Is Aspartame bad for you?
When it comes to Aspartame, I have a bit of a conflict of interest. I drink a can or two of Diet Coke per day, and so I seriously have to examine my thinking and ask if confirmation bias is kicking in when writing to assure you that Aspartame is totally safe.
Is Aspartame as a suger alternative really safe or are there serious health concerns?
Let’s see.
The Discovery
The accidental discovery of this artificial sweetener is something that causes me to pause with a “Wait, he did what!” retort.
The backstory here is that in 1965 chemist James M. Schlatter was working on generating a tetrapeptide of the hormone gastrin. At that time it was part of some research he was doing into an anti-ulcer drug candidate, and so as one of the intermediate steps he synthesized aspartame.[1]. The discovery happened when he attempted to pick up some paper by licking his finger and discovered a sweet taste. It was the Aspartame that had contaminated his hands.
My immediate thought on hearing about this is to seriously wonder how a guy who was randomly licking his unwashed fingers in a chemistry lab after contaminating them managed to not die an early and rather sudden death.
Seriously, who actually does this?
