Aspartame (food additive E951, aspartic acid) sugar substitute

What is Aspartame

The food additive E951 or aspartame (L-Aspartyl, L-phenylalanine) is also known under the names Nutrasvit, Sladex, Aspamix is ​​the most popular synthetic sweetener and sugar substitute. As a chemical element, L-phenylalanine is a methyl ester of a dipeptide that contains the amino acids phenylalanine and aspartic acid. The taste of the sweetener is much superior to sugar, while the sweet taste of the additive is felt longer, but develops more slowly. L-Aspartyl is odorless and highly soluble in water. Chemical formula – C14H18N2O5.

L-phenylalanine is destroyed at temperatures above 30°C, so the drug can be used in the production of those products that are not subject to heat treatment. The main purpose of E951 is the production of sugar substitutes and sweet soft drinks. The sweetener can be found in many food products: confectionery, chewing gum, and candy. After administration, the substance quickly enters the bloodstream. The breakdown occurs similarly to amino acids. Excretion is carried out by the kidneys.

Release form

Sugar substitute Aspartame is available in the form of white, odorless crystals. L-Aspartyl is produced both on an industrial scale and in the form of an independent sweetener for use in the food industry. The sweetener can be found on pharmacy shelves in the form of white tablets of 18 mg each.

Chemical properties

E951 is two hundred times sweeter than sugar. The substance does not have a specific aftertaste and is easily soluble in water and alcohol. The melting point is 247 degrees. When heated, the sweet taste disappears and the substance itself is destroyed. The molecular weight of the sweetener is 294.3 g/mol, the density of the product is approximately 1.35 g per cm³. With the same degree of sweetening, one gram of product corresponds to only 0.5% of the calorie content of sugar. Main properties of L-Aspartyl:

• does not increase the calorie content of finished products;
• the sweetness is not felt immediately, but is felt for a long time;
• highly soluble in hot water, medium in cold water, completely insoluble in fatty solvents;
• sometimes acts as a flavor enhancer;
• loses its sweet taste during heat treatment.

Effect on the body E951

The sweetener Aspartame is considered a non-toxic, safe substance that doctors recommend for diabetics in the diet as an alternative to sugar. Many manufacturers claim that the food additive does not cause much harm to the body; scientists have a different point of view, arguing that E951 negatively affects the health of people who regularly consume it.

When aspartame breaks down in the body, methanol (methyl alcohol), formaldehyde, and phenylalanine are formed. These are all dangerous carcinogens that act on the body like poison. When consuming large amounts of low-calorie foods with a dietary supplement, toxicity may occur. In addition, the phenylalanine found in L-Aspartyl can violently attack the brain. Under the influence of the amino acid, the nerve cells gradually die, and the patient may lose consciousness. The permissible daily intake of E951 is 40 mg per kg of weight.

Harm of Aspartame

The sweetener L-phenylalanine, like other synthetic additives, tends to accumulate in the body. This fact does not pose a danger to a healthy person, but for certain groups of patients (diabetics and those suffering from abnormal metabolism), such accumulation leads to the risk of a drug overdose. The main harm of the substance to the body is that the sugar substitute breaks down into dangerous substances: methanol and formaldehyde.

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In addition, consuming foods with sweetener leads to weight gain. After all, when aspartame enters the body, the brain stops producing serotonin, the person does not feel full, and therefore begins to eat more. The use of L-Aspartyl is harmful to patients with phenylketonuria - this disease is associated with a violation of amino acid metabolism. Long-term use of sweetener can provoke methanol poisoning, which causes multiple sclerosis. Medicine lists more than 90 negative neurological symptoms that are caused by E 951.

E 951 food additive - dangerous or not

Aspartame (E-951) is a sweetener found in a wide variety of foods and beverages, including soft drinks, hot chocolate, chewing gum, candy, yogurt, sugar substitutes, vitamins, cough drops, and more .

One of the articles on the Internet prompted me to study this topic and this is what I found and what I would like to share with you. I hope you also care about your health.

