Still disbelieving it was my precious Diet Coke hurting me, I did some research on Aspartame. It turns out that aspartame breaks down into methanol (a.k.a. wood alcohol a.k.a. that moonshine that makes you go blind). Methanol quickly turns into Formaldehyde (what they embalm bodies with) once in the body.(1) I felt so betrayed.
I also learned that my symptoms did indeed match up with those common to aspartame poisoning - arthritic and joint pain, chronic fatigue, depression, memory loss, severe anxiety attacks, and menstrual problems are listed as some of the lesser symptoms. Apparently I got lucky: memory loss, vision damage and loss, tingling in the extremities, slurring of speech symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis, worsening of Fibromyalgia, Parkinson's tremors, uterine polyps, and Brain Cancer are also linked to aspartame poisoning.(2)
Now that I was convinced that aspartame was causing my illness, I got angry. I wanted to know how something so dangerous came to be and why it was on the market. According to Mark D. Gold,s article in Nexus Magazine, the story of aspartame goes a little something like this: "Aspartame was discovered by accident in 1965, when James Schlatter, a chemist of G.D. Searle Company was testing an anti-ulcer drug. Aspartame was approved for dry goods in 1981 and for carbonated beverages in 1983. It was originally approved for dry goods on July 26, 1974, but objections filed by neuroscience researcher Dr John W. Olney and Consumer attorney James Turner in August 1974 as well as investigations of G.D. Searle's research practices caused the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to put approval of aspartame on hold (December 5, 1974). In 1985, Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle and made Searle Pharmaceuticals and The NutraSweet Company separate subsidiaries." (THE BITTER TRUTH ABOUT ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS)3"
