Aspartame

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Interesting - I hadn't thought about hormones affecting autism.. but having a younger sister who was quite a handful for my parents as a teenager, I can definitely see that girls' behaviour is more affected by hormones during puberty. That combined with stories from my mom about herself and her sister and their mother. I think that's pretty normal. Mind you, we're also talking about all women in my extended family who have unknown & undiagnosed AS their entire lives from my grandmother on down.

I find keeping as much gluten & casein out of my diet as possible helps. I've recently let a little more slip back in and am feeling the slowly building detrimental effects from it, so am now back to keeping it at as close to zero as possible. There are some gluten free breads that are horrible, others that are really rather good. I tend to make a lot of pancakes with buckwheat flour, and have made cookies, as well as breads & brownies from baking mixes vs. scratch. There are several options for gluten free pasta, and some of them are better than others, but may require a closer eye while cooking so you don't make mush. I rarely eat pasta, but I don't mind the odd rice noodle dish - but not too much of it, as rice noodles can be rather flavourless & a bit gelatinous in large quantities.

I used to take Effexor for a few years, and it helped. The highest dose I took was 150mg I think, when things were bad, then I reduced it to 75 & then down to the lowest 37.5. For a while I'd also take 5-HTP with it, it helped, too. Then added low dose Dexedrine IR about 2 1/2 years ago & then dropped the Effexor entirely and didn't really notice a change not having it so now I just take the Dex & multivitamins/supplements. I also follow a specific diet and other things, as well as do exercise and meditation etc all for focus & brain function.

Me too. I cant eat any artificial sweaters because of the migraines

Many years ago, I was going to a series of motorcycle races on a hot summer day where I was working on a crash/flag crew on a corner. Because of the heat, I bought a six pack of some brand of lemonade on the way to the races.

During the course of the day, I drank all six cans of lemonade. That evening, I had one of the worst headaches of my life. I mentioned it to someone else and they told me that they thought that brand of lemonade used aspartame as a sweetener. That was the first time I had ever heard of aspartame.

The only effects I've noticed from aspartame are cravings for more and withdrawal symptoms when I stop using it. Sugar, on the other hand, causes me to have mood swings, meltdowns and fatigue. Have you kept the amount of sugar you consume the same?

It seems to give me fleeting, brief head pains as well as slightly dulled mental abilities. Then the effects go away..

I get chestpains from Pepsi Max and other aspartame based softdrinks. A doctor suggested it might be acid reflux... which was bullocks since 1) Antiacids did not work and 2) when i stopped drinking Pepsi Max the pain went away.

I really, really loved Pepsi Max because it was so intensely sweet. But i have learned to like regular sugar based Cocacola again.

I wasn't having sugar in drinks before starting on this 'Half Sugar' product that contains sugar, aspartame and ascefulcame K

I like it as it doesn't have the nasty taste that artificial sweeteners usually do

The topic of relating diets to Autism Spectrum Disorders needs a discussion thread of it's own.

The 'Health, Fitness and Sports' forum can address dietary issues. Yet, too often, the topic of diet and Autism "gets lost in the shuffle" as many people both on the Autism Spectrum, and neurotypicals (NTs) take diets "for granted!"

I think you mean "phenylanine" (perhaps). A lot of people cannot tolerate it. If you're not sure, stay away.

@goldfish21: I had awful PMS-like symptoms from the time I hit puberty to the time I went on the pill, which was, at the time, solely for the purpose of controlling the symptoms. It was like night and day. I'll have a few bad days at the end of my cycle, but in comparison to an entire week (or more), that's nothing.

Aspartame in general: my advice is to STAY AWAY FROM ALL OF THAT KIND OF STUFF. MSG also. These things are literally poisons.

I won't touch artificial sweeteners, even before I started to hear about their toxic effects I found that even the smallest trace gives me a sore throat, and if I take enough Headaches too. Its a pain because I love lemonade, and its very difficult to find sweetener free lemonade these days.

