***************************************************************

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1142
milk toxicity, Mike Adams interviews Robert Cohen, plain text,
www.NewsTarget.com: Murray 2004.12.07 rmforall

http://www.newstarget.com/002684.html

Top Articles | Daily Email News Alerts!

Tuesday, December 07, 2004 commentary:

Milk and dairy products cause Crohn's disease, mucous and irritable bowel
syndrome -- interview with Robert Cohen

The following is part one of an interview with Robert Cohen, author of
"Milk, the Deadly Poison," and   http://www.Notmilk.com

Mike Adams: Would you be willing to provide an overview for people who
aren't familiar with the real story of dairy products and cow's milk? What
are the main things people need to know about milk that they don't already
know?

Robert Cohen: The real story is that dairy products are the tastiest foods
on this planet. There is nothing more delicious than cheese -- a day without
cheese is a day without sunshine. Milk is yummy, especially if you take 12
pounds of it and get rid of all the water, mix it with sugar, freeze it and
put a cherry on top. Milk, dairy, cheese, ice cream, yogurt -- I don't know
how I ever lived without these things. I was probably the biggest dairy
consumer in the state of New Jersey where I lived, and so were my kids.
Until one day something called genetic engineering hit our table, and I
started investigating whether I wanted my kids to drink good old wholesome
milk, or the genetically engineered milk.

I used to run a lab -- I did research, and I tried to take a pretty fair
look at all of the controversies regarding genetic engineering. This was
back in '94, and I started reading scientific journal articles about GMO
milk. I started investigating, calling Monsanto and speaking with their
scientists. One day it hit me -- after doing a week, a month, a year of
investigations, it hit me -- it's milk, stupid! Cow's milk, every sip of
cow's milk has virus in it; and pus and bacteria, powerful growth hormones,
proteins that cause allergies, antibiotics, pesticides, fat cholesterol and
dioxin -- now, which one of these things do you want in your body?

Mike Adams: Now this is a big shock, I think, for most people to hear this
kind of information.

Robert Cohen: Well, you know, it really isn't a shock, because most of your
listeners, if I said to them, "Here's a nice ice-cold glass of pig milk to
drink with your brownies," or "How about some dog milk with your chocolate
chip cookies," they'd get sick. They'd say, "No way!" They'd know
instinctively not to do it. As a matter of fact, you couldn't even tempt
them with a chilled glass of human breast milk. They'd get sick at the
thought of it; because they know that there are substances in those milks
that were intended for the young of the species.

And those substances have names -- they are lactopherins, immunoglobins --
you don't want to eat estrogen everyday, and progesterone, and proactin and
melatonin and oxytocin, and I can go on and on and name 59 different
hormones in every sip of milk. That's what milk is -- it's a hormonal
delivery system. And you don't want dog hormones or pig hormones. You don't
want cow hormones. You don't even, as an adult, want human breast milk
hormones.

Mike Adams: That's right -- it's perfect food for infants, but not for
adults. I always found it interesting that adult human beings chose to
consume a food, a liquid food, from another species.

Robert Cohen: It is kind of interesting, and in the name of good health, at
least make them healthy animals. But the 9 million cows in America, for the
most part, are not healthy. Half the herds in America have cows affected
with bovine leukemia virus, half the herds have cows infected with a disease
called Crohn's disease, which is caused by a bacterium called mycobacterium
paratuberculosis, which 40 million Americans have been affected with
irritable bowel syndrome from this. Every person with Crohn's disease tests
positive for mycobacterium paratuberculosis. Every one! One hundred percent!
And this was published in 1965 for the Proceedings for the National Academy
of Science. So we're talking about real science, here, not things I'm making
up. You've got thousands of studies published in scientific journals,
thousands of converging lines of evidence that tell us that milk does not do
the body any good. We drink body fluids from diseased animals.

Mike Adams: What about hidden sources of milk, because there are a lot of
products that have milk or milk proteins -- I know a lot of protein bars,
for example are made with milk proteins.

Robert Cohen: Well, sure. You've got to see the word "whey," you say "no
way!" You see the word "casein," "sodium caseinate," "calcium caseinate" --
that's the milk powder protein that you don't want in your body. When you
take milk and you get rid of the fat and you get rid of the water and you're
just left with protein, and basically they're blood proteins, serumalbumin,
milk protein, 90% of it is casein. Now, casein, when it's extracted from
milk, it's actually a glue used to put a label on a bottle of beer. It's the
glue used to hold together the wood in your furniture. When you eat this
casein, this glue from milk, and your body is seeing this foreign protein,
and you're producing these histamines which end up as mucus. And that's why
it is mucus-forming. Again, it's a process that takes 10 to 12 hours.

Mike Adams: So what other types of foods or protein bars or any other kind
of product will people find this casein?

Robert Cohen: Well, sometimes you'll find it in tuna fish, believe it or
not. Sometimes you'll see it in certain cereals -- it's used as a glue to
hold together certain foods. But what's remarkable is you'll look at things
in the supermarket, non-dairy creamers, for example, and you see non-dairy
creamer written on the front, then you turn it to the back and you look at
the small print, and you'll see "sodium caseinate, a milk derivative." I do
not know how they get away with calling something non-dairy when it's dairy.
But you've got to learn to read the tiny print on labels. If you see the
word "casein" in any way, shape, or form, caseinate, that's milk from
cows -- don't eat it.

Mike Adams: Food manufacturers, as you know, are pretty creative with their
labels. I've seen avocado dip, guacamole, with no avocados in it!

Robert Cohen: You're kidding me! That's amazing!

Mike Adams: Yeah! It's hydrogenated oils and artificial color.

Robert Cohen: That's scary.

Mike Adams: And that's the main stuff you get-- you have to go to a health
food store or somewhere special...

Robert Cohen: Well, you see the problem here Mike is that we don't have a
very strong guacamole lobby. But we do have a strong dairy lobby, I'll tell
you that.

Continue with part two.

Learn more about: Robert Cohen  | cow's milk  | dairy products

Dairy industry entangled with bribery, corruption and politics -- interview
with Robert Cohen

The following is part two of an interview with Robert Cohen, author of
"Milk, the Deadly Poison," and www.Notmilk.com

Mike Adams: Given all of this, though, isn't it astounding what kind of
marketing and propaganda job the dairy industry has accomplished? Most
people aren't aware of this information, and they drink milk at every meal.

Robert Cohen: The most brilliant marketing campaign in the history of
humankind -- you gotta give these guys credit. They do their job well, and
they spread the money well, in the right magazines. They've targeted women
from women's magazines and they've also gotten to Congress. They've donated
money -- lots of it -- so that chief, key people who make these laws
regarding milk consumption in schools on the USDA, the food pyramid -- it's
loaded, it's so supersaturated with people who have worked for or continue
to work for the dairy industry.

And when I use the word "bribes," I'm saying they bribed people in
government. I actually filed a Freedom of Information Act Request and got a
Watergate tape -- March 23, 1971, we find Richard Nixon taking $3 million
dollars cash in the White House. John Connelly walks in there afterwards and
is recorded saying, "These men are militants, they're adamant, they're going
to place a lot of money into political activities," and they had $3 million
cash! You know what Nixon did the next day? The next day in a cabinet
session, despite the fact that a week earlier the Secretary of Agriculture,
Clifford Horton, said there'd be no increase in the price of milk that year
because there was a surplus, the next day Nixon surprised everybody by
raising the price of milk across the board, translated to a $300 million
increase that Americans had to pay.

A year later, before the Watergate tapes were even known, Nixon was now
being interviewed on television by 100 reporters, and one of the reporters
at the end said, "Uh, Mr. President, how about rumors of the milk fund?" --
that $3 million bribe was paid, we now know. Nixon responded: "Milk fund?
The Democrats are raising the price of milk, not the Republicans!" And he
said, "I want the American people to know that their president is not a
crook -- I am not a crook." That's what he said in response to a question
about the milk bribe he took. The guy was a crook, and that's the way
Congress works.

Mike Adams: Well, food politics as usual, I say, and I think that kind of
influence and corruption seems par for the course today.

Robert Cohen: Well, it is par for the course. I testified before the USDA
Food Pyramid Committee a few years ago, when the undersecretary, Eileen
Kennedy, running it, asked all of the people, 27 of us, our names and our
organizations, and who finances us. When it got my turn to testify in front
of a few hundred reporters, I pointed my finger at her and said, "The
American people want to know who finances you!" Everybody said, "Gasp! What
did he say?" I said, "Because I've researched you, Dr. Kennedy. You're on
the Board of Directors of the Dannon Yogurt Research Foundation. Isn't that
a conflict of interest?" Promoting milk for our kids on that food pyramid...

Mike Adams: Obviously, you have a great deal of information and passion
about this subject. What is the FDA's role in all of this, both historically
and today?

Robert Cohen: The FDA does not have the manpower and womanpower to test
these things. They have a strict budget, and having met with them on many
occasions and knowing people from top to bottom at the FDA, I will say that
I wish they were an investigative agency. They're not -- they're an agency
that is only able to review the research submitted to them by pharmaceutical
companies. Their role is not to test milk, and not to question whether milk
is good. They kind of grandfather something in, and if it's been used, it's
generally regarded as safe, and they give it a status called GRAS, Generally
Regarded As Safe, because it's been used for eons. They don't test milk, and
if they did, there are things like aspirin that would never have made it to
the market. And unfortunately, the FDA relies upon animal testing and
animals react differently than humans do to everything.

Mike Adams: Isn't there any investigative body that can take a closer look
at this without the influence of the dairy industry?

Robert Cohen: Not really -- that's not their role. Again, the United States
Department of Agriculture, the USDA's role, is to protect those people
manufacturing these products and to look after their best interests. So any
state agency, any State Department of Agriculture is there to help the
people producing the food. Which is important -- farmers all throughout
America are hurting, even dairy farmers, even corn farmers. It costs $3 to
grow a bushel of corn, and they're getting $1.80 for a bushel, so we've
turned into a different country. The country that was going to bury the
Soviet Union has become a communist country, where farmers can't exist
without subsidies. It's a shame.

Continue with part three.

Milk and dairy products cause heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis --
interview with Robert Cohen

The following is part three of an interview with Robert Cohen, author of
"Milk, the Deadly Poison," and www.Notmilk.com

Mike Adams: What is it that drove you to have this kind of interest and
energy to pursue the truth about milk and dairy products?

Robert Cohen: Three little girls named Jennifer, Sarah, and Lizzie -- my
daughters. I wanted them to have healthy bodies. I wanted them not to live
four years of high school life with zits all over their body like their dad
did. And you know something? They've been zit free! No acne, and if you look
at my book, Milk A to Z, I take every letter of the alphabet and fill in
something about milk. Z is for zits, and we know that these cows are
actually being milked before they give birth, and that milk is different
milk -- it's milk instructing mammary tissue to grow. Little girls have
changed these days, but we find that with the secretion of all of these
androgens, the cows are constantly using the androgens to produce other
hormones. Teenage acne is improved the second we give up milk. It takes a
couple of weeks, and the acne's gone. And these androgens stimulate the
sebaceous glands, which are the glands that cause the acne, cause the zits.

