James Warren wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:
Bill O'Meally wrote:

I'm not a fan of aspartame either.

It has no effect on me but I do know two people who get effects from it.
My wife gets headaches when she switches to splenda based sodas so some
sort of withdrawal effect. An old friend gets brain fog when he gets
dosed with Diet Dr Pepper. Many can't tell diet from regular for that
brand.

Can you do better than anecdotes? A good study reference would be nice.

I can't. Given how contradictory the many studies are I don't think a
really good conclusion is going to be available any time soon. I also
think a good conclusion is going to come out "it depends".

I speculate that any artificial sweetener will have studies that condemn
it. Consider the financial incentives of the patent time sequence.
Before the patent studies will need to show it is not toxic to get it to
market. Then studies early in the 17 year patent life need to show it
is safe to build brand reputuation. Then studies late in the 17 year
patent life need to show it has problems to interfere with the marketing
of the generics. And eventually studies can go either way once the
patent is long expired. Looking at the several very old artificial
sweeteners my model have approximately worked so I use it to predict the
arc of events for the new ones. They all end up cursed one way or
another because the next patented one needs a market.