Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Other recent SAR help neurologically impaired hikers

Hi Ken,

There was a college student on Mt. Dana on way down who had AMS. He did not even know what it is. Classic symptoms, and he knew something was very wrong. Told him to get down ASAP, which he did, faster than me.

Yeah I know on insanity part. My doctor said so you went down right after symtoms? I said no, he said what did you do? I said went to top. He asked why? Said well had gone to so much trouble to get to 12,000 figured might as well go to top. He laughed big time, had a sense of humor. Yes you are right.

Cheers

2nd note, I have never had a migraine. Have had two en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma a precursor. They are different.

I was barely, just barely conscious on Mt. Dana for a while.

Once hit a huge updraft in small plane over Canadian Rockies, the Gs almost blacked me out as was at 11,000 anyway, that is the closest to what experienced on Dana. What helped more than anything was staying upright and hiking, when I stopped it got worse. Maybe constricting muscles helping get more blood to head.

Sounds like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma I have had two. First one only had prefiral vision, very weird, was temporarily mostly blind . Called eye doctor and he immediately knew what is was.

You seem to be mistaking the issue of "associate with" and "caused by".

They are very different things, and often it requires a considerable amount of time and research to illuminate the difference.

Sounds like migraine to me. Notice I said nothing about "headache".

Now for the FDA one: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/03/jan03/012203/02p-0317_emc-000199.txt
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Your link is NOT to an FDA recommendation or decision, it is a link to a letter that was submitted by an independent citizen from the Aspartame Toxicity Information Center (sure sounds objective to me). All the statistics that you quoted were his, NOT the FDAs.

You should be very careful about accepting the statements of "independent" posters on the internet, whose motives none of us have any way of knowing.

https://whatdoesthesciencesay.wordpress.com/category/email-hoaxes/

As far as I can tell, Mark D. Gold does not have any sort of professional degree, and has never published any scientific paper in the literature ever, anywhere.

Bottom's up!

Yea, I wasn't really disputing that aspartame might be part of the problem, I was more curious about your statement that airline pilots were not allowed to consume aspartame. There may be some airlines that have their own SOPs or mandates restricting it, but there's nothing from the FAA that I've been able to find. The FDA can not tell pilots what they may or may not do. The FAA can, and they do not have an official stance on the consumption of aspartame.

That's not to say that they shouldn't, just that they don't.

And while I also recognize that my question may have been slightly off topic, at the same time, if the FAA had taken a stance on the consumption of aspartame by pilots, it would have made the story much more powerful to me, seeing as how pilots spend a good portion of their time at cabin pressures of 7-8,000 ft.

Hi G&C, The FAA may not have put a ban on it. But indeed on cabin pressure. I wrote this initially 100% from my 4 year old memory if research on it. It ends up being very close to what I was able to find easily on this subject today. There is a new study in 2014 of 60,000 women that says it increases heart attack deaths 50% in women. This is a separate risk on top of the brain risk.

From the American College of Cardiology website March 29, 2014:

[A] study led by Ankur Vyas, MD, of the University of Iowa found that postmenopausal women who consumed two or more diet drinks a day were 30 percent more likely to experience a cardiovascular event and 50 percent more likely to die from related cardiovascular disease than women who never, or only rarely, consumed diet drinks. The analysis of 59,614 participants in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study, who had an average age of 62.8 and no history of cardiovascular disease, saw that after an average follow-up of 8.7 years, the primary cardiovascular outcome occurred in 8.5 percent of the women consuming two or more diet drinks per day compared to 6.9 percent in the five-to-seven drinks per week group; 6.8 percent in the one-to-four drinks per week group; and 7.2 percent in the zero-to-three per month group. The difference persisted when researchers adjusted for other cardiovascular risk factors and co-morbidities. The association between diet drinks and cardiovascular disease warrants further study to define the relationship, Vyas said.

http://www.cardiosource.org/en/News-Medi...CV-Disease.aspx

Note the big jump in heart attack deaths is having more than one a day. It seems the heart can handle 1 a day. This is on top of the brain risk.

Ken in my case I can not prove it. That I have had three "brain" events and each was associated with Aspartame,which I practically never used, and it stopped 100% when I stopped Aspartame 100%, even though I do the same high altitude things, is not proof.

But being it matches the airline pilots events I would be crazy to ever use it again.

Just providing information and personal experience. BTW a 2014 study of 60,000 women says in increases heart attack deaths 50%, see the info on my reply to G&C.

Cheers

Thank you, Ken.

Repeating myself here...

Darp, I can believe you personally need to stay clear of anything with Aspartame in it, because it seems to bring on some strange symptoms. However, most of the other 999 out of a thousand people can hike and never worry about sensitivity to a sugar substitute. Even though it affects you adversely, I don't see the point of trying to convince everyone else to avoid it.

..And keeping with my more blunt approach: This is not a consumer advocacy soapbox, so take the anti-Aspartame crusade somewhere else.

I am with Steve on this. I think that it is true that people can have unique or idiosyncratic side effects from all sorts of things, both natural and man-made. However, that does not necessarily translate into widespread effects in other people.

Once again, I caution as to source. You linked NOT to the article, but to a REPORT ON the article. Thus, you are reading someone's (and who might that be?)interpretation of the article.

That is a red light for me.

Also, you quote:

"the primary cardiovascular outcome occurred in 8.5 percent of the women consuming two or more diet drinks per day compared to 6.9 percent in the five-to-seven drinks per week group; 6.8 percent in the one-to-four drinks per week group; and 7.2 percent in the zero-to-three per month group."