So we find a dairy link to a number of human conditions. And I'm not the
first to say this -- Dr. Spock said this. Dr. Spock sold 75 million copies
of his book on child care. The only book that sold more than Dr. Spock's
book in history is the Bible. Dr. Spock said that no human, no child, no
adult needs cow's milk -- it's a deception on the government's part to
promote. And we're learning, as I've said, more doctors are learning today
something they were not taught in medical school. You want to look at the
etiology of allergies and diabetes? You look at diabetes, you look at the
New England Journal of Medicine, July 31, 1992 -- right there, you can look
it up! It said that exposure to these bovine proteins, bovine serum
lactobumin is a trigger for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, and a few
months later, October of '92, Scientific America talked about the dairy
slogan,"Milk, it does a body good." It said, "Milk, it does a body good --
it sounds a little hollow these days."

Mike Adams: Can you give a brief summary of -- you've mentioned a few here,
diabetes and acne, heart disease is mentioned in your book quite
prominently -- but what other chronic diseases are, say, aggravated or even
caused by chronic milk consumption?

Robert Cohen: Well, you know, that's an interesting question. Let's look at
the Big Five -- in America, the number one killer is heart disease, and then
we've got osteoporosis and cancer, and diabetes and asthma. We look at
nations where they drink milk, we find these diseases are common. We look at
nations where cheese consumption has tripled in the last 30 years, like
England and France and Canada and the United States, we find also a tripling
of asthma and breast cancers. Guess what country has the highest rate of
breast cancer? Number one in breast cancer rate, Denmark, followed by
Norway, followed by Holland, followed by Sweden -- are you detecting a
trend?

Mike: Milk consumption.

Robert Cohen: Let's play some more trivia with you, Mike. We know breast
cancer -- what country has the highest rate of heart disease?

Mike Adams: Well, I'm still thinking the United States.

Robert Cohen: Nope! Denmark, Norway, Holland and Sweden -- you're going to
get it sooner or later! Bone disease, heart disease, breast cancer -- see
where are we going with this? --highest rates of dairy consumption. We're
seeing absolute correlations between these diseases and dairy consumption,
and I can give you the reason. We have much more than just national
epidemiological studies -- we have mechanisms by which these diseases occur,
in breast cancer and every cancer, thousands of things cause cancer. Every
time we pick up a newspaper there's a new thing identified as causing
cancer.

But thousands of things cause it -- once you get it in your body, one thing
makes it grow, and the one thing that makes it grow is the most powerful
growth hormone you make in your body called insulin growth factor. And
remarkably, the greatest miracle of science, of nature, is that this hormone
in a cow's body and in a human body is identical. As a matter of fact, out
of 4700 different species of mammal and hundreds of millions of different
proteins in nature, there's only one hormone in the entire animal kingdom
that is identical between two species -- human and cow IGF-1, which has been
called the key factor in the growth and proliferation of breast cancer, lung
cancer, prostate cancer, every human cancer.

Mike Adams: Now of course, the dairy industry says that all of these
hormones are destroyed through pasteurization and they don't get absorbed by
humans who consume their products. We know that's not true, but why is that?

Robert Cohen: Let's analyze that statement, because maybe they're right, and
if they're right, that means breastfeeding doesn't work. So if you're
thinking that breastfeeding doesn't work, then go ahead and drink your cow's
milk, but if by some remote chance you're thinking, Well, maybe
breastfeeding does work, well by drinking the cow's milk you're
breastfeeding, and you're taking the hormones, and in a very efficient way,
more efficient than even nature, because nature finds a way to make lots of
something. Like, if you look at fish, at codfish -- they're laying tens of
thousands of eggs. Some species of fish lay over half a million eggs,
because the fish, somehow there's some innate knowledge that has determined
that most of those eggs are going to be eaten by predators. Most of those
eggs will not survive to become new baby fish.

Well, the body works the same way -- you make millions and millions of
sperm. You make millions and millions of cells. You make enough so that
something survives. And in the case of this hormone, IGF-1, your body is
constantly making it, and it's broken down very rapidly, or bound to other
protein receptors. But in the case of cow's milk, we've improved upon
nature -- we have cow's milk where normally these proteins are gone very
rapidly. We homogenize milk - in other words, we take the milk and make the
fat molecules between 10 and 100 times smaller. We make many more of them --
a pint of milk can contain a trillion tiny fat molecules. They envelop and
protect these hormones, which naturally, most of them are destroyed. So now
we have a mechanism by which we double the amount of this powerful growth
hormone in your body, and where it usually is broken down in less than a
second or two, it now remains active for up to 30 minutes. When it finds an
existing cancer, which is also common, that is the turn-on mechanism. And
that's why the nations that are drinking the most milk today and eating the
most cheese are the ones with the highest rates of every human cancer.

Mike Adams: Let's just clarify for the consumers out there which products
have these hormones in them. Because it's not just liquid milk. It's
everything that's dairy, right?

Robert Cohen: Yeah, that's right! Everything that's dairy. You've got liquid
milk in cheese, and sour cream, and butter. That's what milk is. When you
use 21 pounds of milk to make a pound of butter, or 10 pounds of milk to
make a pound of hard cheese, or 8 pounds of milk to make a pound of
sherbet...

Mike Adams: You're concentrating all of those...

Robert Cohen: You're concentrating the hormones, you're concentrating the
dioxins, you're concentrating the saturated fat, which we know is good for
you of course. That's what milk is, and that's what these dairy products
are -- concentrated milk products. If you've got one unit of something bad,
you don't want to have ten units of it concentrated.

Mike Adams: Indeed. There have been companies, of course, independent dairy
producers, who have been producing milk, and putting right on the label that
this is produced without bovine growth hormones.

Robert Cohen: But there's really no difference to me between the bovine
growth hormone, which has been genetically engineered, and the naturally
occurring growth hormone. It's all the same.

Mike Adams: I've recommended to readers they take a 30-day no-dairy test.
Seven days is also plenty, if you're aware of your body, to see the
difference, but what can people really expect to change. You've mentioned
some of the things, but what about the long-term health improvements? If
someone gives up milk, what can they expect to happen in a month or in a
year?

Robert Cohen: Well, you know, it's interesting you ask that question,
because the Townsend Medical Letter, which is a doctor's letter written by
doctors for doctors, over 180,000 get it, in the May of 1995 issue, they
talked about cow's milk, the symptoms, that they've been linked to a variety
of health problems -- mucus production, hemoglobin loss, allergies, and
numbers 8, 9, and 10 on their list were mood swings, depression, and
irritability. Now, you think about people who have mood wings, depression
and irritability, and many people blame it on Epstein-Barr virus, being
middle-age crisis prone.

Mood swings, depression and irritability -- you take estrogen every day,
with progesterone and melatonin and all of these different female hormones
that are coming from pregnant cows, and it's going to mess you up. I can't
even tell you what it's even going to do to you. But I know that we become
very hormonal, depressed, mood swings, depression and irritability -- give
it up. It really is an easy solution. You can spend thousands of dollars
with your doctor, and take all sorts of medication, and give kids Ritalin,
but there's no need for it! Just go not milk -- completely dairy-free.

Mike Adams: Right! It is amazing -- so often, people go to their doctor and
they get drugs, just to mask the symptoms caused by simple dietary choices.

Robert Cohen: And they teach the doctors none of this in medical school,
although many of them are learning on their own. They're learning because
they go with their patients and they say, "Stay off the milk for a while."
And they do, and they get dramatic results, especially with attention
deficit disorder, autism -- we're seeing such dramatic changes in children
who go completely dairy-free.

Mike Adams: What about the long-term prevention of chronic disease?

Robert Cohen: There's a place on this planet where they have more people
living over age 100 than anywhere else, where the average woman lives to age
86, where people don't even need x-ray machines because they don't get
breast cancer or osteoporosis. That place is 160 islands between Japan and
Taiwan called Okinawa. Now the book was written by Wilcox and Suzuki called
"The Okinawa Plan," and you read that these people are eating 1/20th the
amount of calcium that we do, yet they don't get bone breaks.

And you'll read the analysis of calcium intakes all over the world -- South
Africa they're eating under 100 milligrams a day, in America 980, and yet we
have 14 times the rate of pelvic fractures. It's not the calcium you eat,
it's not the cow's milk you eat -- it's the protein, the animal protein that
causes the acid condition in the blood which your body must neutralize, and
it does so by leaching calcium from your bones. And this is the real
science -- this is not the goofy milk mustache ad marketing -- this is the
real science that you find in peer-reviewed scientific journals, the truth
that most Americans are not getting.

Mike Adams: And yet most Americans think if you have fragile bones or the
symptoms of osteoporosis, you have to drink more milk!

Robert Cohen: Which is accelerating the bone loss because of the tremendous
amount of sulfur-based amino acids.

Mike Adams: And of course, there are lots of prescription drugs they can
take to further mask those symptoms.

Robert Cohen: Which is a shame because they cause a cascading of events. I
mean, look at what women take to prevent bone loss -- Premerin? You know
what Premerin is? Premerin is one of the number-one prescribed drugs in
America. It is what it sounds like -- Premerin -- pregnant mare urine. It
comes from horses -- they keep horses in bonds, hooked up to devices that
collect their urine. If you scratch one of those little yellow pills, it
smells just like pee. That's what it is, the estrogen from pregnant mares,
and you know what? We're not drinking estrogen from pregnant mares, but
we're drinking estrogen from pregnant cows in the form of their milk. Again,
before they give birth they have milk, and that milk is containing female
hormones to stimulate their own mammary tissue to grow larger. That's why
our little girls look different today.

Mike Adams: Let's see, we're getting our food from cow pus and our medicines
from horse urine, something's wrong with this picture, huh?

Robert Cohen: Wonderful world we live in, huh? Progress.

Mike Adams: Let's talk about infant mortality with cow's milk too...

Robert Cohen: Well, it's interesting you mention that. The American journals
really don't like to pick on the dairy industry, and reject many of these
articles, but we find, there's a really great journal, one of the world's
respected journals, called the Lancet, the British journal. And the Lancet,
June 4, 1994, I believe it was, they published a study on sudden infant
death syndrome showing that the lung tissue in the cells shows bronchial
inflammation similar to asthma from dairy proteins. So children are having
their last meal before they die, and what it is, is a bottle of cow's milk
formula. And the children fed cow's milk -- the Lancet since 1960 has been
doing a series of articles on sudden infant death and showing that
hypersensitivity to milk protein is implicated as a cause of sudden infant
death syndrome.

Continue with part four.

