Diet Coke & MS Symptoms

Is Diet Coke---specifically its artificial sweetener, aspartame---linked to multiple sclerosis or its symptoms? There's plenty of disagreement. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Multiple Sclerosis Foundation and U.S. Food and Drug Administration don't see any such danger. Yet many people and groups believe otherwise, and hundreds of websites contain the "Nancy Markle letter," a widely disputed piece that prominently mentions Diet Coke and claims the sweetener causes symptoms that mimic MS.

Theories/Speculation

• Methanol---commonly called wood alcohol---is released into the body during digestion of aspartame. Methanol gets much blame among those who see a link to MS-like symptoms. Another aspartame component, aspartic acid, is seen as a culprit, as described in an article by neurosurgeon Russell L. Blaylock on the rense.com website. He wrote that aspartame "can greatly magnify the damage produced in multiple sclerosis" and can trigger full-blown MS in people who have a benign level of MS lesions on nerve cells.

Raising Fears

• The influential "Nancy Markle letter" dates to the mid-1990s. The anti-aspartame piece by "Nancy Markle"---which the Aspartame Victims Support Group attributed to former member Betty Martini---purports to be from a lecturer to a "World Environmental Conference." The letter had the effect of a "shot fired around the world," said the support group, which referred to Martini's "alleged credibility problems." On her Mission Possible World Health International website, Martini said an "unknown plagiarist" pirated her report. The letter made several references to Diet Coke, such as, "during a visit to a hospice, a nurse said that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence."

Other Accusations

• Gary G. Kohls, a retired Minnesota physician, wrote on the Online Journal website that aspartame can cause MS. His "Duty to Warn" also quotes an article by Martini about an alleged corporate/political deal for aspartame's approval that "let slip the hounds of disease, disability and death." Florida physician H.J. Roberts, in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, wrote about "mounting evidence" that products containing aspartame cause or aggravate "many neurologic disorders (most notably multiple sclerosis)."

Reassurances

• Ellen Whipple Guthrie, a doctor of pharmacy, wrote on the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation website: "With the exception of a few very mild side effects, aspartame appears to be quite safe." An editor's note refers to the "Nancy Merkle (sic) hoax," and says people circulating the letter had added a false claim that the foundation was suing the FDA over aspartame.

  The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has taken the position that "no scientific evidence supports the claims on several Web sites that aspartame, an artificial sweetener used in many diet soft drinks and other foods, causes MS," and the FDA has a Q&A page in which the first sentence after the question "Do low-calorie sweeteners cause adverse reactions?" is "No."

Upshot

• In the battle over whether the sweetener in Diet Coke is linked to multiple sclerosis, heavyweights in the scientific community tend toward finding aspartame to be safe, but there's enough disagreement to keep the fight going. Many people and some experts see aspartame as a danger; many don't; and many, many people drink Diet Coke.