I’m sure by now everyone in the world has been subjected the comical Coke Zero commercials with the talking eyeball and tongues, right?
But is it really that funny?
Not when you think of the health consequences of their newest product – Coke Zero.
Coke Zero is sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame potassium (ace-k) and has zero calories. The only chemical difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke is that Coke Zero has about half the aspartame but has more acesfulfame potassium.
I spent a good deal of time dissecting the dangers of consuming aspartame in 2 previous posts so in this post we’re going to look at Coke Zero’s other deadly ingredient…
Acesulfame Potassium
Acesulfame potassium is a calorie-free artificial sweetener, also known as Acesulfame K or Ace K (K being the symbol for potassium). It more commonly known, and marketed, as Sunett and Sweet One and manufactured by Hoechst, a giant German chemical company. In the European Union, it is known under the E number (additive code) E950.
Acesulfame K is 180-200 times sweeter than table sugar, as sweet as aspartame, about half as sweet as saccharin, and one-quarter as sweet as sucralose. Like saccharin, it has a slightly bitter aftertaste, especially at high concentrations. However, clever marketers at Kraft Foods have patented the use of sodium ferulate to mask acesulfame’s aftertaste.
To make our taste buds sizzle even more, Acesulfame K is often blended with other sweeteners (usually sucralose or aspartame). These blends are reputed to give a more sugar-like taste whereby each sweetener masks the other’s aftertaste, and/or exhibits a synergistic effect by which the blend is sweeter than its components.
The reason food manufacturers love using acesulfame K is that, unlike aspartame, it is stable under heat and in moderately acidic or basic conditions, allowing it to be used in baked goods, chewing gum, gelatin dessets, and in other products that require a long shelf life. In July 1998, the FDA allowed this chemical to be used in soft drinks, thereby greatly increasing consumer exposure. In these carbonated drinks, it is almost always used in conjunction with another sweetener, such as aspartame or sucralose.
Flawed FDA Studies and Cancer Concerns
A blog post (July 1, 2008) by the nutrition expert at About.com claimed that this sweetener is not toxic and has no detrimental effects on the body! WOW…I couldn’t believe what I was reading! Although her rationale was that about 90 FDA studies have shown acesulfame K to be safe, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
For instance, food watchdog agency, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), has repeatedly expressed concern that acesulfame K is a potential carcinogen and questions the safety of exposure to one of its components – methylene chloride, a known cancer-causing chemical.
In June 1995, the CSPI filed a protest with the FDA, saying that the sweetener’s carcinogenicity had not been properly tested in long-term animal feeding tests.
According to CSPI, the numerous tests done on acesulfame K “followed inadequate protocols, which are greatly at variance with current standards for test design, execution and reporting required for the National Toxicology Program’s bioassays.”
Furthermore, the CSPI notes that acetoacetamide, a breakdown product of acesulfame K, has been shown to cause tumor growth in the thyroid gland in rats, rabbits, and dogs after administration of only 1% acetoacetamide in the diet for three months.
CSPI also charged that the FDA has failed to require the manufacturer to conduct high-quality tests of the artificial sweetener.
The only known manufacturer of acesulfame K is Hoechst Food Ingredients in Germany. CSPI claims the protocols in Hoeschst’s tests on rats and mice done in 1988 are seriously flawed. This isn’t surprising though considering this “unethical” pharmaceutical and chemical company also pleaded guilty in 1999 to a 17-year conspiracy to fix prices of sorbates, a type of food preservative, which affected $1 billion in commerce in the United States alone!
While the National Toxicology Program requires long-term studies on rats and mice to be done for 104 weeks, the Hoechst study on mice lasted only 80 weeks, while the studies on rats featured doses of acesulfame K that were “questionably” low, leading to adequate enough results to allow the sweetener to be approved for mass consumption.
However, two rat studies suggested that the additive might cause cancer, causing the CSPI to urge the FDA to seriously reconsider allowing acesulfame K into soft drinks. Obviously, if you look on most diet sodas, you’ll see that nothing has been done to remove this hazardous chemical from our foods.
Other safety tests of acesulfame K were conducted in the 1970s and were of mediocre quality to say the least. For instance, tests conducted on rats were afflicted by disease in the animal colonies, as well as dosages that were suspiciously low to cause any potential harm.
My verdict is that acesulfame K should not be consumed. Perhaps it won’t present any problems at low dosages but when consumed over a period of years there’s no denying the potential harmful effects it may have on your body!
If you’re drinking Coke Zero to prevent weight gain or to lose weight fast then you should probably not be drinking soft drinks in the first place, working your butt off in the gym, and eating a healthy whole foods diet.