Milk won't help you lose weight, says dairy industry critic Robert Cohen

The following is part four of an interview with Robert Cohen, author of
"Milk, the Deadly Poison," and www.Notmilk.com

Mike Adams: Let's talk about marketing. The dairy industry, for many years,
they focused on the message that milk gave you healthy bones. And now
recently, they're focused on weight loss -- milk is a weight loss drink,
which I find somewhat hilarious...

Robert Cohen: Yeah, of course! You drink something with a lot of calories
and a lot of fat in it with growth hormones, of course you're going to lose
weight! Makes all the sense in the world. As a matter of fact, little
infants, they're supposed to have half their weight after three months -- of
course, they double their weight, don't they, after three months? A
weight-loss product -- that's absurd!

Mike Adams: How do you think the dairy industry, I would say, gets away with
making these implications and sort of these claims in their marketing and
advertising? How can they do this?

Robert Cohen: Well understand that on this planet we've got about a quarter
of a million different journals, and it's really easy to get something
published. And, what differentiates one publication from another is the
PC -- you know what the PC is? It's not the personal computer. It's the
press conference. What you do is you throw a press conference in the Plaza
Hotel in New York, and you invite the key members of the press, and make
them know that at lunchtime they're having giant shrimp cocktail and roast
beef. They're going to be there to report the story, and you give them a
really beautifully prepared press kit, and you've written the story for
them, and it's in the papers the next day, it's on television, and that's
how America's perception constantly is stroked. And when they have a half a
billion dollars a year budget to constantly promote these things and produce
these stories and these phony studies, hey -- that's just what they do. They
do it well.

But you know, it's funny, sometimes the dairy industry is the gang that
couldn't shoot straight. Remember that movie? Robert DeNiro, it's a movie
out of the 70s about the mafia, and everything they do they do it wrong? The
dairy industry has done these milk mustache ads, and one of the ads, when
you talk about strong bones, had the cast of the one of the doctor shows on
TV, with the three doctors posing with x-rays of their body. And in all of
the bodies, the hips were deteriorated with bone disease -- very funny. Two
male doctors, one female, and they were all female doctors with shriveled-up
hearts that you could see, deteriorated bone density.

Mike Adams: But the average person wouldn't recognize that, right?

Robert Cohen: No, but they do things, again, to just shoot themselves in the
foot. They hire vegans to do milk ads, they hire people who are already sick
from milk. Larry King -- can you imagine him doing a milk mustache ad right
after he had triple-bypass surgery? Every day the average American is eating
from milk and dairy the same cholesterol contained in 53 slices of bacon.
You do that all your life, by age 53, you have the same cholesterol as
contained in a million slices of bacon, and you wonder why heart disease is
America's number one killer.

Mike Adams: What about all the science the dairy industry produces to claim
milk is good for you?

Robert Cohen: You know something interesting? The dairy industry sponsors
studies, and as a researcher, I could design any study I want to and prove
anything I want to based upon the parameters of the study and the species of
mammal I use. But the dairy industry has done studies with humans, and they
say, "Here's a glass of milk. Drink the glass of milk." And the subject
does, and ten minutes later -- "How do you feel? Do you have mucus? No?
Great." Headline in paper because they've got a great press conference:
"Drinking milk does not cause mucus."

Now, you say that to any marathon runner or triathelete or opera singer or
Broadway star, they know that using dairy products causes mucus. They have
to stay away from it or they're not going to be able to perform. And that's
not a scientific study, that's just something they just know. It's a given!
Yet, the study, the science shows that drinking milk doesn't cause mucus.
Well, I told you the reaction to bovine serumlactobumin, to casein, the milk
protein casein, the histamine production takes 12 to 15 hours. So, you're
not going to keep a subject in the laboratory for 12 to 15 hours. "Drink a
glass of milk -- do you have mucus? No? Great. Milk doesn't cause mucus." Of
course it does! And it causes asthma attacks, and it causes these allergic
reactions.

And Flo-Jo's autopsy -- go to notmilk.com, and right in the middle column
you'll see Flo-Jo with the results of the autopsy, and it's just terrifying
what this does, and how it kills six to eight thousand Americans every year!
It's not going to kill everybody who eats a slice of pizza, but everybody is
going to have the histamines and the mucus.

Mike Adams: Well, hey, Big Tobacco says nicotine isn't addictive, Big Sugar
says sugar doesn't cause diabetes and obesity -- why not the dairy industry
saying that milk doesn't create mucus in the human body, huh?

Robert Cohen: Well, they can get away with it, and again, these other
industries don't finance the amounts of studies -- Robert Heaney gets $7
million a year at the University of Creighton to put out stuff like this,
and every month it's another study -- it doesn't cause breast cancer, it
doesn't cause allergies -- it's nonsense. We have thousands of studies that
show that milk is just something we should not be consuming.

Mike Adams: So, is the consumer any better off to go for so-called natural
milk products like organic milk?

Robert Cohen: Let me say something that most people do not understand. You
will not find one, not even one molecule of genetically engineered bovine
growth hormone in any glass of milk consumed in America today. Because the
bovine growth hormone that has been genetically engineered is injected into
the cow's rump. By the time it works on the cow's brain, it stimulates her
to make milk containing more of those naturally occurring hormones. So
whether you're drinking organic milk, or milk from cows treated with that
hormone, the milk that results is going to be exactly the same. Exactly the
same hormones -- the genetically engineered cows will give you milk with
more hormones, but you won't be drinking genetically engineered hormones.
You'll just be drinking more of those naturally occurring hormones.

Mike Adams: So it's just a concentration difference.

Robert Cohen: It's just a difference of number of those hormones. It's all
the same hormone in the milk -- genetically engineered milk does not contain
genetically engineered hormones. It works on the brain to stimulate the cow
to make milk containing more hormones. But it's the same hormones you would
get in an organic glass of milk, and those hormones are dangerous. The good
old wholesome milk hormones are dangerous. The ones that we thought were so
wholesome are so dangerous, and shouldn't be in your body.

Continue with part five.

Quitting milk Title: Giving up milk and dairy products results in positive
transformation in personal health -- exclusive interview with Robert Cohen

The following is part five of an interview with Robert Cohen, author of
"Milk, the Deadly Poison," and www.Notmilk.com

Mike Adams: I gave up milk years ago, and after doing so, my sinuses cleared
up, digestion was much easier, I had more energy, less fatigue. It was an
amazing transformation.

Robert Cohen: Well, it's something you noticed, and it's something anybody
will notice right away. You can read the propaganda from the dairy industry,
and you can go to my website, http://www.notmilk.com, and read. I've written
a column every day for the last 5 years. But when it comes down to it, you
are your best doctor. Try seven days -- don't eat any dairy products -- no
milk or cheese -- 7 days. And on day 8, go treat yourself to pizza, and have
ice cream for dessert, see what happens on day 9.

Mike Adams: If you dare, right?

Robert Cohen: Well, during the first 7 days, the mucus, the phlegm -- you're
going to lose three to four quarts of mucus that are clogging your kidney,
spleen, pancreas -- all your internal organs. You don't even know it's
there! Because it's what the average American eats every day. When you
cleanse yourself, it's like a fog lifts out of your body.

Mike Adams: Did you say 3 quarts -- how much mucus did you say there?

Robert Cohen: Three to four quarts. Can you imagine? It's evenly dispersed
throughout all of your internal organs so that your kidneys are a sponge for
mucus. I have an autopsy of a very famous American athlete. Go back to
Flo-Jo when she won her gold medal in the Olympics, and she died after she
did a milk mustache ad, after she ate pizza -- fifteen hours after she had
her last meal, she died and in her stomach were 250 cubic centimeters of
undigested mozzarella cheese, 15 hours after she ate it, and the body was in
such distress because it couldn't break that down that her body produced a
tremendous amount of histamines, which made a tremendous amount of mucus.
She had one drug in her body, Benadryl, which is an antihistamine -- she
knew she was congested.

And the coroner slicing through her kidney described the thick, viscous
phlegm that came out of the kidney, the entire lungs, the trachea and the
tracheal-bronchial tree were acutely, in the coroner's words, were acutely
congested from mucus. She even had finger marks on her throat, and that
pizza she ate, she ate her last meal at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and died
at 6 a.m. the next day -- 15 hours later, that mozzarella was still not
digested, and the congestion from that... that's why I say seven days no
dairy, have pizza for dinner, ice cream for dessert, the next morning,
you're going to wake up so congested, so mucusy, it's depressing what it
does to you. You diminish your lung capacity, sexual drive, it messes you up
in the toilet -- it's nice to be dairy-free for that week, because once you
see both extremes, I can't imagine how anybody would go back to using dairy
products.

Mike Adams: Isn't it true that drinking milk even increases body odor and
makes you stink?

Robert Cohen: The Japanese used to call Americans "the butter people."
Because they could smell us -- they could smell the rotten, putrefying milk
and dairy in our skin, and I eat entirely a plant-based diet now, and when I
lecture, when I go on tour, I can smell people, and it really is in the
sense of smell. But you don't know it until you live that lifestyle, and
then it's like a secret handshake that people from the planet vega have!
Vegans can smell other people...they know.

Mike Adams: It's funny that you mention that -- I was thinking about that
this morning, riding on a bike trail, and I can smell people as I pass them,
and it's not only just from their diet but also the laundry detergent they
use with fragrance, just loaded up with fragrance.

Robert Cohen: You can smell it coming out of them. And it really is
something....you are what you eat. I find, if you were to ask me the key to
health, the key to health versus disease, is animal protein is very
different from plant protein. And for years, vegetarians would argue that
it's the same protein -- you get everything the same! It's not the same
protein. Animal protein has a lot more of two amino acids - one is
methianine, and the other is cysteine, and those two amino acids have as
their central atom sulfur. Now, imagine the smell of rotten eggs infusing
into every cell of your body. The sulfur rotten egg smell is what we smell.
It's what vegans or vegetarians smell on meat-eaters. And the more chicken
you eat, the more you're going to stink. And the more you're going to stink
and your own body fluids are going to stink. That TV show Sex and the City
had a very special episode regarding that, but we may not go into that in
this interview.

But vegans, people who are eating a plant-based diet, are eating very clean
fuel for their bodies. And of course, milk is liquid meat. Milk and dairy
products are the worst form of these polluting substances. Not only with the
tremendous dioxin level, but with the tremendous amount of sulfur. You don't
want that rotten egg smell -- that's what accelerates heart disease, and
that's what accelerates bone loss. So that's why we find the people living
in nations where they eat the most dairy products are the ones with the
highest rates of osteoporosis and heart disease. That's the reason.

Mike Adams: It's interesting too that when people go off of milk for a
period of several months, they will find their taste changes, and then if
they were to take a sip of milk again, they would find it rather disgusting.
I've heard this from many people, I've experienced it myself.

Robert Cohen: Right. That's true.

Mike Adams: What happened with you in that regard? Did you ever go back and
try a sip of milk?

