Artificial sweetener: Aspartame
Aspartame is one of the most popular man-made sweeteners on the market.
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener used as a substitute for
sugar in many soft drinks, beverages and some foods. It is a
white crystalline powder and it is about 200 times as sweet
as sucrose.
Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M.
Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. This
substance is a member of the aniline group and is made of two amino
acids –phenylalanine and aspartic acid, as well as methyl alcohol, more
commonly known as methanol or wood alcohol. It has a caloric value of
17 KJ per gram like other protein substance. An Acceptable Daily Intake
(ADI) of aspartame is 40-50 mg/kg body weight/day; it helps the
diabetics to improve their quality of life.
It was approved by
the US FDA in1981as a tabletop sweetener, in chewing gum, cold breakfast
cereals, beverages, instant coffee and tea, gelatins, puddings, and
fillings, and dairy products and toppings. In 1983, FDA approved
the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages and carbonated beverage
syrup bases, and in 1996,FDA approved it for use as a "general purpose
sweetener”.
Higher level of aspartame leads to various
side effects such as physical weakness, decrease in night
vision, insomnia, mental depression, anxiety, feeling
aggressive,diarrhea and weight loss etc.
Aspartame can
be synthesized from its constituent amino acids, L-phenylalanine
and L-aspartate. Like many other peptides, aspartame may
hydrolyze (break down) into its constituent amino acids under
conditions of elevated temperature or high pH.
