Sugar or Artificial Sweeteners: Which To Use?

America and Americans, Canada and Canadians (and most of Western Europeans), are in a health crises. We are overweight, we are physically unfit. Oh, not all of us, but a huge, tremendous proportion of the populations of these countries.

So who, or what, is the culprit? Well, there's many of them – culprits, that is. But one - let's make that two – of them are: sugar and aspartame/sucaryl. This is perhaps the absolute health-related double-edged sword the Western World faces today?

Sugar, in its refined state, is a horror for our diets, our nutrition, and our overall health. Aspartame is generally sweeter than sugar and is known to create an imbalance in the system that is, of itself, just as bad as the sugar. Further, it is a known, proven cancer causing agent. But there's another, equally and faster danger aspect to aspartame.

Some people are allergic to aspartame. I'm one.

Allergies take many forms. Some people break out in hives. Some people get sick. There are other reactions of which I'm unaware. However, in my case, I react to aspartame, sucaryl and their predecessor, exactly the same way: they raise my blood pressure. Not just a little, but a lot.

My particular allergic reaction (and I say "allergic" reaction as it was documented over a period of two years by three different doctors and an allergenist and confirmed as an allergic reaction) raises my blood pressure. Not just a little.

My blood pressure normally runs about 135 / 75. On aspartame or sucaryl daily for just one month my blood pressure rises above 165 / 90. If I go longer, say two months, it gets up to the 175 / 100 range. This is dangerous territory indeed.

The downside here is not how high it gets. Your blood pressure can go up that high without much danger provided you get it under control. Medication can lower it. But for me, simply going off aspartame is not the solution. It takes about four to six months to flush the residual aspartame (blood pressure raising constituents of aspartame, that is) out of my system.

I won't go into the details of how I got there. But in 1989-1990 I was using diet sweetened food products for about 6 months. In February I had a checkup and my blood pressure came out at 170 / 95 – pretty high. I immediately stopped using aspartame-sweetened products and went back on sugar. By March 1st my blood pressure was down to 155 / 80 and on the 7th of March I had my first stroke. It was a very mild one. By the end of May my blood pressure had been at 135 / 75 for at least a month – and I had my second stroke. Again, fortunately, a very mild one.

They were in fact so mild that I put them off as pseudo strokes and never saw a physician. What we did notice, my wife and I, was that my memory for words and names – of people, places and things including the name of the street I lived on – was very obviously getting worse over that summer. And in August, reading an article in Reader's Digest, I realized that I had actually had two very mild strokes.

So use of refined sugars can help bring on either an obese condition with all the health risks pertaining thereto, or diabetes, or both. Killing you slowly. Aspartame can, over a very long period of time (I compare it to smoking) bring on cancer and then kill you, painfully and not quite slowly. Or, if you are like me, allergic, it could in a very short period of time cause a stroke or heart attack and lead to mild to more serious physical impairment including becoming a total cripple. Or death.

So what's my bottom line here? I limit my sugar intake. And I avoid with a passion any and all encounters with everything containing aspartame. You probably should too. And what should your "bottom line" be? Wellllllll, that's purely up to you. But I'd suggest, if you are not diabetic you should choose to avoid all aspartame/sucaryl sweetened products like the plague. And cut down on your refined sugar intake as well. See: Artificial Sweeteners: The Real Skinny before you make your final decision on sweeteners.

Disclaimer: This article in no way should be taken as “medical advice” on any product, condition or course of action, nor does it constitute in any way “medical advice” endorsing any specific product, specific result, nor any possible cure for any condition or problem. This article is meant as a source of information upon which you may base your decision as to whether or not you should begin using any vitamin, mineral and/or herbal supplement for better health, or begin using a “greens” product as a dietary supplement.

If in doubt, or if you have questions, you should consult your physician and, if possible, consult a second physician for a possible different opinion. The author does not bear any responsibility for your decisions nor for the outcome of your actions based upon those decisions.

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