Robert Cohen: No, I did not, although I was eating, a year after I made the
discovery, I was still eating milk chocolate, and that was my weakness,
without recognizing that it takes 4 pounds of milk to make one pound of milk
chocolate. So, I was getting it in different forms. I would occasionally eat
a slice of bread that had milk powder in it. Now, I'm pretty obsessive about
it. I have zero dairy, and I haven't had any for six or seven years, but
I've occasionally made mistakes, but not of recent times. Do I salivate when
I see pizza? Absolutely. Do I remember how delicious it was? Sure. I cook
pizza at home, and now most restaurants will make you a cheeseless pizza.
You can have a lot of fun with a cheeseless pizza.

Mike Adams: I do soy cheese pizzas from time to time, but try to stay away
from pizza in general. But I agree with you -- the idea of sinking your
teeth into a pile of cheese still sounds good.

Robert Cohen: You know something? These foods are delicious, but, I don't
want to necessarily see you live to be 100 years old. Living to be 100 or
110 is not the top priority. The important thing is not living a long
life -- it's dying well. Because the average American spends 10 to 20 years
dying and suffering, and giving all of your money back to your doctor in
that period.

Continue with part six.

Milk won't help you lose weight, says dairy industry critic Robert Cohen
Source: http://www.newstarget.com/002701.html

NotMilk.com website provides educational resources for consumers wanting to
learn about the health dangers of dairy products, explains Robert Cohen

The following is part six of an interview with Robert Cohen, author of
"Milk, the Deadly Poison," and www.Notmilk.com

Mike Adams: What kinds of additional information can people find at your
website, http://www.notmilk.com?

Robert Cohen: Well, you can have a little bit of fun, and you can read,
right in the middle up top, the average pus count in your milk. If I held
out a glass of milk and said, "Here drink this, it has only 100 pus cells,"
you wouldn't do it, but the average quart of milk sold in America last year
contained 319 million pus cells. That's the average quart of milk. But you
can go right down the list, which I've included on the column, and you can
see that the state of Maryland has 350 million pus cells in a quart of milk.
You can see that the state of Mississippi has 442 million, in the sate of
Mississippi, it would be illegal to sell milk if it were in Europe or in
Canada -- 400 million is their magic number.

Mike Adams: So why does this vary from one state to another, Robert?

Robert Cohen: It varies because of geographic regions -- generally, the
hotter you get the more bacterial count in milk, the more ulcers the cows
get on their udders, the more mastitis, the more pus they put into the milk.
These are sick animals.

Mike Adams: I think most people who aren't familiar with this subject would
expect that somebody is in control and making sure that pus isn't going into
the drinking milk.

Robert Cohen: But that's what milk is. See, a cow filters through her udder
every single day 10,000 liters of blood. And milk, white milk, is actually
dead white blood cells, and they're somatic cells, or pus cells. That's what
milk is -- it's pus. Pus is not dangerous -- it's not one of the dangerous
things in milk, it's just disgusting. But it's delicious -- ever eat pus
mixed into sugar and freezing it? Ice cream, but it's yummy! But what else
can you find on the Not Milk site? There's a whole expose I've done on some
of the goofy milk mustache ads.

You can also find a wonderful letter written by a breast cancer surgeon to
his patients, Dr. Robert Kradjian. I call the Famous Milk Letter, right at
the very top of the page, and it's explained in layperson's terms how milk
is something that causes a number of discomforts and diseases for people.
The root of childhood allergies, of eczema, of earaches, of bedwetting, and
again, this is not me saying it -- I'm just a guy bringing all of these
things together. The chief of pediatrics of Johns Hopkins Medical School,
Dr. Frank Oski, wrote a book about milk, and it was called "Don't Drink Your
Milk," because of what he observed over his entire career milk did to
children. Nothing good about it.

Mike Adams: Speaking of books, what books can people find through the
traditional channels -- Amazon or Barnes and Noble, that you've authored?

Robert Cohen: I've just written a new book called "God's Nutritionist." And
it's really a very special book. It's based on the work of the most
translated author in history of American literature, a woman by the name of
Ellen White, who over 100 years ago was writing about vegetarianism and
animal rights, and she actually started a movement in America that now
includes 13 million vegetarians, and it's called the Seventh-Day Adventists.
So, that's my new book, "God's Nutritionist," I have a book called "Milk A
to Z," I have, of course, "Milk: the Deadly Poison," which is of course a
very subtle title, and I have a new one coming out called "Food for
Thought." In any event, that's the agenda, but "God's Nutritionist" is doing
very, very well. It's a bestseller already.

Mike Adams: Do you think your message is getting across to more and more
people? Are you getting through to people, or are people just, they don't
want to hear this?

Robert Cohen: For the most part people don't want to hear this. For the most
part pizza and ice cream are too delicious! But, those people who do hear
it, and who really do take the message, the type 2 diabetes goes away. The
heart disease is a dramatic change. The allergies go away, the congestion
goes away, and you've experienced it yourself, Mike. You're a great
spokesperson for this. Those people who do it find that things change.

Mike Adams: Just to wrap this up, Robert,  http://www.notmilk.com  is your
website. You have daily articles there, and do you have an e-mail
newsletter?

Robert Cohen: I have an e-mail newsletter, you can subscribe to it, it's
free, and it's probably the largest daily newsletter on the internet. Many
thousands of people read my letter every day, and I've got some good columns
coming up. Quite often my columns end up as front page news in different
newspapers. I spend full-time doing this.

Mike Adams: And people can look for "God's Nutritionist," and the upcoming
title "Food for Thought."

Robert Cohen: "God's Nutritionist" is 500 quotations about vegetarianism,
and it also contains quote from scientific journals supporting
vegetarianism.

Mike Adams: And they can find that through all the traditional channels?
Robert Cohen: It will be in any bookstore -- Barnes and Noble, Amazon, of
course.

Learn more about: Robert Cohen  | cow's milk  | dairy products

Overview:

NotMilk.com website provides educational resources for consumers wanting to
learn about the health dangers of dairy products, explains Robert Cohen
Source: http://www.newstarget.com/002712.html

Related Articles:

Super healing food revealed! This one simply food, available at nearly every
grocery store, has been clinically shown to prevent both hair loss and
prostate cancer.

The dirty little secret about cow's milk and weight loss: the dairy
industry's marketing hype is finally exposed!

The undeniable link between milk products and Crohn's disease, bowel
disorders.

The true story of corruption and politics in the dairy industry.

The horrifying truth of how milk and dairy products cause heart disease,
diabetes and osteoporosis.

Why milk won't help you lose weight, regardless of the hype from the dairy
industry.

How to transform your personal health by giving up milk and dairy products.

About the author:

Author Mike Adams is a holistic nutritionist with over 4,000 hours of study
on nutrition, wellness, food toxicology and the true causes of disease and
health. He is well versed on nutritional and lifestyle therapies for weight
loss and disease prevention / reversal. View Adams' health statistics
showing LDL cholesterol of 67 and outstanding blood chemistry. Adams uses no
prescription drugs whatsoever and relies exclusively on natural health,
nutrition and exercise to achieve optimum health. Adams' books include the
Seven Laws of Nutrition, The Five Soft Drink Monsters and Superfoods For
Optimum Health. In his spare time, Adams engages in pilates, cycling,
strength training, gymnastics and comedy improv training. In the technology
industry, Adams is president and CEO of a well known email marketing
software company.

Free ebook on superfoods:
Superfoods For Optimum Health: Chlorella and Spirulina
These two micro-algae superfoods exhibit astounding healing effects. Did you
know that a blue pigment found in spirulina destroys cancer tumors? Did you
know that a phytochemical in chlorella rebuilds damaged nerve tissue? These
two superfoods offer an astounding array of healing benefits that can
prevent and even help reverse cancer, diabetes, heart disease, mental
disorders, digestive disorders, obesity, acid / alkaline imbalances and much
more. A must read report for anyone wanting to experience optimum health. 39
pages. Free. Click here to read.

Learn more! Search for news and commentary on any topic:

Web www.NewsTarget.com

Subscribe FREE to the NewsTarget Insider

Learn more

Enter your email below:

Privacy policy

The A-List: products and services Adams uses to stay healthy. Click here.

Just released!

The Seven Laws of Nutrition downloadable ebook. Prevent chronic disease and
take charge of your health outcome.
Click here for details.

Adams' health statistics  LDL cholesterol = 70   (find out how!)

Adams recommends:
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Dr. Gary Null
Public Citizen
Save Our Supplements
Communication Agents

How to reach us:
Send a news tip
Ask a question
Other feedback

Email subscription services by Arial Software

NewsTarget.com is part of the News Target Network ?2004 All Rights Reserved.

All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected
under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all
content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the
recommendation of products. NewsTarget.com is presented for educational
purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any
licensed practitioner. It is not intended as a substitute for the diagnosis,
treatment or advice of a qualified professional. Truth Publishing assumes no
responsibility for the use or misuse of this material.
************************************************************

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1141
Nurses Health Study can quickly reveal the extent of aspartame (methanol,
formaldehyde, formic acid) toxicity: Murray 2004.12.05 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1106
hangover research relevant to toxicity of 11% methanol in aspartame
(formaldehyde, formic acid): Calder I (full text): Jones AW:
Murray 2004.08.02 rmforall   [ additions 2004.12.05 ]

Rich Murray, MA    Room For All    rmforall@comcast.net
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 USA  505-501-2298
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
137 members,  1,141 posts in a public searchable archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1139
dynamic model of methanol disposition in the body: Bouchard M et al, plain
text, 2001 -- dearth of data on toxicity in specific tissues from long-term
chronic formaldehyde and formic acid from smoke, aspartame, dark wines and
liquors: Murray 2004.11.20 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1140
EPA Preliminary Remedial Goals, PRGs, 2003 Oct, air and tap water --
methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid -- not mentioned is methanol from
aspartame, dark wines and liquors: Murray 2004.11.20 rmforall

Since no adaquate data has ever been published on the exact disposition  of
toxic metabolites in specific tissues in humans from long-term chronic
exposure to the 11% methanol component of aspartame, the many studies on
morning-after hangover from the methanol impurity in alcohol drinks are the
main available resource to date.

Jones AW (1987) found next-morning hangover from red wine with
100 to 150 mg methanol
(9.5% w/v ethanol, 100 mg/l methanol, 0.01%, one part in ten thousand).

Fully 11% of aspartame is methanol --  1,120 mg aspartame  in 2 L diet soda,
almost six 12-oz cans,  gives 123 mg methanol (wood alcohol) -- the same
amount that produces hangover from red wine.

The expert review by Monte WC (1984) states:
"An alcoholic consuming 1500 calories a day from alcoholic sources alone may
consume between 0 and 600 mg of methanol each day depending on his choice of
beverages (Table 1)...."

Table 1 lists red wine as having 128 mg/l methanol, about one part in ten
thousand.

