Diabetic patients who react to aspartame products face an additional major problem: the aggravation or simulation of diabetes complications - namely, neuropathy, retinopathy, and nephropathy (kidney involvement). In turn, failure to recognize aspartame disease invites needless or hazardous treatments, including eye (laser) surgery.
Erroneous Diagnoses
The role of aspartame disease relative to visual impairment (Chapter IV), headache (Chapter V), dizziness (Chapter VI-B), limb pain (Chapter VI-H), diarrhea (Chapter IX-D) became evident when these symptoms abated after aspartame products were discontinued.
- Cases IV-25 to IV-29 reported striking and prompt improvement of blurred vision and eye pain after stopping aspartame.
- Case I-29 had prompt improvement of severe difficulty in focusing after abstinence from aspartame, proving she did not have a suspected symptomatic retinopathy.
- A diabetic who drank four liters of aspartame sodas daily complained of severe changes in vision. An ophthalmologist reassured him that there was no demonstrable retinopathy. After reading about blindness in an aspartame reactor, he stopped such products... with marked improvement.
- 75-year-old physician (reported by Barbara Mullarkey in the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park & River Forest March 26, 1986, p. 37) had enjoyed regular sexual activity. Within 10 days of using an ATS for recently diagnosed diabetes, he noted "a complete and total loss of libido." This might have been ascribed to diabetic neuropathy except for the fact that his vigorous sex life returned within six weeks after avoiding aspartame.
- A diabetic woman developed agonizing pains "from my knees to my ankles which I was not able to handle." They began shortly after drinking two cans of an aspartame beverage. Other symptoms included "large sores over my head, face and back, plus I was on the verge of fainting and sick all the time." At the insistence of a physician-daughter, four specialists saw her for a presumed diabetic neuropathy. The provoking cause could not be determined. The patient then "took it upon myself to cut out the soft drinks. I was immediately normal with the exception of my leg pain."
- Case IV-1, a 66-year-old diabetic man, had been controlled with diet and an oral hypoglycemia drug. He then experienced temporary "loss of vision" and pain in both eyes, as well as "dry eyes" requiring the frequent use of artificial tears. Other complaints included severe drowsiness, decreased hearing in both ears, itching, and "red blotches." These features subsided after stopping aspartame, but promptly recurred during one re-challenge. He abstained from these products thereafter because "I was afraid I'd go blind."
Aggravation of Diabetic Complications
Repeated reference was made in previous chapters to the aggravation or simulation of diabetic retinopathy (Chapter IV) and diabetic neuropathy (Chapter VI-E) in aspartame disease. Mention of this subject on talk shows predictably evoked calls from diabetic patients about the onset of severe complications when they began using aspartame products after having been in "good control."
The metabolic stress superimposed upon diabetes by aspartame disease can be intensified when kidney failure coexists, as in Case XIII-21. (See Introduction to Section 3).
The aggravation or simulation of neurologic complications by aspartame was considered in Chapter VI and elsewhere. Suspicion about the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in a diabetic consuming considerable aspartame is paramount. Terms such as "diabetic dementia" and "diabetic encephalopathy" should raise suspicion about aspartame disease in the case of patients who consume these products. The variety of other misdiagnoses included "polyradiculoneuropathy" and the Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Hemochromatosis (iron storage disease; bronze diabetes) might be aggravated in its pre-cirrhotic state by aspartame through the stimulation of insulin (Chapter XIV). This association is suggested by Case XIII-I. In addition to hyperinsulinemia, other evidences of insulin resistance include obesity, elevated lipids, and abnormal glucose tolerance. The primary action of transferrin receptors to the cell surface where extracellular iron uptake is mediated (Ferrannini 2000).
Representative Case Reports
Case XIII-29
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