Artificial sweetener aspartame a link to anxiety in mice

An animal study at Florida State University reports the artificial sweetener apartame may be linked to greater anxiety risk.

Ingestion of aspartame results in breakdown to aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol — three of those substances that are known to have potent effects on the central nervous system.

Dosage of aspartame given to the mice was roughly equivalent to the human consumption of six to eight 8-ounce cans of diet pop per day, which was administered to the mice for 12 weeks, and also covered four years. Researchers involved in the study are Ph.D candidate Sara Jones and co-author Pradeep Bhide, the Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers Eminent Scholar Chair of Developmental Neuroscience in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Florida State University.