An editorial review by Ian Calder, F.R.C.A., "Hangovers: not the ethanol--
perhaps the methanol",  British Medical Journal 1997 Jan 4; 314(7073): 2
[ Tel/Fax: 0171 720 9279   Consultant Anaesthetist at the National Hospital
for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London  WCIN 3BG, UK ]
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/search.dtl  search to get free full text  ]  ,
states:

"In fact, ethanol itself may play only a minor part in producing the thirst,
headache, fatigue, nausea, sweating, tremor, remorse, and anxiety that
hangover sufferers report....  [ Also, dizziness is common. ]

"Between a quarter and a half of drinkers claim not to experience hangover
symptoms despite having been intoxicated. (three citations)"

The symptom list is similar to reports by aspartame reactors.

If only a fraction of aspartame users happen to be vulnerable to the
methanol, that would account well for the disbelief by those who are not
aspartame reactors, as well as the scientific difficulty in proving
aspartame toxicity in the general population.

Research can study whether the hangover prone are also vulnerable to
aspartame, methanol, formaldehyde, and formic acid, and determine the
specific biochemistry for different groups.

Hangover treatments may help aspartame reactors.  For instance, adaquate
folic acid (folate) helps humans eliminate formaldehyde.

Reprod Toxicol. 1996 Nov-Dec; 10(6): 455-63.
Influence of dietary folic acid on the developmental toxicity of methanol
and the frequency of chromosomal breakage in the CD-1 mouse.
Fu SS, Sakanashi TM, Rogers JM, Hong KH, Keen CL.
Department of Nutrition, University of California, Davis 95616, USA.

"These results show that marginal folate deficiency in pregnant dams
significantly increases the teratogenicity of MeOH."   PMID: 8946559

There are no reports of hangover from heavy use of orange juice, 34 mg/l
methanol, since the methanol in many fruits and vegetables is locked up in
complex pectin molecules, not released by human digestion. (Monte WC  1984)

I have a few reports by aspartame reactors, who are often sensitive
even to a single breath mint or stick of chewing gum
(0.4 to 0.8 mg methanol),
of having the same symptoms from fruits or vegetables.

However, two careful studies show substantial methanol release from
degradation of pectins by bacteria in the colon from fruits and
vegetables -- a topic that deserves careful, thorough research:

Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 1997 Aug; 21(5): 939-43.
Endogenous production of methanol after the consumption of fruit.
Lindinger W, Taucher J, Jordan A, Hansel A, Vogel W.
Institut fur Ionenphysik, Leopold Franzens Universitat Innsbruck, Austria.

After the consumption of fruit, the concentration of methanol in the human
body increases by as much as an order of magnitude.
This is due to the degradation of natural pectin (which is esterified with
methyl alcohol) in the human colon.
In vivo tests performed by means of proton-transfer-reaction mass
spectrometry show that consumed pectin in either a pure form (10 to 15 g)
or a natural form (in 1 kg of apples) induces a significant increase of
methanol in the breath (and by inference in the blood) of humans.
The amount generated from pectin (0.4 to 1.4 g)
is approximately equivalent to the total daily endogenous production
(measured to be 0.3 to 0.6 g/day)
or that obtained from 0.3 liters of 80-proof brandy
(calculated to be 0.5 g).
This dietary pectin may contribute to the development
of nonalcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. PMID: 9267548

Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 1995 Oct; 19(5): 1147-50.
Methanol in human breath.
Taucher J, Lagg A, Hansel A, Vogel W, Lindinger W.
Institut fur Ionenphysik, Universitat Innsbruck, Austria.

Using proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry for trace gas analysis of
the human breath, the concentrations of methanol and ethanol have been
measured for various test persons consuming alcoholic beverages and various
amounts of fruits, respectively.
The methanol concentrations increased from a natural (physiological) level
of approximately 0.4 ppm up to approximately 2 ppm a few hours after eating
about 1/2 kg of fruits,
and about the same concentration was reached after drinking of 100 ml brandy
containing 24% volume of ethanol and 0.19% volume of methanol.
[ 24 ml = 61 g ethanol, and 0.19 ml = 0.34 g methanol = 340 mg ]
PMID: 8561283

Pharmacol Toxicol. 1987 Mar; 60(3): 217-20.
Elimination half-life of methanol during hangover.
Jones AW.
Department of Forensic Toxicology, University Hospital, SE-581 85 Linkoping,
Sweden.  Alan Wayne Jones  wayne.jones@RMV.se

This paper reports the elimination half-life of methanol in human
volunteers. Experiments were made during the morning after the subjects had
consumed 1000-1500 ml red wine (9.5% w/v ethanol, 100 mg/l methanol)
the previous evening.  [  100 to 150 mg methanol ]
The washout of methanol from the body coincided with the onset of hangover.
The concentrations of ethanol and methanol in blood were determined
indirectly by analysis of end-expired alveolar air.
In the morning when blood-ethanol dropped below the Km of liver alcohol
dehydrogenase (ADH) of about 100 mg/l (2.2 mM), the disappearance half-life
of ethanol was 21, 22, 18 and 15 min. in 4 test subjects respectively.
The corresponding elimination half-lives of methanol were 213, 110, 133 and
142 min. in these same individuals.
The experimental design outlined in this paper can be used to obtain useful
data on elimination kinetics of methanol in human volunteers without undue
ethical limitations.
Circumstantial evidence is presented to link methanol or its toxic metabolic
products, formaldehyde and formic acid, with the pathogenesis of hangover.
PMID: 3588516

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1047
Avoiding Hangover Hell 2003.12.31 Mark Sherman, AP writer:
Robert Swift, MD [ formaldehyde from methanol in aspartame ]:
Murray 2004.01.16 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1048
hangovers from formaldehyde from methanol (aspartame?):
Schwarcz: Linsley: Murray 2004.01.18

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1099
Diagnose-Me.com:  formaldehyde from 11 % methanol part of aspartame:
recent abstracts for methanol and hangovers: Murray 2004.07.10 rmforall

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/search.dtl  search to get free full text
British Medical Journal 1997 (4 January); 314(7073): 2.
Ian Calder, F.R.C.A. [ Tel/Fax: 0171 720 9279   Consultant Anaesthetist at
the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery,
London  WCIN 3BG, UK ]

Editorials         Hangovers: Not the ethanol -- perhaps the methanol

"Wine is only sweet to happy men," wrote an unhappy John Keats to his
sweetheart.(1)  His observation seems to have been vindicated.

Harburg et al found that psychosocial factors such as guilt about drinking,
a neurotic personality, becoming angry or depressed while drinking, and
having suffered "negative life events" in the past 12 months are better
predictors of symptoms of hangover than the amount of ethanol drunk.(2)

In fact, ethanol itself may play only a minor part in producing the thirst,
headache, fatigue, nausea, sweating, tremor, remorse, and anxiety that
hangover sufferers report.

Hangover symptoms are worst at a time when almost all ethanol and its
metabolite acetaldehyde have been cleared from the blood, and peak blood
ethanol or acetaldehyde levels are not related to the severity of
hangover.(3 )

Between a quarter and a half of drinkers claim not to experience hangover
symptoms despite having been intoxicated.(2, 3, 4)

Congeners - complex organic molecules such as polyphenols, higher alcohols
including methanol, and histamine, which occur in varying amounts in
ethanolic drinks - are probably more to blame than ethanol.

Chapman found that hangover symptoms were almost twice as common in
volunteers who drank 1.5 ml/kg [ body weight ] of bourbon whiskey - which
has methanol concentrations of 26 mg/l - as in those drinking the same dose
of vodka ( methanol 3.9 mg/l ). (5)

[ For a 60 kg person, this would be 90 ml bourbon, 0.09 liters, giving 2.34
mg methanol, which led to twice as many symptoms as the 0.35 mg methanol
from vodka.  The bourbon gave as about as much methanol as 1.3 ounce of diet
soda. ]

Pawan compared the hangover produced by different types of drink (but only
one brand of each) in his study of 20 volunteers.
The severity of hangover symptoms declined in the order of brandy, red wine,
rum, whisky, white wine, gin, vodka, and pure ethanol.(6)
Vodka and pure ethanol caused only mild headaches in two volunteers.

Jones has suggested that it is the metabolism of methanol to formaldehyde
and formic acid that causes symptoms of hangover, with quicker methanol
metabolisers suffering more.(7)
The justification for this suggestion is threefold:

the types of drink associated with more severe hangovers contain higher
levels of methanol;

the time course of methanol metabolism corresponds to the onset of symptoms;

and a small dose of ethanol, which blocks the formation of formaldehyde and
formic acid, provides an effective treatment for hangovers ("the hair of the
dog").

The economic and social consequences
of hangovers are probably considerable but difficult to quantify.
Performance accuracy is impaired synergistically by sleep deprivation and
hangover.(8)
Drivers perform less well in simulators when tested the morning after
drinking ethanol.(9)
Making driving with a hangover a criminal offence might be logical, but is
probably impractical in the absence of a simple diagnostic test like breath
alcohol.

Many pathophysiological disturbances occur during hangover, including
dehydration;  metabolic acidosis;  hypoglycaemia;  disturbed prostaglandin
synthesis;  abnormal secretion of vasopressin,  cortisol,  aldosterone,
renin,  and testosterone;  increased cardiac output;  tachycardia;  and
vasodilatation.

Hypoglycaemia and acidosis can be treated with fructose or glucose,(9)  and
the cardiovascular abnormalities with ? blockade,(10)  but symptoms are not
alleviated.
However, rehydration and anti-inflammatory analgesics are helpful,
particularly if treatment is started before bedtime.(11)

A completely effective treatment is probably unattainable (since so many
factors -- such as lack of sleep,  active or passive smoking,  dietary
indiscretions, unaccustomed physical activity,  intermittent upper airway
obstruction,  and emotional disturbances -- must play a part) and is
arguably undesirable since the fear of hangover
prompts most people to moderate their ethanol intake.(4 )

Even moderate amounts of ethanol can be damaging,(12) so a penalty for
consumption is in our interests.
Perhaps those who aspire to be one of Dr Johnson's "heroes" by drinking
brandy (13) are sensible as well as brave.

Ian Calder, Consultant anaesthetist, Department of Neuroanaesthesia,
National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery,
Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG UK

1. Keats J. Letter to Fanny Brawne. In: Tripp RT, ed. The international
thesaurus of quotations. England: Penguin, 1976: 266.

2. Harburg E, Gunn R, Gleiberman L, DiFranceisco W, Schork A.
Psychosocial factors, alcohol use and hangover signs among social drinkers:
a reappraisal.
J Clin Epidemiol 1993; 46: 413-22. [Medline]

3. Ylikahri RH, Huttunen M, Eriksson CJ, Nikkila EA.
Metabolic studies on the pathogenesis of hangover.
Eur J Clin Invest 1974; 4: 93-100.

