Diet Coke & Liver Damage? Long Term Very High Dose Aspartame Consumption Impairs Antioxidant Defense of Rat Livers.
The ever-growing group of health conscious costumers is rightly very skeptical of artificial sweeteners in general and Aspartame in particular. A recent study ( Abhilash. 2011 ) done by scientists from the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala, India, seems to rectify this attitude. The scientists fed rats drinking water that contained either no, i.e. 0mg, 500mg or 1.000mg aspartame per kg body weight day for a period of 160days. The rats from the 1.000mg/kg group showed... [...] a significant increase in activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and γ- glutamyl transferase (GGT). The concentration of reduced glutathione (GSH) and the activity of glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and glutathione reductase (GR) were significantly reduced in the liver of rats that had received aspartame (1000mg/kg.b.wt). The presence of "leukocyte infiltration in aspartame-treated rats (1000mg/kg.b.wt)" further unde...