Whether it’s sugarless gum or diet soda, light popcorn or sugar free puddings, aspartame is everywhere and in virtually every thing that claims to be low calorie and isn’t organic. In fact, some estimates have aspartame in as many as 6,000 different food products marketed and sold around the world!

I’m sure you’ve heard all the rumors about aspartame. About how the additive is linked to a host of neurological and behavioral disorders, even autoimmune diseases like lupus, mental disorders like Gulf War syndrome, birth defects, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis. But because the Food and Drug Administration has given the green light to consumption of aspartame, most people have ignored these alleged “scare tactics.”

The truth is, yes, many of these links to aspartame are skeptical links at best and if there are any links between aspartame and lupus, for instance, they’re snapshots – no real consistent diagnoses of lupus and consumption of aspartame.

But if you look at the list of ingredients on a pack of sugarless gum, there’s one ingredient in boldface: Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine. That’s not in boldface for any other reason other than to point out that it can be potentially dangerous to consume.

Phenylalanine is an amino acid found in lots of foods. Without phenylalanine, aspartame could not be made, as 50 percent of aspartame is made up of phenylalanine. And while phenylalanine is found naturally in lots of different foods, it’s usually found with other amino acids, making it safe to eat. However, when phenylalanine is isolated from other amino acids, it poses a greater risk to health, particularly for those who are unable to metabolize phenylalanine (these people suffer from a condition called “Phenylketonuria”). If these people were to consume foods with phenylalanine, irreversible brain damage is the result.

Now, even though people who are able to metabolize phenylalanine aren’t at the same risk as those with phenylketonuria, the very notion that it can cause irreversible brain damage to some people is enough for me to say that phenylalanine is dangerous when consumed in high amounts for anybody. And a study done on aspartame confirms my fears.

Published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers from the Universities of Pretoro and Limpopo (both South African universities) looked into the long term health effects of those who consumed aspartame in large amounts. The full details of their findings can be read in the aforementioned journal, but they conclude that excessive amounts of foods containing aspartame have a significant impact on the brain and learning processes by interfering with nerve interactions within the brain and disrupting the metabolic process of amino acids (the same problem phenyketonurics have).

So with all the reports saying that aspartame is safe and with an equal number of reports saying that it’s harmful, where does the truth lie? Well, I believe it’s somewhere in the middle, but leaning more toward the latter.

If aspartame were as devastating to the body as some chain emails suggest, there’d be more cases of lupus and other neurological disorders than there are now. But at the same time, there are way too many scientifically-backed studies to say that there’s no link whatsoever between aspartame and health hazards, particularly when it can cause such irreversible damage to those who can’t metabolize phenylalanine.

My final bit of advice: If at all possible, avoid aspartame products, but at the very least, eat them extremely sparingly. Aspartame is dangerous when consumed in high amounts.

What does “high amounts” mean? It means that if you’re eating sugar-free things or “diet” products more than once a day, you’re eating too much of it.

Yet another reason why going organic is the way to go.