In the 4 groups looked at, the lowest use group has the second highest rate of events. The two middle groups have no difference. That says to me that there is no clear relationship.

Also, this study only talks about "diet drinks". It does not define IN THE REPORT, what a diet drink consists of....and there are multiple diet drinks over a period of time that have been sweetened with different things.

Hi Ken.

I certainly want to keep this friendly. There would be no reason for anyone on this board to have bad motives. It's a hikers board. So I believe everyone here is sincere.

The rates for all EXCEPT those drinking over two a day are statistically the same in that study. That is interesting. One a day or less is the same statistically, and variance of 6.8 to 6.9 is nothing. And Deaths are 60% more, 50% not 30% for just heart attacks. So add 60% more to those ratios for deaths.

So it indicates the body can handle 1 a day or less (heart only).

Everyone has to make up their own mind. All am saying is if I read this thread 5 years ago, would have never taken Aspartame again at altitude, and believe would have never ended up in hospital. Will leave it with just two sentences bolded below in the History of Aspartame by Yahoo Health:

Aspartame's Controversial History

Aspartame, best known as NutraSweet and Equal commonly used to sweeten everything from diet sodas to yogurt, is no stranger to controversy.

The FDA approved this sugar substitute for limited food uses in 1981. By 1995 the FDA's Epidemiology Branch chief reported aspartame complaints constituted 75 percent of all FDA reports concerning adverse reactions to food, according to Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D. in Get the Sugar Out.

In 1996 it gained approval as a general sweetener, but that same year 60 Minutes reported criticisms of the approval process stating, "aspartame's approval was one of the most contested in FDA history."

That report used research published in the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology showing possible links between drinking diet soda and developing brain tumors.

In an analysis of peer-reviewed medical literature Dr. Ralph G. Walton, a professor at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, found that all industry-funded studies said aspartame was safe, according to a 2006 New York Times article. In independent studies, 92 percent identified one or more problems with aspartame, Walton reported.

"Here in the US, we allow these ingredients into our food supply until they are proven dangerous," said Robyn O'Brien, a former food industry analyst and author of The Unhealthy Truth. "In light of the fact that the President's Cancer Panel reports that 41 percent of us are expected to get cancer in our lifetimes and the burden that disease in placing on our economy, perhaps it is time to exercise precaution."
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/aspartame-study-fuels-continued-debate


So the bottom line is out of the thousands of ingredients in food, the FDA admits just one (Aspartame) causes 75% of all FDA complaints and 100% of health studies with a conflict on interest on Aspartame say its safe and 92% of studies without a conflict of interest say it causes health problems. Until this thread started I did not know either of those two facts, so this has been very educational for me, and I hope others.

Cheers

Why do you want to put any artificial sweetener in your drink when hiking uphill at all?
You are burning calories at full speed and need real sugar.
Is it possible that these problems were caused by sugar deficiency rather than by Aspartam?

It might also be caused by aspartame consumption prior to the beginning of the hike. I know I'm guilty of charging myself up in the morning with a Diet Coke because I can't stand coffee. Which is why the whole story interested me in the first place.

That is not unreasonable.

Yeah, it is more than reasonable it is not the aspartame.

I eat complex carbs at breakfast...zero sugar, and it is not unusual for me to have a dip at approximately one mile into a hike. I pop some hard candy in my mouth and about 15 minutes later I'm ok.

Hi Yury,

I do not drink soda pop, but your point is very valid. You need calories when doing a big hike. I was using cough drops to wet my mouth at high altitude/exertion. Started getting cavities from sugar ones, switched to sugarless ones (which ended up being Aspartame) that is when problem started. BTW CVS sugar-free do not use Aspartame and I do use them for same reason now.

I tend to eat nuts and dried fruit when hiking and filter water.

As mentioned in prior post the bottom line for me is this:

Out of the thousands of ingredients in food, the FDA admits just one (Aspartame) causes 75% of all FDA complaints and 100% of health studies with a conflict on interest on Aspartame say its safe and 92% of studies without a conflict of interest say it causes health problems. Until this thread started I did not know either of those two facts, so this has been very educational for me, and I hope others.


Cheers

Actually, what you posted is simply not true. What you'd previously posted upthread was:

By 1995 the FDA's Epidemiology Branch chief reported aspartame complaints constituted 75 percent of all FDA reports concerning adverse reactions to food, according to Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D. in Get the Sugar Out.

That is NOT the FDA saying that, that is Gittleman saying that.

If you have a link to the actual FDA that says that, then lets see it. Remember that you are talking, though, about TWENTY YEARS AGO. There has been a lot of study since then.

But now you are caught in a dilemma: You are citing the FDA as an authoritative source. Ok. But if you live by the sword, you also die by it, because they DO NOT AGREE WITH YOU.

Here is what they currently say, today, 2014:

http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPacka...tm#SummaryTable

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Aspartame is one of the most exhaustively studied substances in the human food supply, with more than 100 studies supporting its safety.

FDA scientists have reviewed scientific data regarding the safety of aspartame in food and concluded that it is safe for the general population under certain conditions. However, people with a rare hereditary disease known as phenylketonuria (PKU) have a difficult time metabolizing phenylalanine, a component of aspartame, and should control their intake of phenylalanine from all sources, including aspartame. Labels of aspartame-containing foods and beverages must include a statement that informs individuals with PKU that the product contains phenylalanine.