One the things that annoys me the most about most protein powders are the chemicals that are in them. Just check out any protein powder and you will find a bunch of ingredients that have no place being there. Some protein powders actually claim to be or sound natural but more often than not, this is not the case.

 

Protein is an essential nutrient for life. It allows the body to grow and repair whilst supporting the immune system and enables people to lose fat and gain muscle. People choosing to increase their protein consumption in the form of a protein powder, are not being helped by the dangers of artificial sweeteners, fillers and additives that are in 99% of protein powders.

 

In part 2 of this article I will highlight some of the other additives found in protein powders, but artificial sweeteners have been on the top of my list for a long while now. A partial list includes: aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame-K and high fructose corn syrup. However here’s a more detailed run down of three of the main culprits and why they should be avoided:

 

Aspartame – E951:

Aspartame is 180 times sweeter than sugar and has been in widespread use since its approval in 1983 since the diet industry has promoted it as a safe alternative to sugar. However many people believe it to be a dangerous, unstable chemical compound.[1]

Initially approved as a sweetener by the US FDA in July 1974, its approval was revoked in December of the same year when lab tests showed that rats given aspartame developed brain tumours.  It was re-approved for use in 1983 despite no further evidence to support its safety.

 

Aspartame contains three compounds, each of which has serious side effects:

 

• Phenylalanine. According to the head of Brain Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Phenylalanine lowers the seizure threshold in some people and can cause seizures and brain tumours.

 

• Aspartic Acid.  Laboratory tests have found that aspartic acid can cause brain lesions and change the DNA in animals. This means that future generations can experience problems – in laboratory animals, health problems skipped a generation and produced obese and sexually dysfunctional animals in the third generation.

 

• Methanol.  Methanol (wood alcohol) is used in industry to strip epoxy and urethane coatings and as formaldehyde, for embalming corpses. It causes depression in humans and according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “is considered a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed.”

 

In humans, users of aspartame report side effects including headaches, joint pain, memory loss, numbness, tinnitus, hearing loss, vision problems, weight gain, rashes, seizures, fatigue, muscle spasms, dizziness, asthma and chest tightness.

In the US, the one place it is banned is in the US Air Force.[2]  We can’t have military pilots losing control of million dollar planes because of an aspartame seizure now can we!!

 

Many places such as Hawaii, New Mexico and countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia have unsuccessfully tried to ban its importation and use, due to corporate lobbyists. With the global sweetener industry to be worth around $11 billion you can understand why it’s not easy to ban![3]  However in the UK even the leading supermarkets such as Marks and Spencer are banning it from their shelves due to customer pressure.[4],[5]avoid aspartame at all costs and the E-number, E951 by which it also goes by.

Many protein powder brands have switched on to the fact that their customers are very aspartame savvy and so have switched to either Sucralose or Acesulfame-K mentioned below. However not all have switched so avoid aspartame at all costs and the E-number, E951 by which it also goes by.

 

Sucralose – E955:

Sucralose is made by chlorinating sugar and is chemically known as 1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-BETA-D-fructofuranosyl-4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha-D-galactopyranoside. It goes by the brand name Splenda, which with sucralose, sounds a lot better and a lot more natural that its chemical name.

 

Looks like someone did a good job on the marketing!

 

Anyhow it was discovered whilst doing research on insecticides.[6] Prior to its approval by the FDA in 1998, only two published trials had taken place, with just 36 subjects involved.[7],[8]  However of the 36 subjects, only 23 total were actually given sucralose for testing – and the longest trial lasted only four days, and it looked at sucralose not from a safety point of view, but in relation to tooth decay.

 

 

Since then there have been subsequent tests done on animals, but only six published studies have been on humans – none on children or pregnant women, and the longest test lasted just three months. Similar to the situation with aspartame after it first entered the market; there are no independent, long-term studies on the effects of sucralose consumption and its safety. Most of the studies look at taste preference & tooth decay. The studies used to get the FDA to approve Sucralose are still unpublished, were financed by the manufacturer and are still not open to the public.[9]

Sounds strange to me!

In total only a 191 people have been used to study sucralose. One study which focused on people with diabetes using sucralose showed “a statistically significant increase in glycosylated hemoglobin (Hba1C), which is a marker of long-term blood glucose levels.

The studies that involved rats, mice and rabbits showed sucralose consumption caused shrinking of the thymus gland by up to 40%, enlargement of the liver and kidneys, atrophy of lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus, reduced bodily growth rate, decreased red blood cell count, extension of gestational periods in pregnancy, decreased fetal body weights and placental weights.[10]

What’s worrying about Sucralose is that it is fat soluble, and according to test results, at least 15% of it is not metabolised and stays in your body.[11],[12]  Given that Sucralose closely resembles an insecticide in chemical structure, it’s hardly the sort of substance you would want stored in your fat cells for decades.[13] 

Johnson & Johnson (the owners of sucralose) maintain that sucralose passes through the digestive system without any absorption or metabolisation, but the FDA’s own research has shown that 11 to 27 percent of sucralose is absorbed in humans, while the rest is excreted. The Japanese Food Sanitation Council found that as much as 40 percent of ingested sucralose is absorbed and that it can concentrate in the liver, kidney and gastrointestinal tract. The latest news is very bad for Sucralose with the organisation Citizens for Health demanding it be taken off the market after reports that it severly damages the intestines. Read the report here http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/news.html?d=150785

The bottom line with sucralose is that it is an organochlorine, and these are used in pesticides and insecticides and have the potential to become toxic and cause neurologic and immune dysfunctions.[14]

 

I don’t think its right that you buy a protein powder which is supposedly a health supplement and you put your health and your future children’s health at risk. Do your research and avoid sucralose also known as E955!

