The ancient Greeks observed that men heavily exposed to lead became sterile. But this knowledge was not passed to the Romans, who stored their drinking water and their wine in lead-lined containers. Romans also added lead to some of their drinks as a sweetener. Based on examination of lead in Roman bones, some historians conclude that the Roman upper classes probably couldn't reproduce themselv...

Since cyclamates were first introduced in the early 1950s, arguments have raged over the potential carcinogenicity of this artificial sweetener. Concern over the safety of cyclamates arises from observations that some individuals and experimental animals can metabolize cyclamate to cyclohexylamine and that cyclohexylamine has been shown to produce testicular atrophy in experimental animals. Thi...

Background & Aim:   Changes in lifestyle, decrease in physical exercise along with incidence of obesity, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases indicate a need for low calorie formulations. The sweetness of Stevia, a natural sweetener, is estimated to be 300 times as much as that of sugar. Extraction of stevia leaves is considered a promoter of calorie balance and a beneficial part of a healt...

OBJECTIVE This article provides an analysis of the use of artificial sweeteners, caffeine, and excess fluids in patients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa (AN). METHOD Seventy participants with AN were recruited to participate in an ecologic momentary assessment study which included nutritional analysis using the Nutrition Data Systems for Research, a computer based dietary recall system. RES...

Potassium, an Artificial Sweetener In their article “First Experimental Demonstration of the Multipotential Carcinogenic Effects of Aspartame Administered in the Feed of Sprague-Dawley Rats,” Soffritti et al. (2006) present interesting data on the carcinogenic effects of longterm exposure to aspartame, an artificial sweetener, in experimental animals (rats). Recently, aspartame was supplanted a...

Some methods for examining the additivity of sweeteners, and their synergy in mixtures depend upon setting component concentrations on the basis of sweetness equivalence, usually to a sucrose reference. These methods may under- or over-predict the sweetness of a mixture, leading to spurious claims of synergy or mixture suppression. This paper points out one problem with one such popular method,...