ENGR 0011 Bursic 2:00
R03
ASPARTAME: THE SWEET SAFE AND LOW CALORIE ALTERNATIVE TO
SUGAR
Matthew Sykes (mss110@pitt.edu)
ASPARTAME: SWEET, SAFE
SATISFACTION WITHOUT THE
CALORIES
At some point in their life, everyone feels an innate
craving for something sweet. Some call this having a “sweet
tooth.” However, this instinct can be attributed to the
necessary role sugar plays in the human body. On average,
adult Americans eat 22 teaspoons of sugar per day, while
teens eat 34 teaspoons per day [5]. This is a very large
amount considering the recommended amount of sugar for
an adult man of normal weight is 9 teaspoons and 6
teaspoons for a woman. Cutting down on sugar intake can
benefit the body; however, completely removing sugar from
one’s diet can cause an individual to become confused,
forgetful and even lapse into a coma [5]. Finding the proper
balance can be difficult, causing many people to turn to
sugar substitutes, or artificial sweeteners, to satisfy a sweet
tooth. Because these products are compounds much sweeter
than sucrose, common table sugar, much less sweetener is
required, thus energy contribution is often negligible [2].
However, some people are under the belief that artificial
sweeteners are detrimental towards the human body. As a
child my family would constantly tell me that diet sodas, and
any other products with sugar alternatives, could cause harm
and even cancer. These products were never allowed in my
home. For a while I accepted this twisted belief; however, as
I got older I began to question how a product so widely
marketed could cause so much harm. I knew there must be
some set of moral obligations engineers hold in order to
preserve the health and wellbeing of society. If artificial
sweeteners were detrimental towards one’s health, engineers
around the world would have been obligated to remove it
from the market in order to truthfully “hold paramount the
safety, health, and welfare of the public” [9]. Engineers are
expected to exhibit the highest standards of honesty and
integrity because every action they make, every product they
develop, has “a direct and vital impact on the quality of life
for all people” [9]. On an almost daily basis, my mother
would tell me how unsafe any product containing artificial
sweeteners were; however, I am certain that chemical
engineers worldwide have ensured that artificial sweeteners
provide a safe, healthy and efficient sugar alternative.
Without the in-depth research and comprehensive
reading on engineering ethics and its daily application, I
would not be as well informed as I am now. I might have
even second guessed myself about the safety of sugar
alternatives, therefore siding with the uninformed opinions
University of Pittsburgh, Swanson School of Engineering 1
10/28/12
of my mother. These uniformed individuals as well as many
others might argue against incorporating ethics education
into a freshman engineering curriculum. However, they most
likely believe ethics education is simply teaching common
morality, a set of principles defining “right” from “wrong.”
Why would any educational institution waste their time
teaching their students the difference between right and
wrong when this concept is instilled in students at a young
age? I strongly believe incorporating engineering ethics into
a freshman curriculum is not a waste of time. It is an
invaluable asset that should be a part of every engineering
school’s curriculum [11]. The ultimate aim of efforts to
teach engineering ethics is not to produce moral engineers,
but rather to instill clarity of insight and strong decisionmaking skills. “Engineering ethics is not teaching right or
wrong, or good or bad, but rather methods of making
personal decisions about these qualities” [11]. Common
morality is “taught” in a sense that it is instilled in primarily
young individuals, and constitutes expected behavior by
certain groups of people or individuals. On the other hand,
adherence to the codes of professional ethics must be
willfully adopted by the professionals as they enter their
specific field.
Without the incorporation of engineering ethics
education into a freshman curriculum, such as a project like
this, I would not be closer to achieving cognitive goals in my
knowledge and reasoning. Through my research for this
assignment and future projects I will be better able to
address society’s problems while “conducting [myself]
honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully” [9]. Without
educating students on ethics, the chemical engineers
responsible for the production of artificial sweeteners might
have taken a shortcut, or left information out of a public
statement which could have caused widespread suffering.
However, these engineers stayed loyal to their code,
ensuring the safety of sugar alternatives. I am confident that
incorporating artificial sweeteners into commercial products
does not pose a significant enough health risk to remove
them from the market.
However, if artificial sweeteners did pose a health risk,
the world would have been well informed by the 21st
century. The first artificial sweetener, saccharin, was
discovered in 1879 when Constantin Fahlber, while working
on coal-tar derivatives, noticed a substance on his hands and
arms that tasted sweet. The world of artificial sweeteners
began when Fahlber licked this substance off his body [1].
Saccharin began to grow in popularity and eventually was
used to sweeten foods during sugar rationings in World War
Matthew Sykes
I and II. There were no adverse health effects of saccharin,
just a slight metallic aftertaste [2].
