Makers of Splenda and Equal Settle Lawsuit Over “Made From Sugar” Claims - Battle With Sugar Manufacturers Still To Come

McNeil Nutritionals, makers of the popular sucralose-containing sweetener Splenda®, recently settled a lawsuit brought against it by rival Merisant Co., makers of the aspartame-containing sweetener Equal®.  The suit involved Splenda’s controversial slogan: “made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar” which Merisant’s Co. claimed has misled customers into thinking that Splenda® is a natural substance and therefore healthier than other artificial sweeteners.

The details of the settlement were undisclosed, but were said to award the Chicago-based Merisant significantly less than the over $225 million company sought in lost sales.

McNeil is also defending the controversial advertising claim in a separate suit in California filed by a group of US sugar manufacturers.

Splenda® currently accounts for over 60% of the artificial sweetener market in the US, and is used in over 4,000 food and drink products.

Its major ingredient is the artificial sweetener chemical known as sucralose – a modified version of table sugar (sucrose), which is chemically altered to substitute three chlorine molecules for the hydroxyl groups normally found in table sugar, rendering the molecule significantly sweeter than sugar, yet unusable for energy production and thus calorie-free.

Commentary

While the safety of various artificial sweeteners has been a hot topic of debate for decades, one topic that goes relatively unaddressed is what artificial sweeteners do to our cravings for sweets.

Perhaps the sugar manufacturers who have also filed suit against McNeil for questionable advertising practices would be interested to know that since the introduction of artificial sweeteners into the American diet decades ago, the average American’s intake of sugar has skyrocketed.

In 2005 the amount of caloric sweetener consumed by the average American per year was a whopping 149 lbs.  In 1970, when artificial sweetener consumption was a small fraction of what it is today, this number was 119 lbs.  Coincidence?  Perhaps, but think about this:  Studies have shown that animals given artificial sweeteners had an increased craving for, and consumed more calories from sugar sweetened treats than those given just sugar alone.

You can read an article on this research here.

Interesting to say the least.

Do artificial sweeteners, compounds which are hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, trigger our brains to “seek out” the calories it thinks we’re lacking?  They very well may, and if so, they ironically may do more to contribute to the epidemics of overweight, obesity, and diabetes we see in our country today, rather than help control them.

Artificial sweeteners – Who needs ‘em?

Certainly not us.  At Integrated Supplements we feel we’ve made the entire issue of artificial sweeteners obsolete by creating the best-tasting, highest-quality, all natural products, including our 100% Natural CFM® Whey Protein Isolate.

Now, doesn’t it feel nice to know that there’s one less thing you need to worry about?

The Fine Print - What's Lurking in Your Nutritional Supplements?

By now, if you’ve read any of the posts on the Integrated Supplements blog, or any of the articles on http://www.integratedsupplements.com/intsup/intsup0001.homepage, you’re well aware that whey protein isolate clearly outshines all other types of protein supplements currently available. 

You know that whey protein isolate has less fat, lactose, cholesterol, and denatured proteins than whey concentrate.  You know that caseinate proteins (often fraudulently labeled as casein) are highly processed and denatured milk proteins with no benefit over real food.  You know that soy protein can be loaded with phytoestrogens – hormone-like plant chemicals which may disrupt the endocrine system.

With all of the substandard protein sources used in dietary supplements, it should be clear to you by now that even within the nutritional supplement industry, companies will try to get away with selling you the cheapest ingredients they can get away with – no matter what these ingredients may do to your health.

That’s why it’s important to read labels and look at ALL of the ingredients on your dietary supplements.  After all, you’ll be putting these things in your body.  They become a part of you.  It doesn’t make sense to save a few bucks, just to find out that the supplement company used ingredients that cause cancer, or heart disease in the future, or mood alterations today.

Every last one of the ingredients in your supplements should be unquestionably SAFE, including the sweeteners, colors, thickeners, fibers, or in the case of capsules and tablets the fillers and excipients.  It’s shocking to me how willing people are to trust the companies who would do them harm.  Your trust is a sacred thing – don’t give it away for free.  Make every company that produces food and supplements EARN your trust, by demanding the highest quality ingredients.

One of the most common misconceptions I encounter among the general public is the thinking that toxic additives in food and supplements MUST be in the product in only tiny amounts and couldn’t possibly do us harm.  Somebody must be looking out for our well being, right?