To be honest I'm a bit paranoid about anything artificial anyway - I won't touch margarine for example, and avoid foods with artificial flavourings ect.

I have abstained from consuming this detrimentalizing chemical substance for the past eight months, and will be doing so permanently. Probably one of the most reasonable things that I have ever decided after discovering with extravagant ascertainity, that aspartame is putrefactive to the human nervous system (neurotoxic), and potentially carcinogenous in the long-term according to many chemical experiments and several case studies/histories. I have to cognitively analyze food & drink labels very carefully to be assured that it doesn't contain the chemical, it can even be found in children's medicine and prescribed medications.

Logically speaking, my levels of cognitive analysis, incisiveness, and concentration have incremented after refraining to consume any artificial sweeteners as part of my dietary routine, not to mention that I have gradually lost some weight, which is consequential due to the detoxification effects of my CNS and immune system distributional functioning; however, I have always possessed a resilient immune system due to frequentable consumption of curries that contain the antioxidant spice known as Turmeric, and there appears to be a positive correlation between daily turmeric consumption and stimulated immune functionality.

Retrospectively, whilst I was consuming "sugar free" Robinson's fruit squash and the occasional diet soda (Pepsi max, Diet Irn-Bru, or Fanta zero), my appetite levels would gradually stimulate overtime; as a result, I would feel increasingly peckish for more sugary, high-caloric, and fattening foods. This is accountable for the scientific fact that aspartame penetrates the CNS; consequently, this suppresses the levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which leaves people more hungry by feeling craved for more carbohydrates, fat, and sugar. A day after refraining aspartame consumption, I experienced mild headaches, dizziness, and symptomatic aspects of mild joint pain. These withdrawal symptoms that I exhibited disappeared within 24 hours.

Aspartame (branded as Aminosweet or Nutrasweet TM), breaks down into three components: phenylalanine (50 percent), aspartic acid (40 percent), and methanol (10 percent), meythl alcohol and wood alcohol are substitutionary terms. Phenylalanine should be abstained by individuals with the autosomal recessive metabolic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU), as it may contribute to psychiatric difficulties, seizures, and intellectual and other developmental disabilities. Upon ingested, methanol converts itself into formaldehyde, a highly toxic substance which deposits among human tissues, and gradually builds up overtime while aspartame is digested. Formaldehyde has gradually obtained recognition over the years due to various correlation studies indicating a "dangerous" link to cancer, which can be substantiated by degenerated proteins and DNA. In June 2011, the US National Toxicity Program has formally and assertively described formaldehyde as a "known to be human carcinogen."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/healt ... .html?_r=0

My own hypothesis signifies that aspartame is possibly one of the most overlooked contributors to the obesity and cancer epidemic, as-well as being the explicable reason for many specified medical problems such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, and the various "man-made behavioral syndromes" that have emerged nowadays. Aspartame has generated a multi-billion revenue industry for many pharmaceutical corporations because of this. The implications of Aspartame poisoning (most are reversible) have been a well guarded corporate secret since the 1980's, and have been unprecedented in the mainstream media for many years.

The dangers of excessive consumption of Aspartame are the most common denominators to at least 92 health implications: memory loss, brain tumors, insomnia, grand mal seizures, hallucinations, reversible intellectual deterioration, birth defects (including mental retardation), and even death.

http://www.wnho.net/fda_92_symptoms_on_aspartame.htm

Here are two articles on the pernicious effects of aspartame, and how it became legally approved, despite independent studies veraciously concluded that it's unsafe for human consumption, all thanks to none other than Donald Rumsfeld and his correspondence with the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

http://rense.com/general33/legal.htm
http://www.aspartamekills.com/lydon.htm

I will not consume artificially sweetened foods and beverages ever again, diet-coke is disgusting anyway.
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Diagnosed with "Classical" Asperger's syndrome in 1998 (Clinical psychologist).
AQ: 48/50