As a result, scientists developed cyclamate, an artificial
sweetener that had a more natural taste than saccharin. By
1968, food and beverage companies jumped at the
opportunity to sweeten their products with something that is
more natural tasting. At this point, Americans consumed
more than 17 million pounds of the calorie-free substance a
year in snack foods, canned fruit and soft drinks [1].
However, in the late 1960’s studies began linking cyclamate
to cancer. One study showed that chicken embryos injected
with the chemical developed extreme deformities. Another
study linked the sweetener to malignant bladder tumors in
rats [1]. Knowing this, chemical engineers adhered to the
American Institute of Chemical Engineers by “formally
advising their employers [about a consequence of their
duties that would] adversely affect the present and future
health and safety of the public” [10]. It is a result of the
implementation of engineering ethics education that these
engineers were able to think ethically and address this
problem so as to benefit the population. In this case,
engineers were not the only ones to act ethically, the
government also took action to correct the problem. Because
a 1958 congressional amendment required the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) to ban any food additive shown
to cause cancer in humans or animals, on October 18th 1969,
the government ordered the removal of cyclamate from all
food products [1].
The government has been working together with
scientists since artificial sweeteners’ introduction in the 18th
century to ensure that there are no serious adverse effects.
Problems, such as cyclamate, were solved early in the
development of sugar alternatives. Artificial sweeteners’
development continued into the 1980’s when the synthetic
compound aspartame was approved for use, later becoming
the leading additive in diet colas [2].
amino acids L-aspartic acid and L-phenylalanine, see figure
1 [4], [7]. This chemical was the leading cause of fear
among my family. My mother told me that the aspartame
would cause serious health problems and could even lead to
cancer. As a result, I have only had diet cola a few times in
my life and have now acquired a strong distaste towards it.
However, if this chemical is so dangerous, why is it around,
I asked my mother. She told me not to ask questions because
she knows what is best for me. There have been many
industry conspiracies surrounding aspartame that have been
circulated around the internet and the news, few having
reached my mother’s ears. Conflicts of interest in the studies
performed on aspartame and the study’s methodology is an
ongoing controversy. Dr. Robert Walton surveyed the
studies of aspartame and found that of the 166 studies to
have relevance for questions of human safety, 74 had
Nutrasweet industry, those who produce aspartame, funding
and 92 were independently funded. One hundred percent of
the research that was done by the Nutrasweet funded
program confirmed aspartame’s safety, whereas ninety-two
percent of the independently funded research discovered
issues with ingesting aspartame [2]. It is research and
publication materials such as these that violate the
engineering code of ethics. Canon five of the code states that
“engineers shall avoid deceptive acts. Engineers shall not
falsify their qualifications or permit misrepresentation of
their or their associate’s qualifications. They shall not
misinterpret or exaggerate their responsibility in or for the
subject matter of prior assignments” [9]. The engineers
working on these studies were probably not acting in a way
that would benefit the health and wellbeing of all people.
These engineers/scientists most likely did not “issue public
statements only in an objective and truthful matter” [9].
Instead, they acted dishonest and partial, providing
information that would only appease the company that pays
them.
I explained to my mother that the men and women
involved with such studies were most likely unethically
influenced, yet, she still held fast to her beliefs. However,
while my mother might still believe some of the information
produced from such surveys, she also told me “everything in
moderation.” As a future engineer, I can apply this rule to
alternative sweeteners and confidently assert to my mother
that aspartame is safe in certain dosages. The Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) has set the acceptable daily intake
(ADI) for aspartame at 50mg/kg of body weight [3]. To put
this in perspective, this would be about 3,750mg of
aspartame per day for a typical adult weighing 75kg, which
is far greater than most adult’s daily intake. A typical can of
diet cola contains about 180mg of aspartame, therefore a
typical adult would have to drink about 21 cans of diet cola
to come anywhere near the ADI limit for aspartame [3]. It is
partially because of the dedicated chemical engineers that
there is an ADI for aspartame. These engineers “acted for
each employer as faithful agents…disclosing all known or
potential conflicts of interest that could influence or appear
FIGURE 1, ASPARTAME CHEMICAL STRUCTURE
The chemical structure of aspartame, the leading
alternative “general purpose sweetener,” which can be found
in more than six thousand food products [7].
Aspartame, as well as being used in diet cola, is also
known as Nutrasweet, Equal, and Sugar Twin [3].
Aspartame is a methyl ester of the dipeptide of the natural
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Matthew Sykes
to influence their judgment or the quality of their services”
[9]. By sticking to their code of ethics, engineers were able
to partner with the FDA and other companies worldwide in
order to improve the general public’s quality of life.