Well, I’d love to believe that, but the science often says otherwise.  The fact is that often, very low doses of food additives are shown to have toxic effects.  I’m guessing that if you’re like most people, you don’t spend your free time looking for studies on food additives.  That’s why we’ve done the work for you; we’ve tracked down the studies you need to see to make an informed decision on the things you put into your body.  And most importantly of all, we’re not just prophets of doom.  We’ve set out to create products that are real solutions to a nutritional landscape gone mad.

The Dealbreakers

So, in light of the relevant research, we feel that every harmful ingredient in a nutritional supplement is a dealbreaker.  As we have shown, there is simply no need for cheap or artificial ingredients in any nutritional supplement.  Would you eat a meal that only had “a little poison” in it?  Didn’t think so. 

In this blog we’ll begin to take a deeper look at some of the artificial flavors, colors and additives which are commonly added to protein-containing products like meal replacements, protein powders and ready to drink protein shakes.

We’ll start off with an easy one:

Aspartame

Due to mounting scientific evidence of its toxicity, and an abysmal reputation among even the marginally health-conscious, many supplement companies have gotten away from using aspartame in their products; yet this whipping boy of a sweetener still finds its way into many nutritional supplements often times hidden in meal replacement products, and some protein powders.

Be very careful to read the entire list of ingredients on every product you buy.  You very well may be ingesting aspartame without knowing it.

Any internet search on the “dangers of aspartame” will bring up dozens and dozens of websites documenting the harmful nature of this artificial sweetener.  If you’re not already acquainted with the toxicity of aspartame, I invite you to do an internet search on “aspartame dangers” or visit http://www.dorway.com/indexnew.html and read up aspartames tenuous past.  The history of aspartame is fascinating to be sure, it reads like a best-selling mystery novel, full of deception, intrigue, and high level political corruption.

But, rather than give you an exhaustive overview of aspartame’s history, or toxicity here, I’d like to limit myself to discussing two recently published independent studies which you may not have seen before.

Unbiased toxicity studies like these on artificial sweeteners are relatively difficult to come by, (especially with the newer artificial sweeteners like sucralose) but after almost three decades on the market, the cracks in aspartame’s foundation are beginning to show.

These two studies struck the major food and supplement companies like David struck Goliath, and in 2006, almost 25 years after the FDA’s approval of the artificial sweetener aspartame, this research sent shockwaves through the food and supplement industry.

The Aspartame Studies:

Results of long-term carcinogenicity bioassay on Sprague-Dawley rats exposed to aspartame administered in feed.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17119233&query_hl=14&itool=pubmed_docsum

First experimental demonstration of the multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered in the feed to Sprague-Dawley rats.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=16507461

Quote from the first study:

“The results of this mega-experiment indicate that APM [Aspartame], in the tested experimental conditions, is a multipotential carcinogenic agent.”

And a quote from the second study shows that even low doses of aspartame caused cancer:

“The results of this mega-experiment indicate that APM [Aspartame] is a multipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg body weight, much less than the current acceptable daily intake. On the basis of these results, a reevaluation of the present guidelines on the use and consumption of APM is urgent and cannot be delayed.”

Again even a low dose, “. . .much less than the current acceptable daily intake” was carcinogenic.

Now, I don’t think that any person within the food and supplement industry was honestly surprised by these studies; the evidence against aspartame has been mounting far too long for that.  What really sent the shockwaves through the industry was that YOU – the customer - may finally find out what some companies had been feeding you all this time – and demand a change.  A change that is sure to cost the food and supplement companies money in reformulating their products.

You may finally find out that those of us who questioned aspartame’s safety were right to be concerned - and the science is beginning to back us up.

What else may we be right about?  Hmm . . . I wonder.

Morals of the story

1) Avoid like the plague any product with aspartame
2) Don’t wait another 25 years before science conclusively shows the toxicity of other artificial sweeteners, flavors, colors etc. – read the clues, and give them up now.

And what are some of those clues, you ask?  Keep it tuned here.

PS - Speaking of toxicity studies on flavors and sweeteners, I thought you’d like to see a recently released study on Lo Han extract – one of the ingredients which gives Integrated Supplements 100% Natural CFM Whey Protein Isolate its delicious flavor.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17011100&query_hl=4&itool=pubmed_docsum

The study used a whopping 3000mg of Lo Han per day in dogs with no observed adverse effects, and I have to tell you, with the cost of quality Lo Han, you’d probably go broke if you ever tried to take in 3000 milligrams per day!

Lo Han, being a fruit extract used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for centuries is purported to have many positive effects on health and longevity, so the chance of toxicity is remote to be sure.

At Integrated Supplements we’re looking out for your health like no other supplement company in the industry.

Doesn’t it feel good to know there’s one less thing you need to worry about?