FDA Should Rescind Approval of MSG, Aspartame

A significant drop in neurodegenerative illnesses like Lou Gehrig's Disease and epilepsy, obesity, and certain cancers will occur when you convince others to stop using aspartame and MSG. Please write to the new FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, M.D., to ask her to get aspartame off the market by rescinding its FDA approval. This is an urgent imperative for the Obama FDA.

Though this interview was posted in 2006, the questions surrounding aspartame remain. It is hoped that under the new administration, these public safety issues can be given fair hearing.

Interview with Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock on devastating health effects of MSG, aspartame and Excitotoxins
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

Mike: Let's explore some of the more advanced aspects of what you are working on, Dr. Blaylock. Readers know the basics of both MSG and aspartame, but can you review what you've already written about excitotoxins?

Dr. Russell Blaylock: I have three books. The first one is the excitotoxin book, "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills," and the latest one is "Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life." The third one is "Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients," which is directed at nutritional treatments for cancer. It contains some material about aspartame and MSG. Excitotoxins have been found to dramatically promote cancer growth and metastasis. One aspartame researcher noticed that, when cancer cells were exposed to aspartame, they became more mobile; you see the same effect with MSG. It causes a cancer cell to become more mobile, and that enhances metastasis, or spread. These MSG-exposed cancer cells developed all of these pseudopodans and started moving through tissues. When you increase the glutamate level, cancer just grows like wildfire; when you block glutamate, it dramatically slows the growth of the cancer. Researchers have done experiments in which they looked at using glutamate blockers in combination with conventional drugs, like chemotherapy, and it worked very well. It enhanced the effectiveness of these cancer drugs.

Mike: Some research recently supports all this by establishing a correlation between leukemia and aspartame?

Dr. Blaylock: Yes. This Italian study was very well done. It was a lifetime study, which is very important with these toxins. They fed animals aspartame throughout their lives and let them die a natural death. They found increases in lymphoma and leukemia, along with several histological types of lymphomas; H.J. Roberts had written an article saying that there was a significant increase in the primary lymphoma of the brain. When you look in the literature, there is a rise in the incidents of what used to be a rare tumor.

We're seeing a lot more primary lymphomas of the brain different than lymphomas you see elsewhere. When you look back at the original studies done by the Searle Company, they found lymphomas as well as primary brain tumors and tumors of multiple organs. All of this correlation shows that we've got a powerful carcinogenic substance here. It is either acting as a co-carcinogen or a primary carcinogen. Most likely, it's the formaldehyde breakdown product.

What the Italian study found is that if you take these same animals and expose them to formaldehyde in the same doses, they developed the same leukemias and lymphomas. If you look back at the Trocha Study conducted in Spain a couple of years ago, what they found was when they radio labeled the aspartame, they could actually see formaldehyde binding to the DNA, and it produced both single and double strand DNA breakage.

We know that when formaldehyde binds to DNA, it's very difficult to remove it. It will stay there for long periods of time. What that means is if you just drink a single diet cola today, or sweeten something with NutraSweet, you're accumulating damage every day. Eventually, you're going to produce this necessary pattern of DNA damage to initiate the cancer; once you develop the cancer, the aspartic acid component of aspartame will make the cancer grow very rapidly. You've got a double effect; it's causing the cancer, and it's making the cancer move very rapidly.

Mike: How has the industry managed to suppress this information and keep this chemical legal in the food supply?

Dr. Blaylock: Donald Rumsfeld was the one who pushed this through, when he was chairman of G.D. Searle company. He got it through the regulatory process, but once it was approved, the government didn't want to admit that they had made a mistake. They just continued to cover it up, like the fluoride thing and the milk industry. The only place that they don't have covered is talk radio and the internet. The health blogs can tell the truth.

You see this in journals like the Journal of Clinical Nutrition or College Nutrition. Look at who funds them: The Monsanto Company; they used to be sponsored by G.D. Searle. They're not going to put articles in their journal that will infuriate their primary source of income. Medical and nutrition journals are controlled by these people.

Mike: An unholy alliance between the scientific community and big business?

Dr. Blaylock: Another big scandal concerning the research is something new we found. We discovered that outside of the brain, there are numerous glutamate receptors in all organs and tissues. The GI tract, from the esophagus to the colon, has numerous glutamate receptors. The electrical conducting system of a heart is replete with all sorts of glutamate receptors. The lungs, the ovaries, all the reproductive systems and sperm itself, adrenal glands, bones and even calcification are all controlled by glutamate receptors. They act and operate exactly like the glutamate receptors in the brain. So, when you're consuming MSG, the level of glutamate in the blood can rise as high as 20-fold. That's why some people get explosive diarrhea, because it stimulates the receptors in the esophagus and small bowel. Others may develop irritable bowel. If they have reflux, it makes that a lot worse. The thing about the cardiac conduction system glutamate receptors is this may explain the rise in sudden cardiac death. What you see in almost all these cases is low magnesium. When the magnesium level is low, the glutamate receptors become hypersensitive, and so people -- athletes in particular, if they are not supplementing with magnesium -- are prone to sudden cardiac death, because of the glutamate receptors.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3  |  4

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

3   2   2   Rate It | View Ratings

Contact Author

Contact Editor

View Authors' Articles

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.