This collaboration led to aspartame being approved for
use in over 100 countries. The European Food Safety
Authority (EFSA) asserted the safety of sweeteners, such as
aspartame, throughout the European Union. According to a
2009 report from its Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient
Sources Added to Food, they claimed that: “Overall, the
Panel concluded, on the basis of all the evidence currently
available…that there is no indication of any genotoxic or
carcinogenic potential of aspartame and that there is no
reason to revise the previously established ADI for
aspartame” [3]. Although aspartame is safe for the majority
of the population, scientists from the FDA and EFSA have
concluded that aspartame is not perfect.
Phenylketonuria is a rare genetic disorder, present at
birth, in which the body cannot break down phenylalanine,
an amino acid found in many foods. Levels of phenylalanine
can build up in the blood, preventing other important
chemicals from getting to the brain. Unless phenylalanine
intake is kept to a certain level, children with
phenylketonuria can suffer from abnormal brain
development. Because phenylalanine is a component of
aspartame, it is very important that people, especially
children, keep their intake of aspartame to a minimum [3],
[4]. However, because the occurrence of phenylketonuria is
so small, about one in every fifteen-thousand children in the
United States per year, removing aspartame and other
artificial sweeteners from food products would not be worth
the trouble, considering it can be found in over six-thousand
products [3], [1]. Thus, people with Phenylketonuria simply
follow
a
phenylalanine-restricted
diet.
However,
phenylalanine is only one of the three main components of
aspartame that have been claimed to cause adverse health
effects.
professor of neurosurgery at the Medical University of
Mississippi, recently published a book discussing how the
ingestion of excessive aspartic acid from aspartame can
cause damage [5]. Aspartate acts as neurotransmitters by
aiding in the transmission of information from neuron to
neuron. However, too much aspartate in the brain kills
certain neurons by allowing the influx of a high amount of
calcium into the cells. Subsequently, this influx triggers
excessive amounts of free radicals, which in turn kill the
cells. The neural cell damage that can be caused by
excessive aspartate is why it is sometimes called an
“excitotoxin” because it “excites” or stimulates the neural
cells to death [5]. The excess aspartate slowly begins to
destroy neurons with the large majority of neural cells in a
particular area of the brain being killed before any clinical
symptoms of a chronic illness are noticed. A few of the
chronic illnesses that have been shown to be directly related
to long-term exposure to excitatory amino acid damage
include multiple sclerosis, memory loss, hormonal problems,
Alzheimer’s disease and in an extreme case, brain lesions
[5], [4].
However, all of these extreme side effects are caused by
long-term high exposure to aspartame. Acceptable daily
intakes have been set for a reason; human bodies cannot
ingest unlimited quantities of these alternatives. Because
sweeteners are not essential nutrients in our diet, they must
be taken in strict moderation.
This moderated intake level can replace a majority of the
sugar intake that is necessary. This replacement satisfies the
body’s instinctual drive for sugar, without the negative side
effects associated with table sugar. For example, it has been
proposed that consuming too much sugar suppresses the
immune system for a period of time. The white blood cells
that attack bacteria are less effective after an increase in
sugar levels. Studies have shown that overweight mice
create fewer antibodies after receiving vaccinations, thus
illustrating a compromised immune system. Increased sugar
levels are also an indirect cause of obesity diabetes [5], [6].
Studies have shown the correlation between refined sugar
consumption and the onset of diabetes. For example, a 2010
meta-analysis of eleven studies involving 310,819 people
and 15,043 cases of type-two diabetes found that sugarsweetened beverages may increase the risk of metabolic
syndrome and type-two diabetes not only through obesity,
but also by increasing the dietary glycemic load, which leads
to an insulin resistance [5], [4]. However, the World Health
Organization excluded sugar alternatives from this study,
therefore only illustrating a correlation of free sugars,
monosaccharaides and disaccharides, to adverse health
effects [5].
But the risk of being diagnosed with one of these health
effects can be lowered through the implementation of
alternative sweeteners into one’s diet. With the correct
balance of common table sugar, and artificial sweetener, one
can live a healthy life without the fear of compromising
one’s health.
FIGURE 2, SUGAR ALTERNATIVE
Sugar substitute packets are just one of the many modern
products containing aspartame [8].
Like phenylalanine, aspartame is also made up of
aspartic acid and methanol. Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, a
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Matthew Sykes
mother that aspartame, in moderation, is not harmful at all.
There is nothing wrong with the right amount of diet cola. I
might even find some at the next birthday party.
THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF ASPARTAME
PROVIDES A CLEAN ALTERNATIVE TO
SUGAR
REFERENCES
In 2011 the world produced about 168 million tons of
sugar, with the average person consuming about 24
kilograms of sugar each year [5]. This is an obscenely large
number that, if the majority of people adhered to, could lead
to many health conditions such as obesity, diabetes and a
weak immune system. Chemical engineers have attempted to
solve this problem with the introduction of artificial
sweeteners into the market. By providing a substance that
tastes like sugar, but does not contain the negative
components, engineers have been able to satisfy the drive for
sweetness without the health risks. Through a partnership
with the Federal Government, they were able to set an
acceptable daily intake for such alternatives. According to
the FDA, “Regardless of whether the use of a substance is a
food additive use or is GRAS (Generally Recognized as
Safe), there must be evidence that the substance is safe under
the conditions of its intended use. FDA has defined ‘safe’ as
a reasonable certainty in the minds of competent scientists
that the substance is not harmful under its intended
conditions of use” [3]. Through strict government regulation
and engineering prowess, we are able to provide a safe,
sweet alternative to sugar.