 

Acesulfame-K or Acesulfame Potassium – E950:

Acesulfame-K also known as 5,6-dimethyl-1,2,3-oxathiazine-4(3H)-one-2,2-dioxide has become the most popular artificial sweetener in protein powders as of late, but it is most often blended with either sucralose or aspartame to give a more sugar-like taste as each sweetener masks the other’s aftertaste.[15]  The FDA approved the limited use of acesulfame potassium in 1988 after accepting the manufacturers (Hoechst) own research despite protests by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that it had not been properly tested for safety.

 

Similar to sucralose, it is promoted as a non-nutritive sweetener as it is not metabolised by the body, therefore does not provide any caloric content, and is excreted in the urine “harmlessly”. The Hoechst Group studies suggest that this additive might cause cancer in rats and CSPI has continued to protest the inadequate safety studies originally done.[16]  Other studies demonstrated that one of the breakdown products, acetoacetamide, affected the thyroid gland in rats, rabbits and dogs; that rats in particular developed fast-growing benign tumours when fed acetoacetamide daily.[17]

 

I’m not a scientist but I am aware that if you ingest a chemical substance more often than not, it will be metabolised. Therefore as with aspartame and sucralose, E950 should not be something that you want to be a guinea pig with.

 

Stevia

In the race to find sweet alternatives to sugar, Stevia is the big new name.  It is ironical, then, that Stevia has been in use in South America for over 1500 years and is a naturally sweet herb native to Paraguay. It has been used to sweeten local teas and medicines but what makes it interesting is that it is non-toxic, has no calories, does not adversely affect blood sugar, is safe for diabetics and it is heat stable up to 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit), so it is safe for cooking and can be added to hot drinks.

 

Today it has become a popular sweetener in many Asian countries including Japan, Thailand, China and South Korea.  In Japan stevia has been widely used as a sweetener since the 1970’s and is now approximately in over 50% of Japans sweetened products. They consume over 300,000 pounds per year and no side effects have yet been reported after more than 30 years of use. Interestingly, Japan has the highest life expectancy of any country in the world (World Health Organization, 2005).[18]

 

So why isn’t stevia already in our food supply and protein powders?  The problem for stevia is that because it is a natural substance, it can’t be patented by the huge pharmaceutical corporations.  With no one able to make billions from it, there will be no large scale testing performed to get it approved by the FDA.  Meanwhile, it has always been legal to use artificial chemical products like aspartame and sucralose, with all their attendant health problems.

 

While many people seek the Holy Grail of a safe artificial sweetener, the choices have remained limited.  Aspartame and sucralose have serious side effects, and are best avoided.  Stevia however has always proved very promising but has never got past the roadblock put in place by the big pharmaceutical companies and the FDA. That is until now!

 

Good News

Back in October of 2008 The FSANZ (Food Standards Australia New Zealand) gave steviol glycosides, the extracts within stevia that are responsible for the sweet taste, approval to be used in food and beverages.[19]  Since then the US on 17 December 2008, made radical decision in the right direction for stevia as the FDA approved Cargill & Merisant’s use of 95% or above purity level stevia sweeteners as a food and beverage ingredient. Now both the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo have reported initial FDA approval for stevia based extracts.[20] 

 

 

 

So now the floodgates are opening for stevia extracts, in the USA and Australia with the hopes the EU will follow in early 2010 and then hopefully with some added pressure from the consumer demanding natural ingredients, we will begin to see the end of artificial sweeteners in any product designed for human consumption, especially health supplements.[21]

 

Personal Recommendation

So for the love of health and living strong use a healthy protein powder with natural ingredients rather than products that are sweetened with chemicals that might taste good but have the ability to be very toxic, put your body under unnecessary stress and be stored in your fat cells.

 

A good protein powder does not have more than 5 ingredients. So if you were looking at a Chocolate whey protein isolate (wpi) you should see something like the following on the ingredient list:

 

Whey Protein Isolate – Obviously

Raw Cacao – Flavouring which has been processed naturally

Xanthan Gum – Natural thickener

Lecithin – Instantises the shake

Stevia – Natural Sweetener

 

At Professional Whey our protein powders are 100% pure with no additives, flavours or sweeteners. We sell separately the very best organic flavours and natural stevia extract powder if you want them, so you can choose how you want your protein powder to taste and are in control of what is going into your body.

 

We want you empowered, healthy and living strong!

 

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