When the researchers conducted spatial learning and memory tests using the Barnes maze, the aspartame mice at four months consistently moved more slowly and covered less distance during training than animals in the control group. They also took nearly twice as long on average to locate the target escape hole, showing impaired memory recall (however, this was inconsistent and not seen as statistically meaningful). By eight months, performance gaps widened even further, with two out of six aspartame-treated mice failing to complete the task at all.
It makes you dumb, unfit and fat (around the organs).
Before you take this to mean anything about why you should do, you are not a mouse. This is a study in mice and the differences between what impacts it will have in mice and humans may be very large. Mice are not good human analogues, but they are very cheap and good model organisms.
The findings they report include weight loss and cardiac/neurological impacts. This appears to compound over time with worse impacts as the study continued. This would make sense if the impact of aspartame was a slow chronic toxin or inhibited some normal pathway. If it is the former then avoiding aspartame for mice is important at all times. If it is the latter then having a break every so often should ameliorate the damage, though how much and what time ratio is not tested here.
That said, this is in mice. In my experience human brains a fairly different from mouse brains and the metabolic context is also quite different. I doubt the applicability of this to humans will be replicated well any time soon. If they do find an issue it is likely to be different to what happened to the mice, and though it is possible this will carry over to humans it is unlikely.
I agree, they’re not good humans and I’d love to get some more eyes on aspartame in light of this study. I did the math (and posted a comment on this post) and found out that the dose is equivalent to a 2L coke zero bottle so the dosage is applicable to how much humans get.
It’s a classic more study needed and until we get a proper study without conflict of interest assessing human cognitive performance with a memory test after 8 months of drinking a 2L bottle of coke zero 3 times per week I’d recommend reducing the amount of aspartame drinks to at 0.5L or less 3 times a week.
It’s not conclusive that it’s going to negatively affect humans and sugary alternatives are very likely still less healthy both cognitively and physically than the zero drinks.
Also to point out, this doesn’t implicate any other artificial sweetemers. If you’re in Australia, the sweetenersight be listed by code rather than name:
Also you will usually find 950 (aspartame) along with 951 (acesulfame K) because the two have slightly different profiles and work very well together. If we do a study on humans I would want it to include the common and also some uncommon combinations. A lot of people are switching over to erythritol and stevia but I don’t know how safe they are. We make erythritol internally but the dose may be quite different, and coming in through the gut could be quite different to internal production, not to mention with the stevia as actually prepared not lab purified.
Erythritol in particular actually had a study recently that was also concerning