4. Smith CM, Barnes GM.
Signs and symptoms of hangover; prevalence and relationship to alcohol use
in a generally adult population.
Drug Alcohol Depend 1983; 11: 249-69. [Medline]

5. Chapman LF.
Experimental induction of hangover.
Q J Stud Alcohol 1970; 5: 67-85. [Medline]

6. Pawan GLS.
Alcoholic drinks and hangover effects.
Proc Nutr Soc 1973; 32: 15A.

7. Jones AW.
Elimination half-life of methanol during hangover.
Pharmacol Toxicol 1987; 60; 217-20.

8. Peeke SC, Callaway E, Jones RT, Stone GC, Doyle J.
Combined effect of alcohol and sleep deprivation in normal young adults.
Psychopharmacol 1980; 67: 279-87. [Medline]

9. Seppala T, Leino T, Linnoila M, Huttunen MO, Ylikahri RH.
Effects of hangover on psychomotor skills related to driving: modification
by fructose and glucose.
Acta Pharmacol Toxicol 1976; 38: 209-18.

10. Bogin RM, Nostrant TT, Young MJ.
Propranolol for the treatment of the alcoholic hangover.
Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 1986; 12: 279-84.

11. Khan MA, Jensen K, Krogh HJ.
Alcohol induced hangover. A double blind comparison of pyritinol and placebo
in preventing hangover symptoms.
Q J Stud Alcohol 1973; 34: 1195-201. [Medline]

12. Karhunen PJ, Erkinjuntti T, Laippala P.
Moderate alcohol consumption and loss of cerebellar Purkinje cells.
BMJ 1994; 308: 1663-7.

13. Boswell J.
Life of Johnson. April 7th 1779. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1970.

This article has been cited by other articles:

M. H. Pittler, A. R. White, C. Stevinson, and E. Ernst.
Effectiveness of artichoke extract in preventing alcohol-induced hangovers:
a randomized controlled trial
Can. Med. Assoc. J., December 9, 2003; 169(12): 1269 - 1273.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

W. T Thompson, M. E Cupples, C. H Sibbett, D. I Skan, and T. Bradley.
Challenge of culture, conscience, and contract to general practitioners'
care of their own health: qualitative study
BMJ, September 29, 2001; 323(7315): 728 - 731.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

? 2004 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
**************************************************************

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1100
research on aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid) toxicity:
Murray 2004.08.02 rmforall  [ 2004.12.05 additions ]

Rich Murray, MA    Room For All    rmforall@comcast.net
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 USA  505-501-2298
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
137 members,  1,142 posts in a public searchable archive

The moderated newsgroup, bionet.toxicology , has accepted 25 of my long
reviews since March 24:

Dr. Charles "Chuck" A. Miller III   rellim@tulane.edu
Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
374 Johnston Building, SL29
Tulane Univ. School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
1430 Tulane Avenue  New Orleans, LA 70112   (504)585-6942
Bionet.toxicology news group  http://www.bio.net/hypermail/toxicol/current

[ NutraSweet, Equal, Canderel, Benevia, E951 ]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/927
Donald Rumsfeld, 1977 head of Searle Corp., got aspartame FDA approval:
Turner: Murray 2002.12.23 rmforall

A very detailed, highly credible account of the dubious approval process for
aspartame in July, 1981 is part of the just released two-hour documentary
"Sweet Misery,  A Poisoned World:  An Industry Case Study of a Food Supply
In Crisis" by Cori Brackett:   cori@soundandfuryproductions.com
http://www.soundandfuryproductions.com/  520-624-9710
2301 East Broadway, Suite 111  Tucson, AZ 85719

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartame/messages
Aspartame Victims Support Group   Edward Bryant Holman, Chief Moderator
834 members, 17,698 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://www.presidiotex.com/aspartame/    bryanth@presidiotex.net

http://www.HolisticMed.com/aspartame    mgold@holisticmed.com
Aspartame Toxicity Information Center    Mark D. Gold     also Co-Moderator
12 East Side Drive #2-18 Concord, NH 03301     603-225-2110
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/methanol.html
"Scientific Abuse in Aspartame Research"

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/957
safety of aspartame Part 1/2 12.4.2: EC HCPD-G SCF:
Murray 2003.01.12 rmforall  EU Scientific Committee on Food, a whitewash

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1045
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/scf2002-response.htm
Mark Gold exhaustively critiques European Commission Scientific
Committee on Food re aspartame ( 2002.12.04 ): 59 pages, 230 references

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1131
genotoxicity of aspartame in human lymphocytes 2004.07.29 full plain text,
Rencuzogullari E et al, Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey 2004 Aug: Murray
2004.11.06 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1088
Murray, full plain text & critique:
chronic aspartame in rats affects memory, brain cholinergic receptors, and
brain chemistry, Christian B, McConnaughey M et al, 2004 May:
2004.06.05 rmforall

Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2004 May; 78(1): 121-7.
Chronic aspartame affects T-maze performance, brain cholinergic receptors
and Na(+),K(+)-ATPase in rats.
Christian B, McConnaughey K, Bethea E, Brantley S, Coffey A, Hammond L,
Harrell S, Metcalf K, Muehlenbein D, Spruill W, Brinson L,
McConnaughey M.  Department of Pharmacology, Brody School of Medicine, East
Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA;  North Carolina School of
Science and Mathematics, Durham, NC 27811.
http://www.ecu.edu/pharmacology/faculty/mcconnaughey.html
Mona M. McConnaughey, Ph.D.  Research Assistant Professor
Department: PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY
Office: Brody Medical Science 6E-120A    252-744-2756
MCCONNAUGHEYM@mail.ecu.edu

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1067
eyelid contact dermatitis by formaldehyde from aspartame, AM Hill & DV
Belsito, Nov 2003: Murray 2004.03.30 rmforall   [ 150 KB ]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1039
three-page review: aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde) toxicity:
Murray 2003.11.22 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1026
brief aspartame review: formaldehyde toxicity: Murray 2003.09.11 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1025
aspartame & formaldehyde toxicity: Murray 2003.09.09 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1094
the 11% methanol component of aspartame becomes formaldehyde, now ruled a
carcinogen by WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer:
Murray 2004.06.16 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1084
26 stevia safety abstracts since 1993: aspartame vs stevia debate on
alt.support.diabetes, George Schmidt, OD: Murray 2004.05.25 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1133
Mark Gold, most recent of 14 Rapid Responses to Aspartame
and its effects on health, BMJ: Murray 2004.11.06 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1124
8 more Rapid Responses to Aspartame and its effects on health, BMJ:
Murray 2004.10.18 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1120
5 critical Rapid Responses to Aspartame and its effects on health, Michael E
J Lean and Catherine R Hankey,
BMJ 2004; 329: 755-756: Murray 2004.10.05 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1117
Aspartame and its effects on health, Michael E.J. Lean, Catherine R. Hankey,
Glasgow UK, British Medical Journal: 11% methanol component of aspartame,
and same level of methanol in dark wines and liquors, turns to formaldehyde
and formic acid, the main cause of chronic hangover symptoms: Murray
2004.10.04 rmforall
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/329/7469/755#76712

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/782
RTM: Smith, Terpening, Schmidt, Gums:
full text: aspartame, MSG, fibromyalgia 2002.01.17 rmforall
Jerry D Smith, Chris M Terpening, Siegfried OF Schmidt, and John G Gums
Relief of Fibromyalgia Symptoms Following
Discontinuation of Dietary Excitotoxins.
The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 2001; 35(6): 702-706.
Malcolm Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Gainesville, FL, USA.
BACKGROUND: Fibromyalgia is a common rheumatologic disorder that is
often difficult to treat effectively.
CASE SUMMARY: Four patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia syndrome
for two to 17 years are described.
All had undergone multiple treatment
modalities with limited success. All had complete, or nearly complete,
resolution of their symptoms within months after eliminating monosodium
glutamate (MSG) or MSG plus aspartame from their diet.
All patients were women with multiple comorbidities
prior to elimination of MSG.
All have had recurrence of symptoms whenever MSG is ingested.

Siegfried O. Schmidt, MD  Asst. Clinical Prof.  siggy@shands.ufl.edu
Community Health and Family Medicine, U. Florida, Gainesville, FL
Shands Hospital West Oak Clinic Gainesville, FL 32608-3629
352-376-5071

C. Trocho (1998):
"In all, the rats retained, 6 hours after administration, about 5% of the
label, half of it in the liver."

They used a very low level of aspartame ingestion, 10 mg/kg, for rats, which
have a much greater tolerance for aspartame than humans.
So, the corresponding level for humans would be about 1 or 2 mg/kg.
Many headache studies in humans used doses of about 30 mg/kg daily.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/925
aspartame puts formaldehyde adducts into tissues, Part 1/2
full text, Trocho & Alemany 1998.06.26: Murray 2002.12.22 rmforall

http://ww.presidiotex.com/barcelona/index.html  full text
Formaldehyde derived from dietary aspartame binds to tissue components in
vivo.
Life Sci June 26 1998; 63(5): 337-49.
Departament de Bioquimica i Biologia Molecular,
Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
http://www.bq.ub.es/cindex.html    L?nies de Recerca: Toxicitat de
l'aspartame     http://www.bq.ub.es/grupno/grup-no.html
Sra. Carme Trocho, Sra. Rosario Pardo, Dra. Immaculada Rafecas,
Sr. Jordi Virgili, Dr. Xavier Remesar,  Dr. Jose Antonio
Fernandez-Lopez, Dr. Mari? Alemany [male]
Fac. Biologia Tel.: (93)4021521, FAX: (93)4021559
Sra. Carme Trocho "Trok-ho"  Fac. Biologia Tel.:   (93)4021544,
FAX: (93)4021559
alemany@porthos.bio.ub.es ; bioq@sun.bq.ub.es

Abstract:
Adult male rats were given an oral dose of 10 mg/kg aspartame,
14C-labeled in the methanol carbon.
At timed intervals of up to 6 hours, the radioactivity in plasma and several
organs was investigated.
Most of the radioactivity found (>98% in plasma, >75% in liver) was bound to
protein.
Label present in liver, plasma and kidney was in the range of 1-2% of total
radioactivity administered per g or mL, changing little with time.
Other organs (brown and white adipose tissues, muscle, brain, cornea and
retina) contained levels of label in the range of 1/12th to 1/10th of that
of liver.
In all, the rats retained, 6 hours after administration, about 5% of the
label,
half of it in the liver.

The specific radioactivity of tissue protein, RNA and DNA was quite uniform.
The protein label was concentrated in amino acids, different from
methionine, and largely coincident with the result of protein exposure to
labeled formaldehyde.
DNA radioactivity was essentially in a single different adduct base,
different from the normal bases present in DNA.
The nature of the tissue label accumulated was, thus, a direct consequence
of formaldehyde binding to tissue structures.

The administration of labeled aspartame to a group of cirrhotic rats
resulted in comparable label retention by tissue components, which suggests
that liver function (or its defect) has little effect on formaldehyde
formation from aspartame and binding to biological components.

The chronic treatment of a series of rats with 200 mg/kg of non-labeled
aspartame during 10 days results in the accumulation of even more label when
given the radioactive bolus, suggesting that the amount of formaldehyde
adducts coming from aspartame in tissue proteins and nucleic acids may be
cumulative.

