# What is the straight dope on aspartame?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-straight-dope-on-aspartame/270322
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 21, 2004, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-straight-dope-on-aspartame/270322 "2004-10-21T01:35:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@me\_paso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/me_paso)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2004, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-straight-dope-on-aspartame/270322/1 "2004-10-21T01:35:04Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The FDA approved aspartame as a low-nutritive sweetener for use in solid form during 1981, and in soft drinks during 1983. It is a synthetic chemical consisting of two amino acids, phenylalanine (50 percent) and aspartic acid (40 percent), and a methyl ester (10 percent) that promptly becomes free methyl alcohol (methanol; wood alcohol). The latter is universally considered a severe poison.
Does aspartame really contain methanol? That would make sugar free Jell-O a poison right when you make it. But things like diet sodas get heated to above 86 degrees fahrenheit in the body too, so that would make it poison then. Is this just some myth, or an actual fact?
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### Author:  [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-straight-dope-on-aspartame/270322/2 "2004-10-21T01:40:19Z")
Here is a thread on the subject I found:
[Aspartame: toxic or just a harmless sweetner?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=21935&highlight=aspartame)
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2004, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-straight-dope-on-aspartame/270322/3 "2004-10-21T03:05:41Z")
I’m sure that others will be along shortly to help you.
I think it’s more of the same kind of scarelore that you can read about at snopes.
> **[FACT CHECK: Is Aspartame Responsible for 'An Epidemic of Multiple Sclerosis...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/aspartame-sweet-poison/)**
>
> Reports of the ingestion of aspartame in patients who later have suffered multiple sclerosis or systemic lupus is obviously not scientifically sustainable evidence.
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### Author:  [@Bob55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob55)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2004, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-straight-dope-on-aspartame/270322/4 "2004-10-21T06:34:16Z")
**samclem’s** Snopes link is great. I’d just add that this is a highly-debated topic, but personally I balance two pros/cons of aspartame for me.
1. the amount of sugar in a normal soda is insane, literally handfuls. And when I go out I drink a lot of coke, so by going diet I prevent the intake of hundreds of calories that will add to worse diseases than aspartame later in life (obesity, diabetes from the extra weight and possibly the sugar in the drink)
2. Aspartame has been shown (and of course _not_ shown as well) to increase hunger. I’ve also heard it causes water retention, and that in the heat it can break down into formaldehyde.
Well, pick your poison I guess. I’ve actually given up pop for dinner and force down some water instead lately.
This regionally friendly PC thread contained the words soda, coke, and pop