Aspartame is produced under various brands, both separately and as part of mixtures of sweeteners.

Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. It was found safe and approved for use.

However, as a result of work carried out in 2005, Italian researchers concluded that aspartame (E-951) is a multipotential carcinogen, the effect of which occurs at a daily intake of 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, which is much less than the recommended daily dose of 50 mg/kg in the USA. The researchers added aspartame in varying doses to the diet of rats and monitored each animal until it died spontaneously. In total, the experiment lasted 159 weeks. After death, the organs and tissues of each animal were subjected to careful microscopic analysis.

E 951 food additive - dangerous or not

Animals fed aspartame showed a clear tendency to develop various types of malignant diseases, including lymphomas, leukemias and multiple tumors of various organs. Scientists suggest that one of the metabolites of aspartame is to blame for this - methanol, which in the process of metabolism turns into formaldehyde, both of which are potential carcinogens.

In an analysis published in April 2008 by the European Journal of Dietary Nutrition (ISSN 0954-3007), South African scientists assessed the potential effects on the brain of not only one of the components of aspartame, methanol, but also other elements (phenylalanine and aspartic acid).

In their analysis of the effects of phenylalanine, the authors detail the substance's ability to disrupt brain chemistry, including its ability to reduce levels of key brain chemicals such as serotonin (which can adversely affect a variety of areas including mood, behavior, sleep, and appetite). The authors also note that phenylalanine also has the ability to disrupt amino acid metabolism, nerve function, and hormonal balance in the body. They claim that aspartame can destroy nerve cells, which in turn can cause Alzheimer's disease.

There is also an opinion that aspartame is dangerous for diabetics. Retinopathy in diabetics can occur due to aspartame poisoning. Aspartame causes blood sugar levels to become uncontrollable. At the conference of the American College of Physicians there were reports, not confirmed by facts, that switching a diabetic from saccharin to products containing aspartame ultimately led to the development of coma.

So here you go

list of diseases and symptoms caused by E-951 aspartame

- multiple sclerosis; - systemic lupus erythematosus; - blindness; - blurred vision; - convulsions; - dizziness; - headache; - memory impairment; - numbness of the legs; - Aspartame can cause coma in diabetics.

Why is this happening? It turns out that aspartame is not heat stable . In the human body (or in a bottle of drink) when heated to +30 C, aspartame decomposes to form the carcinogen formaldehyde and highly toxic methanol .

Ingested methanol (methyl or wood alcohol, which has killed or blinded thousands of alcohol drinkers: 5-10 ml leads to severe poisoning and blindness, 30 ml leads to death) is converted into formaldehyde, then into formic acid (poison of red ants).

Formaldehyde is a substance with a pungent odor, a class A carcinogen. According to the classification, formaldehyde belongs to the same group of substances as arsenic and hydrocyanic acid - deadly poisons!

Here's what Wikipedia says about the effects of formaldehyde:

- respiratory tract paresis; - dermatitis; - eczema; - encephalopathy; - allergenic, mutagenic and carcinogenic properties

And most importantly: “formaldehyde accumulates in the body and is difficult to remove.”

After this, you don’t want to consume products with E-951 , where the concentrations of aspartame are negligible, and the concentrations of methanol and formaldehyde are even less.

E-951 is contained in many medications, including those intended for children.

Interestingly, huge amounts of money are spent on the development and production of nutritional supplements. And then there are a couple of “researchers” who, having spent a couple of hundred dollars on experiments, begin to shout that this “rubbish” kills. Manufacturers are well aware of this and write that “the content of harmful substances does not exceed the norm.” The phrase itself is simply monstrous, like yes it is poisonous, but within normal limits , so eat to your health, don’t worry.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to take poison, even within normal limits!

