Well dang. A new study from the Florida State College of Medicine suggests that consumption of aspartame - even at levels considered "safe" by the FDA - could be linked to problems with memory and learning in the consumer's offspring.
Over a 16-week period, researchers studied three groups of mice:
- One group consumed 15% of the FDA's maximum recommended intake of daily aspartame per day (roughly equivalent to two-and-a-half 12-oz soft drinks).
- One group consumed just 7% of the recommended maximum intake (about 1.3 soft drinks daily).
- A third control group consumed only water.
The offspring of these mice were then tested in their little rodent mazes to see how quickly they could find the "safe box."
- The offspring of the mice that drank only water were able to escape from the maze much quicker than the kiddies of the mice that consumed aspartame.
- The progeny of the Diet Coke sippers "took much longer to do it and sometimes needed extra help."
The offspring of the mice that consumed aspartame "demonstrated spatial learning and memory deficits," the researchers stated.
Study co-author Pradeep Bhide, the Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers eminent scholar chair of developmental neuroscience in the Department of Biomedical Sciences (look at the big brain on Pradeep), had this to say:
"There is some overlap in terms of learning, memory and anxiety, in the sense that often there is an emotional component to our learning. When there's an emotional impact, you remember better. But this is a quite distinct function and brain network.
"The second thing we noticed here, unlike the anxiety (research) — this went only [in] one generation. It was not seen in the grandchildren, only in the children [of the male mice], which is another line of support that these kinds of transmissions occur due to epigenetic changes in the sperm."
Based on the study findings, Bhide suggested the FDA takes a "closer, multi-generational perspective on the effects of aspartame."
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