Soda Sweet

Twenty years ago, the Coca-Cola Company began making Diet Coke with NutraSweet.

There were Coke machines in my high school. They were in the cafeteria and over by the gym, 60 cents a can. At one point, I realized that I was drinking a six-pack of Coke Classic a day while at school, then going home and having at least another glass sometime in the evening. Not to mention going to Yvette's and having a mocha or two. It's no wonder I stayed up late. I switched to Sprite my senior year, often refilling the can with water -- even in my overcaffeinated teenage state I recognized that all that soda couldn't be good for me.

At around that time, NutraSweet (a brand name for aspartame) was getting some negative coverage for causing cancer in lab rats. Since everyone was hysterical about the NutraSweet in diet soda, and with the added benefit of having a father who did a considerable amount of PR on the product, I did a report for English class (fulfilling a research paper assignment -- it's not like I did it for fun) reviewing the medical research that had been done on the topic.

It turns out that the research favored NutraSweet's claims of complete safety. The rats in the cancer study were fed nothing but aspartame; in order to proportionally match the amount of aspartame that was fed to the rats in order for them to develop cancer, an average human would have to consume 80 cans of diet soda a day for his or her entire life. Further studies have been unable to substantiate claims that NutraSweet causes headaches, seizures or any other health hazard (other than obesity in people who think "diet" sodas won't make them fat.)

The many anti-aspartame organizations out there point to a 1995 report from the FDA on complaints filed against aspartame claiming 92 symptoms attributed to the sweetener, often citing these complaints as evidence that the it's bad for you. One goes so far as to say "a car would be recalled for less." Well, that depends -- would a car be recalled because of unsubstantiated complaints that it made the driver "feel unreal"? That's one of the "symptoms" claimed on the list. The existance of a complaint is not the same as a confirmed symptom -- an FDA report on a sugar pill (as in placebo, not actual sugar) would likely contain a similar listing of symptoms such as headache and dizziness. The activists make a big deal out of the fact that nearly 10,000 people submitted complaints -- out of a nation of 280 million. That's less than a tenth of a percent of the population.

I'm not saying that some people may be affected by aspartame. Hell, there really are people who are allergic to dry paint. But to declare a product is unsafe based on the claims of that handful of people is to ignore the absolute safe use by millions -- billions at this point, in the case of aspartame.

Posted by Andrew Huff at August 11, 2003 01:57 PM