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Metabolism of Aspartame

L-phenylalanine breaks down in the body into methanol and two amino acids, which are part of proteins. Small amounts of methyl alcohol are not harmful to the body; in large doses it is toxic, but getting it from food far exceeds the amount of carcinogen that is formed from L-Aspartyl. When aspartame is metabolized, only 10% of the substance is converted into methanol. When drinking one liter of a drink with a sweetener, only 50 mg of methyl alcohol enters the body, while packaged juice contains up to 160 mg of carcinogen per 1000 ml.

A single dose of L-phenylalanine in a dosage of up to 34 mg per kilogram of body weight or 70 mg/kg (8 doses) does not lead to the appearance of methanol in dangerous concentrations. After taking products containing L-phenylalanine, the substance is quickly absorbed in the small intestine. As a rule, the drug is metabolized using transamination reactions (transfer) by liver tissue. Decomposition products are excreted through the kidneys and urinary system.

Indications for use

Using the product you can control your sugar level. The sweetener is often prescribed to patients with endocrinological pathologies (diabetes mellitus, obesity) and diseases that require eliminating or limiting the consumption of sweets. In addition, the substance has a sweetening effect, so L-Aspartyl can be consumed instead of regular sugar to reduce the calorie content of food and drinks.

E951 Aspartame

Aspartame (E951)

Aspartame, also known under the names Sladex, Nutrasvit, Aspamix, is a synthetic sweetener that is not a saccharide. Used as a food additive and as a sugar substitute. Not to be confused with asparkam (medicine) and aspartate (aspartic acid or its salt).

General characteristics of Aspartame

The substance Aspartame looks like white crystals, odorless, almost 200 times sweeter than natural sugar. Aspartame is a dipeptide methyl ester, composed of phenylalanine and the amino acid aspartic. When heated, it loses its sweetness, so it is only suitable for food products that are not subject to heat treatment (calorizator). Having a minimum calorie content (0-4 kcal per 100 grams of product), Aspartame is usually not taken into account when calculating calories. A small amount of aspartame is needed to create a sweet taste, so its contribution to the calorie content of the food is not taken into account. The sweetness of the dietary supplement is not immediately felt, but the aftertaste remains much longer than after consuming sugar.

Chemical formula C14H18N2O5.

History of the creation of Aspartame

Chemist James Schlatter, in his work on the production of gastrin (a drug for the treatment of stomach ulcers), obtained an intermediate product, which he accidentally tasted and discovered its sweetness. In 1965, Aspartame was synthesized, and 15 years later it was first used in the UK and the USA, where it was used as a sweetener.

Harm of Aspartame

Doctors and scientists are increasingly inclined to recommend using E951 to a minimum, because negative consequences of long-term use of the supplement have been proven, such as allergic reactions, headaches, depression, migraines and insomnia.

Despite its low calorie content, you should not get carried away with consuming Aspartame, even for those suffering from diseases that require you to eliminate sugar from your diet. The presence of phenylalanine in E951 makes its intake absolutely impossible for people suffering from the rare disease phenylketonuria.

The insidiousness of Aspartame is that saliva cannot wash away E951 completely, leaving a cloying taste in the mouth that you want to drown out. Therefore, when drinking a glass of carbonated sweet drink in the heat, after a couple of minutes a person reaches for a second serving.

Application of E951 in the food industry

Aspartame is produced under various brands, both separately and as part of mixtures of sweeteners.

Aspartame is used in the production of the following products:

• non-alcoholic soft drinks,
• chewing gum,
• yoghurts,
• candies,
• sugar substitutes,
• some vitamins and cough lozenges.

Therefore, when buying one of the listed products and seeing the words “sugar-free,” you should take a closer look at the ingredients.

Aspartame is often sold in tablet form under the names Slastilin, Sweetly, Shugafree, this option is used as an alternative to sugar. In terms of sweetness, 1 tablet of Aspartame is equal to 3 grams of sugar. Used for obesity and other diseases that require limiting or eliminating sugar intake.

Use of E951 in Russia

In 2008, the Journal of Dietary Nutrition published an analysis in which scientists assessed the potential effects of aspartame (its several constituents: methanol, phenylalanine and aspartic acid) on the brain. In the analysis, the authors detail phenylalanine's ability to disrupt brain chemistry, which can adversely affect various areas including mood, behavior, sleep and appetite.

