Title:Emerging Facts on Chronic Consumption of Aspartame as Food Additive
Volume: 17
Issue: 7
Author(s): Anjali Burh, Sonali Batra and Sumit Sharma*
Affiliation:
- Chitkara College of Pharmacy, Chitkara University, Punjab-140401,India
Keywords:
Aspartame, excitotoxic, phenylketonuria, carcinogenic, headache, regulatory.
Abstract: Low caloric sugars of intense sweetness are world widely used as artificial sweeteners.
Aspartame, being a non-nutritive sugar, acts as a sweetening agent and flavour enhancer which
leads to the replacement of many nutritive sugars. The origin of aspartame was serendipitous, but it
has been into huge controversy since then related to its toxic effects that come along with its excess
sweetness. It is quite evident that aspartame has its toxicity due to its metabolites which are -
phenylalanine (50%), aspartic acid (40%), and a small amount of methanol (10%). The present review
entails in detail the mechanism and the harmful effects of metabolites based on various
studies carried out on aspartame for long. According to World Health Organization, the acceptable
daily intake of aspartame is 40 mg/kg bw except for phenylketonurics. Toxicity of aspartame and
its metabolites is controversial but its chronic consumption as a food additive is considered
treacherous. Hence, it is assumed as unsafe for human use if ingested on regular basis. The present
review focuses on the collective data signifying adverse events associated with aspartame linking
nephrotoxicity, neurotoxicity, reproductive abnormalities and apoptosis to aspartame usage.
