As you all know I ran the edinburgh hald marathon last weekend but I was annoyed to find that the free sports drinks that were supplied on the day by Lucozade Sport are full of artificial sweetners and one of the worst...Aspartame.
Why use an artificial sweetner in an energy drink? Sugar would produce more energy and is not a health risk!
There is tons of websites around saying how safe Aspartame is but there is even more websites saying how unsafe it is! You tend to find the sites are are saying its safe are published by companies or governments who have an interest in Aspartame being succuesful!

I for one can tell instantly when I have eaten or drunk something with aspartame in it, my hard beat rises and I feel light headed. The annoying thing is this chemical is being put in to foods that don't even need it! i.e. Salt and Vinager crisps (not all brands). I don't drink Diet drinks any more because its gauranteed to have Aspartame in it and to find out that energy drinks are now using it is pretty bad. I saw a number of people at the race at the weekend, pick up a bottle of the drink, check the ingredients and put it back down. He was asked why he wasnt taking a free bottle and he said he didnt like the look of the ingredients which were in the bottle.

Does anyone else look out for these chemicals in their foods or am I the only one?
Im tempted to contact Lucozade and voice my concerns but I feel they will just come back with the usual response of "Its been tested and it is perfectly safe to use".

O.

I agree with you whole heartedly Owain, I don't buy any diet drinks squash or fizzy and I do check what is in the things I buy, but it's not an easy task.

But there is a case of everything in moderation.

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If you have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame it really makes you wonder why it took so long to approve, there is no smoke without fire.

I personally just stay well clear of Aspartame as I find the side effects, personally, not good and if I drank the energy drinks while running it wouldnt be very comfortable or enjoyable....water is all I drink while running.

It seems to be the only thing that does give me side effects but its amazing when you start to look at products how many are using the artificial sweetners. I personally would prefer them to have sugar in them and then just moderate how much I drink / eat of said product.
With the government always going on about how obese this country is I can see why manufacturers are looking to use alternative products but honestly, giving us a chemical which is still in my mind, dangerous, is just crazy! The reason this country is so obese (according to the statistics people) is not because of all the sugars in our foods, its because we, as a national, eat the wrong things too often, as you said Twinkle, everything in moderation....

*gets down from his soap box*

O.

"Everything in moderation"

Does that include Aspartame................????............

How many people on this forum run in moderation.......................

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You don't need much more than water in a half.
You were only running for 85 minutes after all!

It's truly frightening how much additives and weird stuff is in most food these days. So many people just don't think about it.

I thought it was just me with the aspartame!

I check everything for this ingredient and avoid artificial sweetners in general.

Some of the facts about this stuff are very worrying. Apparantly in severe cases it can cause symptoms similar to those suffered by people with M.E. and once at this stage is incurable. I've also read that it has caused death in extreme cases and it has the same attacking effect on the muscles as if the poison found in fire ants was injected directly to the same point.

What gets me is all of the products that boast being either diet or sugar free contain aspartame or similar ingredient.
It's all about money,money,money. Sod the health of the consumer.

E numbers etc. :eek:

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FIRST THINGS FIRST

Do you think its worth contacting Lucozade and complaining or do you think its a waste of time? Obviously they arent going to change their products for little ole me but I just feel they shouldnt be putting this rubbish in to an athletes body! I'm not saying Im an athlete by any stretch of the imagination but I guess a lot of athletes will be consuming these ingredients on a regular basis.

O.

I tend to try and stay away from pre-prepared foods anyway purely because I don't like the idea of additives... so when it comes to things like sports drinks I can't say I'm very bothered. Being alive kills you, and I live in a city, so no doubt there's tons of crap in the air... but frankly yeah it mightn't be the best thing for you, BUT a lot of these things are waaaay over-sensationalised by the media. My opinion is to not get too bothered about it. I've not looked (cuz i'm not bothered) but I'd be interested to know if ANY sports drinks don't have artificial flavourings and what not in them. If you want reduced calories then there's almost nothing you can do about these synthetic additives that are unprocessable by the body.

I can think of worse things than the milligram amounts of additives in my food. There's being cautious, and then there's just going over the top with worry.

Oh, and of course you can contact them if you want - you know that they won't give a toss about your opinion though - no offence but they're owned and developed by GSK - A BIG company, and aren't gunna be arsed looking to redevelop their drink that's going to cost a lot of money. Also, it's not a waste of time - if you think about the amount of sugar it would take to sweeten that drink to the same level of drinkability, the calories would be increased, which would turn away some people, and the increased risk of diabetes (problems) and weight-gain would turn away others... you can't win.

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The thing I don't get though, is that with sports drinks it's about getting carbs quickly and efficiently to replace glycogen stores - surely simple sugars would do that pretty well? After all you're trying to replenish your energy stores... so why is the calorie content such an issue? it's not like it's going to be calories from fat?

Maybe I've completely missed the point, lol. I guess there's always going to be those who are overweight and decide to go for a short walk and think "ooh, I'd better drink some lucozade with all this exercise I'm doing"

I drink Lucozade sport btw... other than mixing my own 'sports drinks' I wouldn't know how to avoid such ingredients

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Meh... sucrose is slightly more complex than glucose... and sports drinks have glucose... glucose might not taste as sweet... but honestly it's been a long time since I did chemistry of this ilk. But you say is calorie intake an issue... well yes! For some it is! I know it makes no sense but there you go.

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Oh and whilst in my search of whether glucose has a sweet taste I came across this: it says we have taste buds in our intestines... how ace is that??



Natural sugars and artificial sweeteners are sensed by receptors in taste buds. T2R bitter and T1R sweet taste receptors are coupled through G-proteins, alpha-gustducin and transducin, to activate phospholipase C beta2 and increase intracellular calcium concentration. Intestinal brush cells or solitary chemosensory cells (SCCs) have a structure similar to lingual taste cells and strongly express alpha-gustducin. It has therefore been suggested over the last decade that brush cells may participate in sugar sensing by a mechanism analogous to that in taste buds. We provide here functional evidence for an intestinal sensing system based on lingual taste receptors. Western blotting and immunocytochemistry revealed that all T1R members are expressed in rat jejunum at strategic locations including Paneth cells, SCCs or the apical membrane of enterocytes; T1Rs are colocalized with each other and with alpha-gustducin, transducin or phospholipase C beta2 to different extents. Intestinal glucose absorption consists of two components: one is classical active Na+-glucose cotransport, the other is the diffusive apical GLUT2 pathway. Artificial sweeteners increase glucose absorption in the order acesulfame potassium approximately sucralose > saccharin, in parallel with their ability to increase intracellular calcium concentration. Stimulation occurs within minutes by an increase in apical GLUT2, which correlates with reciprocal regulation of T1R2, T1R3 and alpha-gustducin versus T1R1, transducin and phospholipase C beta2. Our observation that artificial sweeteners are nutritionally active, because they can signal to a functional taste reception system to increase sugar absorption during a meal, has wide implications for nutrient sensing and nutrition in the treatment of obesity and diabetes.



Oh the joys of being on the uni network and getting free access to scientific journals. I should probably be reading up on my own reasearch interest heh.

Oh and take note of this bit "Artificial sweeteners increase glucose absorption in the order acesulfame potassium approximately sucralose > saccharin" that would answer rich's questions. Obviously they've developed these drinks for fast carb uptake with artificial sweetners for a reason! You can't have it both ways I guess.

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At the risk of sounding a bit thick....what does that mean?

It means your thick, thicko

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...and so are the rest of us I reckon!!

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