The authors also point out that phenylalanine has the ability to disrupt amino acid metabolism, nerve function, and hormonal balance in the body.

In Russia, the countries of the European Union and the USA, the use of E591 Aspartame is allowed, but it is standardized - no more than 40 mg per kg of body weight, in the USA the norm is slightly higher - 50 mg of a food additive per kg of body weight.

Therefore, you need to know moderation in everything!
Discuss on the forum

Directions for use and dosage

Before starting to use the drug, you should definitely consult a specialist about possible negative consequences for the body. One sweetener tablet is equal to a teaspoon of sugar. L-Aspartyl should be taken orally after meals, dissolved in a glass of water or drink (18–36 mg per 250 ml). The maximum dose of the drug is 40 mg/kg per day. If you skip a dose, you should increase its amount only when the daily dosage is not exceeded.

special instructions

With prolonged heat treatment, the substance decomposes and loses its sweet taste. The drug is not recommended for physically healthy persons. Aspartame is included in food products that are widely used by the population. Even children's vitamins cannot do without this component, but there is no clear opinion about the benefits of the substance. The presence of the additive in finished sweet drinks and packaged products must be indicated by the manufacturer on the label; patients with phenylketonuria should pay special attention to this.

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Aspartame during pregnancy

According to research by American scientists, consuming aspartame during breastfeeding and pregnancy in recommended doses does not cause harm. Although gynecologists do not recommend taking the sweetener Aspartame due to the lack of energy and nutritional value, and pregnant women especially need calories and nutrients.

You cannot use food sweetener yourself, because... any change in the chemical composition of a woman’s body affects the development of the fetus. The consequences of such an effect have not yet been studied, so it is better to refuse to take a dietary supplement; this will not lead to restrictions on the woman’s lifestyle, but at the same time will create a feeling of peace in relation to the health of the unborn baby.

E951 – Aspartame

Is aspartame harmful to health? When it enters the human digestive system, this sweetener forms not only phenylalanine and aspartic amino acids, which are harmless to the body, but is also a source of methyl alcohol (methanol, wood alcohol). The above-mentioned phenylalanine is an essential amino acid that must be present in the body in the required quantity, for example, through proteins contained in food. The aspartic amino acid (aspartate) is also not only useful, it is always present in the human body as part of proteins and in free form, and is very important for its normal functioning.

The methanol released by aspartame is controversial, the presence of which in noticeable quantities in the body can cause fatal harm to it. In this case, formaldehyde, which is a carcinogen, can then be formed from methanol. However, in the case of aspartame, very small amounts of methanol are involved and the amount obtained from food (eg juices and fruits) significantly exceeds the amount obtained from aspartame. It is also known that methyl alcohol is formed in very small quantities in the human body as a result of its normal functioning.

There are concerns that the sweetener aspartame may disrupt the metabolism of hormones (for example, serotonin) and upset their balance.

The globally accepted safe level of this sugar substitute is up to 40-50 mg per day per kilogram of a person’s weight. To better understand these figures: a person weighing 75 kg would have to drink about 30 liters of diet cola during the day in order for the content of aspartame in his body to reach the maximum allowable dose.

Sugar substitute E951 may be harmful to people with phenylketonuria. Phenylketonuria is a hereditary disease characterized by the absence of the enzyme that converts phenylalanine to tyrosine. Consuming aspartame in such people can cause severe brain damage.

The E951 supplement may be harmful to pregnant women, as even small amounts are known to harm the developing embryo.

It is known that the raw materials for the production of the E951 food additive are obtained from genetically modified sources.

The sweetener aspartame can be hazardous to health and it is better to limit the consumption of foods that contain this additive.