It is concluded that aspartame consumption may constitute a hazard because
of its contribution to the formation of formaldehyde adducts.  PMID: 9714421

[ Extracts ]
"The high label presence in plasma and liver is in agreement with the
carriage of the label from the intestine to the liver via the portal vein.
The high label levels in kidney and, to a minor extent, in brown adipose
tissue and brain are probably a consequence of their high blood flows (45).
Even in white adipose tissue, the levels of radioactivity found 6 hours
after oral administration were 1/25th those of liver.
Cornea and retina, both tissues known to metabolize actively methanol
(21,28) showed low levels of retained label.
In any case, the binding of methanol-derived carbon to tissue proteins was
widespread, affecting all systems, fully reaching even sensitive targets
such as the brain and retina....

The amount of label recovered in tissue components was quite high in all the
groups, but especially in the NA rats.
In them, the liver alone retained, for a long time, more than 2 % of the
methanol carbon given in a single oral dose of aspartame, and the rest of
the body stored an additional 2 % or more.
These are indeed extremely high levels for adducts of formaldehyde, a
substance responsible of chronic deleterious effects (33), that has also
been considered carcinogenic (34,47).
The repeated occurrence of claims that aspartame produces
headache and other neurological and psychological secondary effects --
more often than not challenged by careful analysis --  (5, 9, 10, 15, 48)
may eventually find at least a partial explanation
in the permanence of the formaldehyde label,
since formaldehyde intoxication can induce similar effects (49).

The cumulative effects derived from the incorporation of label in the
chronic administration model suggests that regular intake of aspartame may
result in the progressive accumulation of formaldehyde adducts.
It may be further speculated that the formation of adducts can help to
explain the chronic effects aspartame consumption may induce on sensitive
tissues such as brain (6, 9, 19, 50).
In any case, the possible negative effects that the accumulation of
formaldehyde adducts can induce is, obviously, long-term.
The alteration of protein integrity and function may needs some time to
induce substantial effects.
The damage to nucleic acids, mainly to DNA, may eventually induce cell death
and/or mutations.
The results presented suggest that the conversion of aspartame methanol into
formaldehyde adducts in significant amounts in vivo should to be taken into
account because of the widespread utilization of this sweetener.
Further epidemiological and long-term studies are needed to determine the
extent of the hazard that aspartame consumption poses for  humans."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/864
Butchko, Tephly, McMartin: Alemany: aspartame formaldehyde
adducts in rats: Murray 2002.09.08 rmforall
Prof. Alemany vigorously affirms the validity of the Trocho study
against criticism:
Butchko, HH et al [24 authors], Aspartame: review of safety.
Regul. Toxicol. Pharmacol. 2002 April 1; 35 (2 Pt 2): S1-93, review
available for $35, [an industry paid organ].  Butchko:
"When all the research on aspartame, including evaluations in both the
premarketing and postmarketing periods, is examined as a whole, it is
clear that aspartame is safe, and there are no unresolved questions
regarding its safety under conditions of intended use."
[ They repeatedly pass on the ageless industry deceit that the methanol
in fruits and vegetables is as as biochemically available as that in
aspartame-- see the 1984 rebuttal by W.C. Monte.  ]
In the same report, Schiffman concludes on page S49, not citing any
research after 1997, "Thus, the weight of the scientific evidence
indicates that aspartame does not cause headache."
Dr. Susan S. Schiffman, Dept. of Psychiatry, Duke University
sss@acpub.duke.edu    919-684-3303, 660-5657

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/911
RTP ties to industry criticized by CSPI: Murray: 2002.12.09 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/846
aspartame in Merck Maxalt-MLT worsens migraine,
AstraZeneca Zomig, Eli Lilly Zyprexa,
J&J Merck Pepcid AC (Famotidine 10mg) Chewable Tab,
Pfizer Cool Mint Listerine Pocketpaks: Murray 2002.07.16 rmforall

Migraine MLT-Down: an unusual presentation of migraine
in patients with aspartame-triggered headaches.
Newman LC, Lipton RB  Headache 2001 Oct; 41(9): 899-901.
[ Merck 10-mg Maxalt-MLT, for migraine, has 3.75 mg aspartame,
while 12 oz diet soda has 200 mg. ]
Headache Institute, St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, NY
Department of Neurology   newmanache@aol.com
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY
Innovative Medical Research   RLipton@aecom.yu.edu

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/855
Blumenthall & Vance: aspartame chewing gum headaches Nov 1997:
Murray 2002.07.28 rmforall

Harvey J. Blumenthal, MD, Dwight A Vance, RPh
Chewing Gum Headaches. Headache 1997 Nov-Dec; 37(10): 665-6.
Department of Neurology, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine,
Tulsa, USA.   neurotulsa@aol.com
Aspartame, a popular dietetic sweetener, may provoke headache in some
susceptible individuals. Herein, we describe three cases of young women
with migraine who reported their headaches could be provoked by chewing
gum sweetened with aspartame. [ 6-8 mg aspartame per stick chewing gum ]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1018
aspartame toxicity coverup increases danger of corporate meltdown:
Michael C. Carakostas of Coca-Cola: Murray 2003.08.11 rmforall
http://www.isrtp.org/new_members/members1.htm
The International Society of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology
Carakostas, Michael C., DVM, PhD Director/Scientific & Regulatory
Affairs   The Coca-Cola Company PO Drawer 1734 Atlanta, GA 30301
T. 404/676-4234   F. 404/676-7166   E-mail: mcarakostas@na.ko.com
http://www2.coca-cola.com/ourcompany/columns_aspartame.html  [photo]
Aspartame: The world agrees it's safe   By Michael Carakostas, DVM, PhD
Director, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, Coca-Cola

It is commendable that Carakostas mentions the core problem, albeit
disparagingly, and overlaid with multiple untruths:   "During digestion,
aspartame yields a very small amount of methanol-- as do many other food
substances. The body converts this methanol to formaldehyde, which is
instantly converted to formate.  Formate is quickly eliminated as carbon
dioxide and water."

Carakostas deceptively make claims, unsupported by research, that the amount
of methanol from aspartame is "very small", and that little of the
inevitable formaldehyde or formic acid toxic products accumulate in body
tissues.  This executive, with a PhD in veterinary science, is deceiving
people about very serious multiple toxicities.

Thus, there is evidence here cited from 1973 to 2004 that research and
reviews by immense vested interests about aspartame must be scrutinized with
the greatest skepticism.  The greatest Internet myth about aspartame is
this:  "Aspartame is the most thoroughly tested food additive in history."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/857
www.dorway.com: original documents and long reviews of flaws in
aspartame toxicity research: Murray 2002.07.31 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/858
Samuels: Strong: Roberts: Gold:  flaws in double-blind studies re
aspartame and MSG toxicity: Murray 2002.08.01 rmforall

"Survey of aspartame studies: correlation of outcome and funding
sources," 1998, unpublished:   http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.html
Walton found 166 separate published studies in the peer reviewed
medical literature, which had relevance for questions of human safety.
The 74 studies funded by industry all (100%) attested to aspartame's
safety, whereas of the 92 non-industry funded studies, 84 (91%)
identified a problem. Six of the seven non-industry funded studies
that were favorable to aspartame safety were from the FDA, which
has a public record that shows a strong pro-industry bias.
Ralph G. Walton, MD, Prof. of Clinical Psychology, Northeastern Ohio
Universities, College of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry, Youngstown,
OH 44501, Chairman, The Center for Behavioral Medicine,
Northside Medical Center, 500 Gypsy Lane, P.O. Box 240 Youngstown,
OH 44501    330-740-3621    rwalton193@aol.com
http://www.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/Psychiatry/walton.htm

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/622
Gold: Koehler: Walton: Van Den Eeden: Leon:
aspartame toxicity: Murray 2001.06.04 rmforall   four double-blind studies

Headache 1988 Feb; 28(1): 10-4
The effect of aspartame on migraine headache.
Koehler SM, Glaros A     PMID: 3277925, UI: 88138777
Shirley M. Koehler, Ph.D. Department of Psychology
Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital
3599 University Boulevard, South Jacksonville, Florida 32216
(904) 858-7650  shirley.koehler@brookshealth.org
Alan Glaros  glarosa@umkc.edu  816-235-2074

They conducted a double-blind study of patients, ages 18-55, who had
a medical diagnosis of classical migraines (normally having 1-3
migraines in 4-weeks), who were not on medications (other than
analgesics), and who suspected that aspartame had a negative effect on
their migraine headaches. The subjects were given 1200 mg daily,
aspartame or placebo, for four weeks, about 17 mg/kg.  The placebo
group had no increase in headaches.  Approximately half of the subjects
(5 of 11) who took aspartame had a large, statistically significant
(p = 0.02), increase in migraine headache frequency, but not in
intensity or duration, compared to baseline or placebo.  Only 11 of
25 subjects completed the program: 8 dropped out, 4 began new
medications, 2 had incomplete records.  They were at home.
Since 1/3 of the subjects dropped out, they may have been choosing
to avoid headaches-- were they unpaid?  To achieve statistical
signifance with only 11 subjects hints that the incidence rate from
aspartame is very high, about 1/2,  for migraine cases who believe
that they are hurt by aspartame.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1077
eight depressed people react strongly to aspartame, Prof. Ralph G. Walton,
MD, 1993 double-blind study, full text: Murray 2004.04.26 rmforall

Walton, RG, "Adverse reactions to aspartame: double-blind challenge in
patients from a vulnerable population," 1993,  with Robert Hudak and
Ruth J. Green-Waite,  Biological Psychiatry, 34 (1), 13-17.
Ralph G. Walton, MD, Prof. of Clinical Psychology, Northeastern Ohio
Universities, College of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry, Youngstown,
OH 44501, Chairman, The Center for Behavioral Medicine,
Northside Medical Center, 500 Gypsy Lane, P.O. Box 240 Youngstown,
OH 44501    330-740-3621    rwalton193@aol.com
http://www.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/Psychiatry/walton.htm

Eight depressed patients, ages 24-60, and five non-depressed controls,
ages 24-56, employed at the hospital, were given for 7 days either
aspartame or a placebo, and then after a 3 day break, given the
opposite.  Each got 2100 mg  aspartame daily, 30 mg/kg bodyweight,
equal to 10-12 cans of diet soda daily, about a gallon.  Despite the
very small number of subjects, the results were dramatic and
statistically significant.  The eight depressed patients reported with
aspartame, compared to placebo, much higher levels of nervousness,
trouble remembering, nausea, depression, temper, and malaise. (For each
symptom, p<0.01)  The five normals did not report strong enough
differences between aspartame and placebo to be significant.
Initially, the study was to be on a group of 40, but was halted by the
Institutional Review Board because of severe reactions among 3 of the
depressed patients.

