
Jenn, an
athlete, typically favors our Joint Complex, Fish Oil, Sam’s Advanced
Antioxidant, and B 100 Plus, but she swears she’ll keep these new favorites on
hand from now on.
More on
Splenda: A Controversial Calorie-Cutter
Splenda is
the marketing name for the chemical sucralose – or chlorinated sugar. Perhaps
you don’t think that sounds so bad. After all, even table salt, or sodium
chloride, is processed with chlorine.
This is the
argument used by many to support the use of Splenda, but unfortunately the
chlorine of salt’s sodium chloride is radically different from the
chlorocarbons of Splenda.
Sodium and
chloride are both naturally-occurring, organic substances, meant to be
metabolized by the body.
Chlorocarbons on the other hand, are chlorine-containing
chemically-manipulated compounds and have long been known to cause organ,
genetic and reproductive damage.
One
chlorocarbon molecule, polyvinylchloride (PVC), commonly used in plumbing,
appears to be perfectly inert. However, other chlorocarbon family members
include DDT and chloroform, and most of them are banned in western countries!
Net-net,
sucralose is synthetic, plastic sugar masquerading as a natural compound.
Furthermore,
the very manufacturing of Splenda leaks the toxin cyclohexane into the
environment. (See Cindy’s blog entries on
foreign molecules and
PPCPs if environmental issues are of interest to you.)
While
sucralose has “not been shown to cause any immediate health problems,” long term
studies have not been done. Sucralose is said to pass through the body
unchanged, however, this untrue. In an "Evaluation of Toxilogical Testing
Results" conducted for
Food Additives
Permitted for Direct Addition to Food for Human Consumption; Sucralose
as much as 27% of sucralose
was found to be
absorbed into the body!
An Unlikely Ally in the Quest for Health
Interestingly, we never thought we’d be on the same side as the Sugar
Association on anything health-related, but it turns out their researchers
did an excellent job addressing many of the
myths associated with Splenda consumption.
The major
points were:
Importantly, Whole Foods has banned all sucralose-containing products
from its stores, and the
Citizens for Health submitted a citizen’s petition to the FDA for
the removal of their Splenda approval.
The
Sweetener-Sugar Debate: Between a Rock and a Hard Place?
It may seem
hard to win. On the one-side, sugar adds unnecessary calories, and on the other,
artificial sweeteners add unwanted chemicals and toxins. The space in between is
the barren lands of alternative natural sweeteners like Stevia, which have bad
reputations for weird after-tastes.
What’s a
poor human to do? Turn to more natural flavors, and break your tongue of the
sugar addiction. Did you know the more sweetness you’re used to eating, the
harder it is to taste the natural flavors inherent to foods?
When you add
artificial sweeteners to your tea or buy sodas -- naturally flavored or “diet”
-- you compound your problems with sugar addiction by training your taste buds
to require lots of “sweetness.” It makes it all the harder to pass up refined
sugar in foods.
Dr. Rodier’s blog on Starbucks addresses this very problem.
Check out
this article for more on sugar and sweetener addictions and tips on
getting back
your taste buds.
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