Aspartame May Negatively Impact Heart And Brain Function

A new study is exploring the link between an artificial sweetener and heart and brain function.

Widely used to sweeten food, drinks and other products, aspartame is a popular alternative to sugar. However, a new study conducted using mice and published inBiomedicine & Pharmacotherapysuggests the artificial sweetener may cause thickening of the heart muscle and “reduced cognitive performance.”

In the study, scientists at the Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials in San Sebastián, Spain, tested the effects of aspartame intake on mice — a dose equivalent to one-sixth of the recommended daily dose for humans — over the course of a year.

While the artificial sweetener (found in diet soda and gum, for example) was linked to an average of 20% body fat reduction, it was also tied to mild cardiac hypertrophy — a stiffened heart, which hinders its ability to pump blood, per Mayo Clinic — and “altered neurobehavior,” which researchers determined using the Barnes maze test.

Many people with cardiac hypertrophy don’t know they have the condition because they experience no symptoms, according to Mayo Clinic. However, in humans, cardiac hypertrophy can cause serious symptoms like shortness of breath and chest pain, or in severe cases, irregular heartbeats or sudden death.

In tests to determine the mice’s cognitive ability, researchers found that the rodents exhibited decreased spatial awareness abilities, memory capacity and lower velocity.

Thus, researchers argued, even a low dose of aspartame can result in damage to the heart and brain.

“These findings suggest aspartame at permitted doses can compromise the function of major organs, and so it would be advisable to reassess the safety limits for humans,” the researchers state in the study.

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Aspartame is commonly found in “diet” drinks, sugar-free gum, ice cream, dairy products, cereal and some over-the-counter medications, per the World Health Organization.