However, this engineering prowess must be kept within
the ethical, moral boundaries outlined in the various codes of
ethics for any positive, productive change to be implemented
in the world. Morality, by itself, involves behavioral
dispositions that may be encouraged, demanded or possibly
behaviorally conditioned, but it cannot be “taught” in a
traditional academic sense. What educators, and the creators
of the codes of ethics, can hope for is to encourage
“cognition and practice in a form of parity of reasoning”
[11]. An old adage once said that if you give a man a fish
you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed
him for a lifetime. I believe this adage provides a great
insight into the importance of incorporating engineering
ethics into a freshman engineering curriculum. If an
instructor tells his/her students what is or is not right in
certain circumstances, than the instructors have only
educated them about those specific circumstances. But, if
engineering ethics education trains the engineers of
tomorrow to analyze, think critically, and soundly evaluate,
then these students have been educated for a lifetime [11].
This type of education will educate students so that they
can naturally and effortlessly perform under a standard of
professional and ethical behavior in their future endeavors.
Engineering codes of ethics and the education of such ethics
are largely responsible for producing the chemical engineers
of today’s world. As a result of such education, they were
able to undergo the proper steps in ensuring the safety of
artificial sweeteners. I am now confident in telling my
[1] Suddath, Claire. "Are Artificial Sweeteners Really That
Bad for You?" Time. Time, 20 Oct. 2009. Web. 09 Oct.
2012.
<http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0%2C8599%2C19
31116%2C00.html>.
[2] Kovacs, Betty, MS, RD. "Artificial Sweeteners: Side
Effects, Cancer Risk, Weight Gain and Pros and Cons of
Sugar Substitutes by MedicineNet.com." MedicineNet. Ed.
William C. Shiel, MD, FACP, FACR. N.p., 2011. Web. 09
Oct.
2012.
<http://www.medicinenet.com/artificial_sweeteners/article.h
tm>.
[3] "Aspartame." Aspartame. National Cancer Institute, 17
Feb.
2011.
Web.
09
Oct.
2012.
<http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/OtherCarcino
gens/AtHome/aspartame>.
[4] Ludwig D. Are Artificial Sweeteners a Good Alternative
to Sugar? Harvard Health Letter [serial online]. December
2011;37(2):1. Available from: Academic Search Premier,
Ipswich, MA. Accessed Octoer 9, 2012.
[5] "Is Aspartame the Most Dangerous." Mercola Health.
N.p.,
2011.
Web.
9
Oct.
2012.
<http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/0
6/aspartame-most-dangerous-substance-added-tofood.aspx>.
[6] Heikel, B., Krebs, E., Kohn, E., & Busch-Stockfisch, M.
(2012). Optimizing Synergism of Binary Mixtures of
Selected Alternative Sweeteners. Journal On Sensory
Studies, 27(5), 295-303. Academic Search Premier,
EBSCOhost Accessed October 9, 2012.
[7] Aspartame. N.d. Photograph. Wikimedia Creative
Commons.
2008.
Web.
9
Oct.
2012.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Aspartame.s
vg&page=1>.
[8] "Aspartame Sugar Packet." Wikimedia Creative
Commons.
N.p.,
2012.
Web.
9
Oct.
2012.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aspartame_sample.jpg>.
[9] “Code of Ethics for Engineers." National Society of
Professional Engineers. N.p., 2007. Web. 29 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.nspe.org/resources/pdfs/Ethics/CodeofEthics/C
ode-2007-July.pdf>.
[10] “Code of Ethics." AIChE. American Institute of
Chemical Engineers, n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.aiche.org/about/code-ethics>.
[11] Abaté, Charles. "Should Engineering Ethics Be
Taught?." Science & Engineering Ethics 17.3 (2011): 583596. Academic Search Premier. Web. 29 Oct. 2012.
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Matthew Sykes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would personally like to thank Judy Brink for coming
into class to help all of us in finding research. I would have
struggled without her guidance. I would also like to thank
Pat O’Donnel for reading/reviewing my essay. Being a
junior engineering student, he has the wisdom to help better
my paper. I would also like to thank Hans Mattingly for
providing valuable insight and corrections on my previous
paper. Finally, I would like to thank my peer advisor
Katherine Colwell for continuing to help me through the
process of completing a collegiate research paper.
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