A new study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shows that people who drink diet soda regularly are more likely to be diagnosed with depression than those who don’t, while coffee drinkers are slightly less likely to develop depression than people who do not drink coffee.
The study is to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting in March, 2013. It examines more than 260 thousand people between 50 and 71 years old, and studied their soda and coffee consumption between 1995 and 1996. Ten years later, researchers asked the participants whether they had been diagnosed with depression since the year 2000.
Researchers found that the risk for depression was 31 percent greater for people who drank diet sodas, compared to 22 percent higher for people who drank regular sodas. People who consumed four or more cups of coffee a day were 10 percent less likely to have been diagnosed with depression than non-coffee drinkers. People who drank diet fruit drinks were 51 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression than those who did not drink diet fruit drinks.
These findings confirm earlier studies which had found a link between consumption of artificial sweeteners, namely, aspartame (name brands NutraSweet and Equal), and the onset of many different health problems — including psychiatric illness.
A study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry in 1993 found that patients who had already been diagnosed with depression were likely to become more depressed when they consumed diet sodas.
The author of the study was Ralph Walton, MD, a practicing psychiatrist and then-professor and chairman of the Dept. of Psychiatry at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.
Dr. Walton reviewed 166 studies relating to aspartame and human safety. Of those studies, 74 had received funding from manufacturers of aspartame, and 92 were independently funded. He found that all industry-funded studies declared aspartame safe, while 92 percent of the independently funded studies identified one or more health risks with the artificial sweetener.
Among his own patients, Dr. Walton found that aspartame consumption led to seizures (which might be misdiagnosed as epilepsy) and could “mimic or worsen psychiatric disorder.”
Aspartame can affect the levels and the balance of the neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, and acetylcholine, all of which have great influence on a person’s mood. Walton found that aspartame consumption can both produce and aggravate depression, and produce or aggravate panic attacks.
Further, Walton found that consumption of aspartame could produce cravings for sweets and for food, leading to weight gain. He concluded in his report that the world-wide epidemic of obesity and diabetes, caused by multiple factors, was partly being caused by the consumption of aspartame.
Patients who were depressed and used aspartame also sometimes experienced fatigue, headache, memory problems, insomnia and other ill effects.
But the problems didn’t end there.
One of Walton’s patients experienced a spontaneous retinal detachment, requiring emergency surgery. Another patient suffered a sudden conjunctival hemorrhage. Walton concluded that both conditions were the result of the methanol produced by the aspartame they consumed. (Another metabolic byproduct of aspartame is formaldehyde, a highly toxic known carcinogen.)
Eye and vision problems are among many serious conditions that have been linked to aspartame, either in clinical studies, or in the everyday experiences of people who consumed the sweetener regularly, many of whom have written about their experiences online.
The following is a list of some of the health problems that have been associated with regular aspartame consumption:
- Different cancers: in studies, rats have developed brain and kidney tumors
- In humans, multiple sclerosis-like symptoms have developed: numbness and discomfort in progressively greater areas of the body
- Fibromyalgia-like symptoms: body-wide pain in soft tissues, including joints, muscles and tendons
- Arthritis
- High blood pressure
- Blood not coagulating properly, leading to excess bleeding when injured, or causing spontaneous bleeding (such as from nose or eyes)
- Headaches and migraines
- Dimming eyesight or loss of peripheral vision
- Bright flashes in vision (such as those caused by retinal detachments)
- Spontaneous retinal detachment
- Moderate to severe memory problems
- Brain fog, confusion
- Insomnia
- Hair loss
- Enlarged prostate
- Nausea
- Rashes, hives
It should be noted that while some people who reported some of the more serious symptoms were consuming the equivalent of four or more cans of diet soda a day, some got reactions just from drinking one can a day.
One man had suffered from high blood pressure for 20 years, as well as memory lapses and arthritic pain. He was taking blood pressure medications, but his problems were only worsening. The doctor would raise the doses, but the man continued getting worse. The patient stopped eating much, or drinking anything besides water, because he was simply too sick. His blood pressure lowered considerably.
After some time, he drank one can of diet soda, and his blood pressure immediately shot up to 185/100; it stayed high for four hours. On another day, he drank coffee sweetened with aspartame, and his blood pressure shot up again. Next, he tried decaf coffee with aspartame, and again, his blood pressure soared. He knew then that aspartame was the problem.
Next, he drank decaf coffee sweetened with regular sugar, and his blood pressure stayed low. He then started drinking regular coffee with sugar, and his blood pressure went up to 131/80 for one hour.
He stopped consuming anything with aspartame and simultaneously stopped taking his blood pressure medication. All his medical problems went away. His blood pressure has remained normal for years now, his memory is good again, and he no longer has any joint pain.
One nurse who was getting severe, persistent migraines, reported getting headaches even after chewing one stick of sugar-free gum. She cut out artificial sweeteners completely and no longer gets headaches.
As in the above two cases, people with other serious symptoms, such as dimming vision and enlarged prostate, report being cured as soon as they stopped ingesting aspartame.
As far as weight gain, recent studies have shown that even when the same number of calories is consumed, ingesting aspartame leads to weight gain, compared to consuming regular sugar. This may be because aspartame slows metabolism, or increases water retention.
If you’ve been using aspartame and other artificial sweeteners to cut down on sugar, the only good solution is to cut down on regular, raw, unbleached sugar (or honey), or cut out sugar completely. As we can clearly see, using artificial sweeteners is never a good choice.
By Jamell Andrews