Aspartame Resources: Reports on Aspartame Safety from Reliable Sources

USE BY SPECIAL GROUPS

Children

Studies have documented that aspartame is safe for use by children. However, children need calories to achieve proper growth and development. Thus, parents should supervise their children's diet to avoid dietary excesses or nutritional deficiencies.

Pregnant or breastfeeding women

The FDA and the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association agree that women who are pregnant or breastfeeding can safely use aspartame. Sufficient calories are important during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and calories should come from foods that contribute to nutrient needs rather than from foods low in nutrients. The variety of foods and beverages sweetened with aspartame can help satisfy a pregnant woman's taste for "sweets" without adding extra calories, leaving room for more nutritious foods.

Diabetic individuals

The American Diabetes Association in its discussion of aspartame states that aspartame is a safe and useful sweetener for people with diabetes. Aspartame makes food taste sweet and can significantly reduce or even eliminate the amount of calories and carbohydrate in foods and beverages. Research shows that aspartame does not affect short-term or long-term blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. Foods and beverages sweetened with aspartame offer people with diabetes a much wider variety of products from which to choose and greater flexibility in budgeting their total carbohydrate intake. Thus, it can help them follow nutrition recommendations and still enjoy good-tasting foods. About 90 percent of people with diabetes use aspartame-sweetened products.

Phenylketonuria

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a rare inherited disease that prevents the essential amino acid phenylalanine, one of the components of aspartame, from being properly metabolized. (An essential amino acid is required for normal growth, development, and body functioning and must be obtained from the diet, as the body cannot make it.) Because of this, phenylalanine can accumulate in the body and cause health problems including mental retardation. In the U.S. and many other countries, routine screening for PKU is required for all newborns. In the U.S., about 1 in 15,000 babies is born with PKU. People with PKU are placed on a special diet with a severe restriction of phenylalanine from birth to adolescence or after. Women with PKU must remain on the special diet throughout pregnancy. Since individuals with PKU must consider aspartame as an additional source of phenylalanine, aspartame-containing foods must state "Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine" in the U.S.