E951 for weight loss

The nutritional supplement is included in diet drinks and food products. Many people believe that artificial sweetener is the best way to lose weight because it has no calories. Although this is not at all true, because after drinking drinks containing the E951 additive, a sweet aftertaste remains in the mouth, which cannot be removed by saliva. This condition stimulates the appetite, which leads to the appearance of extra pounds. In addition, one liter of a drink sweetened with the substance contains 56 mg of methanol, which is also harmful to health.

A sugar substitute often causes a feeling of hunger, which continues for several hours after use, which also does not contribute to weight loss, but only additional weight gain. Sweeteners are found in diets, for example, Dukan, where the author insists on the need to take a supplement to trick the brain. Although water sweetened with aspartame increases the desire to eat. Only a specialist can prescribe the correct diet for weight loss, and uncontrolled use of E951 has a negative impact on the patient’s health.

Features of using aspartame

Drinking drinks with aspartame does not quench your thirst. Saliva poorly removes the remnants of the sugar substitute aspartame from the oral mucosa, so after drinking such drinks, an unpleasant feeling of cloying remains in the mouth, which you want to remove with a new portion of the drink. This is bad for the consumer, but good for manufacturers of such liquids. Don't try to quench your thirst with frequently advertised sodas. Drink plain still water.

Recently, in some countries, for example in the United States, greater caution has been shown regarding sweeteners, in particular aspartame.

Independent studies have been conducted (this is, of course, not confirmed in all “custom” studies) have shown the negative impact of long-term use of aspartame on the human body and animals. The vast majority of independent experts confirm that long-term use of aspartame can cause headaches, migraines, tinnitus, allergies, depression, insomnia and even brain cancer.

The use of aspartame by people suffering from increased weight for the purpose of losing weight can lead to the opposite effect and even greater weight gain in the future.

aspartame , especially those that have a long shelf life.

Side effects

Aspartame is a safe drug that, when used in the correct dosage, rarely leads to unwanted side effects. If a person uncontrollably takes or exceeds the permissible dose of the drug, the following may occur:

• skin rashes (urticaria);
• headaches (migraine);
• increased appetite;
• thirst;
• irritability;
• weight gain;
• sclerosis;
• insomnia;
• convulsions;
• memory loss;
• numbness of the legs;
• causeless anxiety.

Overdose

Daily intake of large doses of the substance can lead to the formation of malignant tumors. It is believed that an increase in the amount of the drug can cause the development of systemic lupus erythematosus. In case of an overdose of the drug, the following undesirable consequences may occur:

• decreased vision, hearing;
• dizziness;
• vomit;
• joint pain;
• memory impairment;
• stomach ache;
• depression;
• panic attacks.

Analogs

The most common sweetener alternatives are: herbal natural remedy - Stevia and Synthetic cyclamate. The following analogues of Aspartame are also found on pharmacy shelves:

• Sugarfree;
• AminoSweet;
• Spoonful;
• NutraSweet;
• Sanekta;
• Canderel;
• Sanpa;

Aspartame price

You can purchase the nutritional supplement through online stores or at any pharmacy. The cost of the substance depends on the number of tablets in the package and the dosage. The average price of Aspartame is about 80 rubles for 350 tablets. Approximate cost of sweetener in Moscow:

What's happened

Aspartame is a chemical element that is present in the form of a dipeptide methyl ester.
It contains amino acids, namely phenylalanine and aspartic acid. It has the following formula: CF=C₁₄H₁₈N₂O₅.

The food additive aspartame, labeled E951, is a sugar substitute and also a food sweetener. As for taste, it is much sweeter and its taste lasts much longer. Aspartame is a product that has no odor and is also insoluble in liquid.

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Aspartame can be described as a substance that has a rich, sweet taste. It also does not contain unnecessary impurities and shades. Thanks to this, it can be used separately, which is impossible for other types of sweeteners.

Additive E951 can only be used in the production of those products that are not subject to heat treatment. When heated, it disintegrates and its sweetness is lost. Thus, it is pointless to use it in baking and other desserts that require high temperatures.

This substance can be sold in various packages and also have different varieties. One example is Aspartame Free.