"Travis McGee" > wrote in message
...
> http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sc...521-story.html
>
> FDA approves a new artificial sweetener
> Advantame
>
> Say hello to advantame, aspartame's intensely sweet cousin, which got the
> nod to enter the U.S. food market on Wednesday from the Food and Drug
> Administration. Advantame -- which does not yet having a catchy marketing
> name -- is the sixth artificial sweetener on the U.S. market to receive
> the FDA's blessing as a safe food additive.
>
> Advantame joins five other artificial sweeteners: saccharine, aspartame,
> sucralose, neotame and acesulfame potassium--better known by their
> respective commercial names, Sweet'N Low, Equal, Splenda and Newtame and
> Sweet One. (The sweetener Stevia, made from the leaves of the South
> American Stevia rebaudiana plant, has not required explicit FDA approval,
> as it fell under the FDA's "generally regarded as safe" clause.)
>
> Advantame is 20,000 times sweeter, gram per gram, than table sugar, making
> it the sweetest, by far, of the bunch. (By comparison, aspartame,
> sucralose and saccharine range from 200 to 700 times sweeter than table
> sugar.) It is a white crystalline sweetener that flows freely and
> dissolves in water.
>
> Advantame does not break down under heat, and thus is expected to be used
> to sweeten baked goods, dessert confections, jams and jellies, and syrups
> and toppings, as well as soft drinks. (The FDA said it is not for use in
> meat and poultry.)
>
> Unlike sugar, honey or molasses, advantame and the other "high-intensity"
> sweeteners it joins on the U.S. market add no substantial calories to the
> foods or drinks they flavor. They also do not generally raise blood sugar
> levels in humans.
> About the only way this stuff could harm you is if you were run over by a
> truck that was delivering it. - Josh Bloom, American Council on Science
> and Health, discussing advantame on his blog
>
> The safety of these artificial sweeteners has been widely challenged, and
> some nutritionists maintain the intense sweetness they bring to foods and
> drinks may confound normal metabolic processes and prime consumers' tastes
> for highly-sweetened (and often highly caloric) products. But the FDA on
> Wednesday declared advantame safe, and reiterated its position that other
> artificial sweeteners on the market with its permission are safe when
> consumed in concentrations that are customarily used.
>
> Like aspartame, advantame contains phenylalanine, which is metabolized
> with difficulty by people with a rare genetic disorder, phenylketonuria.
> But because of its intense sweetness, advantame would be used at much
> lower volumes than is asparatame. As a result, the FDA has declared that
> it can be safely consumed by those with phenylketonuria.
>
> In finding advantame safe for the general population, the U.S. Public
> Health Service's Capt. Andrew Zajac, director of the FDA's Division of
> Petition Review, said the agency took into account the findings of 37
> studies conducted on animals and humans. Those studies explored whether,
> when consumed in expected volumes, advantame was harmful to the immune,
> nervous or reproductive systems, or to the development of fetuses or
> children.
>
> The FDA set the safe daily consumption level of advantame at 32.8
> milligrams per kilogram of body weight--the equivalent of 40,000 packets
> of advantame. The agency has declared 165 packets per day (per kilo of
> body weight) as the acceptable daily intake of aspartame and sucralose
> (Equal and Splenda), and 250 packets per day (per kilo of body weight) of
> saccharine (Sweet'N Low).
>
> "It was virtually impossible to find a toxic dose in animals, and there
> were no signs of carcinogenicity, reproductive or developmental toxicity,
> or any other systemic toxicity in animals or humans," Josh Bloom of the
> American Council on Science and Health wrote on his blog Wednesday. "About
> the only way this stuff could harm you is if you were run over by a truck
> that was delivering it."
>
> Purveyors of dietary supplements who routinely warn of artificial
> sweeteners' dangers, he added, will undoubtedly find something "wrong"
> with advantame and offer a natural alternative. "After all" he wrote, "we
> all need to make a living."

They had just better not mess with my soft drinks! I hated it when they
added Splenda.