Again, statistical significance with only 8 depressed patients:
"In this study, patients most often began to report significant
symptoms after day 2 or 3."  The incidence rate is very high,
indeed, about 1/3.  The most common symptoms are entirely typical
of thousands of case histories.

Stephen K. Van Den Eeden, T.D. Koepsell, W.T. Longstreth, Jr,
G. van Belle, J.R. Daling, B. McKnight, "Aspartame ingestion and
headaches: a randomized crossover trial," 1994, Neurology, 44, 1787-93
Steven K. Van Den Eeden,PhD  550-450-2202  skv@dor.kaiser.org
Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program
3505 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94611-5714
http://www.dor.kaiser.org/dorhtml/investigators/Stephen_Van_Den_Eeden.html

In their introduction, they comment:

"In addition, the FDA had received over 5,000 complaints as of July,
1991 in a passive surveillance system to monitor adverse side effects.
(17)  Neurologic problems constitute the primary complaints in these
and several other case series, with headaches accounting for
18 to 45 %,depending on the case series reported. (17-19)"

Subjects, ages 18-57, were recruited who believed they got headaches
from aspartame, but were otherwise mentally and physically healthy.
They were paid $ 15 total, and were at home. Of the 44 subjects, 32
contributed data to the 38-day trials: a week of inert placebo, a week
of either aspartame or placebo, followed by a week of the opposite, and
then this two-week cycle repeated.  The daily dose was about 30 mg/kg.
"The proportion of days subjects reported having a headache was
higher during aspartame treatment compared with placebo treatment
(aspartame = 0.33, placebo = 0.24; p = 0.04) (table 5)".
Of the 12 subjects not included in the data, 7 reported adverse
symptoms before withdrawing.

Again, statistical significance with a moderate number of healthy
subjects, willing to be recruited by a newspaper ad, who believed
aspartame hurt them.  The number of headaches for each subject
for each treatment week are given: it appears that 4 subjects
had the strongest increase in headaches from the run-in week
or placebo week to their first week on aspartame, jumping from 0 to 5,
1 to 6, 1 to 4, 0 to 5 headaches per week.  So, about 4 of the 44
healthy people recruited for the study, who believed aspartame hurt
them, had a stong increase in headaches from the first week of daily
asparame exposure, while 7 reported adverse symptoms before leaving,
a total of 11 out of 44, an incidence ratio of 1/4.

This is sky high, if we consider that, if the incidence ratio for the
about two hundred million users in the USA is 1 of 100, that is 2
million cases.  It is plausible that the incidence ratio lies between 1
and 10 out of 100 for continuous daily exposure.  These three flames
should have set off alarm bells, with extensive follow-up studies and
much more careful study of thousands of case histories.  But these
little flares were adroitly smothered by thick blankets of industry
funded fluff:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/623
Simmons: Gold: Schiffman: Spiers:
aspartame toxicity: Murray 2001.06.04 rmforall    two double-blind studies

http://www.dorway.com/tldaddic.html  5-page review
Roberts HJ Aspartame (NutraSweet) addiction.
Townsend Letter  2000 Jan;  HJRobertsMD@aol.com
http://www.sunsentpress.com/    sunsentpress@aol.com
Sunshine Sentinel Press  P.O.Box 17799  West Palm Beach, FL 33416
800-814-9800 561-588-7628 561-547-8008 fax

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/669
1038-page medical text   "Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic"
published May 30  2001    $ 59.50 postpaid    data from 1200 cases
available at  www.sunsentpress.com     1-800-827-7991
over 600 references from standard medical research

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/790
Moseley: review Roberts "Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic":
Murray 2002.02.07 rmforall

Roberts, Hyman J., 1924- ,
Useful insights for diagnosis, treatment and public heath: an updated
anthology of original research, 2002, 798 pages,
aspartame disease, pages 627-685, 778-780

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/859
Roberts: the life work of a brilliant clinician: aspartame toxicity:
Murray 2002.08.02 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1070
critique of aspartame review, French Food Safety Agency AFSSA 2002.05.07
aspartamgb.pdf (18 pages, in English), Martin Hirsch:
Murray 2004.04.13

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/957
safety of aspartame Part 1/2 12.4.2: EC HCPD-G SCF:
Murray 2003.01.12 rmforall  EU Scientific Committee on Food, a whitewash

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1045
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/scf2002-response.htm
Mark Gold exhaustively critiques European Commission Scientific
Committee on Food re aspartame ( 2002.12.04 ): 59 pages, 230 references

http://www.eatright.org/Nutritive(1).pdf
J Am Diet Assoc. 2004 Feb; 104(2): 255-75.
Position of the American Dietetic Association: use of nutritive and
nonnutritive sweeteners. American Dietetic Association.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1068
critique of aspartame review by American Dietetic Association Feb 2004,
Valerie B. Duffy & Madeleine J. Sigman-Grant: Murray 2004.05.14 rmforall

http://www.dorway.com  ( David O. Rietz, died 2003 )  over 12,000 print
pages     Mission-Possible-USA    Betty Martini   770-242-2599
Bettym19@mindspring.com    http://www.dorway.com/asprlink.html   many links
http://www.dorway.com/doctors.txt
What many informed doctors are saying/have said about aspartame

Mary Nash Stoddard
Toxicology Sourcebook: "Deadly Deception Story of Aspartame"
Aspartame Consumer Safety Network and Pilot Hotline [since 1987]
PO Box 780634     Dallas TX 75378-0634
phone: 214.387.4001  marystod@airmail.net   http://www.aspartamesafety.com

http://www.sweetpoison.com/
http://www.sweetpoison.com/food-additives-to-avoid.html
Dr. Janet Starr Hull, PhD, CN     jshull@sweetpoison.com

http://www.dorway.com/upipart1.txt
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/262
aspartame expose 96K Oct 1987 Part 1/3: Gregory Gordon, UPI reporter:
Murray 2000.07.10 rmforall

http://www.dorway.com/enclosur.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/53
aspartame history Part 1/4 1964-1976: Gold: Murray 1999.11.06  rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/928
revolving door, Monsanto, FDA, EPA: NGIN: Murray 2002.12.23 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/841
RTM: Merisant Co., MSD Capital, Dell Computer Corp., NutraSweet Co.,
JW Childs Assc.: aspartame-neotame toxicity 2002.07.10 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/876
hyperthyroidism (Graves disease) in George and Barbara Bush, 1991--
aspartame toxicity?  Roberts 1997: Murray 2002.10.09 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/874
re "dry drunk": Bisbort: danger to President Bush from aspartame toxicity:
Murray: 2002.02.24   2002.09.29 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/927
Donald Rumsfeld, 1977 head of Searle Corp., got aspartame FDA approval:
Turner: Murray 2002.12.23

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1065  politicians and
celebrities hooked on diet sodas (aspartame): Murray 2004.03.24
Senator John Edwards still has a dozen Diet Cokes daily -- a gallon,
which gives as much methanol as a half-gallon of red wine.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1101
John Edwards gives up Diet Coke: The Cult of Diet Coke, Eric Gillin:
Murray 2004.07.12 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1102
John Edwards still drinks Diet Coke (aspartame): TIME Europe  July 19 issue:
Murray 2004.07.12 rmforall

http://google.com  gives 249,000 websites for "aspartame" , with the top 8
of 10 listings being anti-aspartame, while http://groups.google.com  finds
on 700 MB of posts from 20 years of Usenet groups, 101,000 posts
http://news.google.com  many recent aspartame items from 4500 sources.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed   lists 775 aspartame items.

Many scientific studies and case histories report:  * headaches  * many body
and joint pains (or burning, tingling, tremors, twitching, spasms, cramps,
stiffness, numbness, difficulty swallowing)  *  fever, fatigue, swollen
glands  * "mind fog", "feel unreal", poor memory, confusion, anxiety,
irritability, depression, mania, insomnia, dizziness, slurred speech, sexual
problems,  poor vision, hearing (deafness, tinnitus), or taste  * red face,
itching, rashes, allergic dermatitis, hair loss, burning eyes or throat, dry
eyes or mouth, mouth sores, burning tongue  * obesity, bloating, edema,
anorexia, poor appetite or excessive hunger or thirst    * breathing
problems, shortness of breath * nausea, diarrhea or constipation  * coldness
* sweating  * racing heart, low or high blood pressure, erratic blood sugar
levels  * hypothryroidism or hyperthyroidism  * seizures  * birth defects
* brain cancers  * addiction  * aggrivates diabetes, autism, allergies,
lupus, ADHD, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical
sensitivity, multiple sclerosis, pseudotumor cerebri and interstitial
cystitis (bladder pain).
***********************************************************

http://www.readthelabel.org.uk/  Additives Survivors' Network (UK)
Geoff Brewer geoffbrewer@eurobell.co.uk
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/mom/aspartame/aspartame.html
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2000/srogers/sarah.html
Sarah Rogers sr8442@bristol.ac.uk
http://www.react.ie/Health/Nutrition/Aspartame.htm Ireland
http://members.tripod.com/~mission_possible/scotland_branch.html
http://www.aspartame.ca/indexa.html John T. Linnell admin@aspartame.ca
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000/AspartaMalcache.htm
http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/  Australia   FAILSAFE diet
http://www.bradymax.com/nzaa/  New Zealand
http://www.reseauproteus.net/therapies/nutritio/aspartame.htm  France
http://ww2.grn.es/avalls/aspa1.htm   Spain
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Falls/8669/   Brazil
http://www.phd.com.br/aspartame.htm
http://hem.passagen.se/mission.possible.sweden/
http://home.online.no/~dusan/foods/aspartame.html   Norway
http://www.ostara.org/aspartam/#menue  Germany
http://www.aspartaam.nl/info/product.html   Holland, in Dutch
http://www.laleva.org/  archimede@laleva.cc  Italy   9 languages
http://www.laleva.cc/alimenti/alimenti.html  aspartame vs stevia 4.17.03
http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/aspartame.htm   Greece
http://www.cseindia.org/html/cola-indepth/index.htm India
**************************************************************

http://www.vegsource.com  extensive vegan information

http://www.drmcdougall.com   practical, delicious healthy diet guidance

http://www.vegsource.com/articles/kradjian_milk.htm
Robert Kradjian MD Discusses Milk

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/971
Joel Fuhrman critique of Atkins diet in "Eat To Live":
Murray 2003.03.01 rmforall

http://www.hyp.ac.uk/cash/index.htm
Consensus Action on Salt and Health

Substitute stevia (at health food stores).

Avoid all products with aspartame and MSG.

Gradually reduce alcohol, sugar, caffeine (coffee, cocoa, and teas), meat,
fish, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese,  hydrogenated oils,
food additives and colors, fluoride, city water, salt and sodium.

Enjoy organic rice, potatoes, vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, almond
butter, garlic, tumeric,  with modest use of soy products and sprouted grain
breads, flax seed and olive oils, vitamins and minerals, 4-8 1,000 mg fish
oil capsules, and fill your jugs with deionized water.
**************************************************************