You’ve probably read “aspartame” on a list of ingredients before, because it’s reportedly found in up to 5,000 diet foods and drinks.
In other words, the artificial sweetener is everywhere and then even more places.
Well, researchers at Florida State University College of Medicine found that mice who ingested certain quantities of aspartame went nuts with anxiety-like behavior when presented with common maze tests.
Sara Jones who led the study, told MedicalXPress, “It was such a robust anxiety-like trait I don’t think any of us were anticipating to see…. usually you see subtle changes.”
Upshot. Load mice with aspartame and they get really anxious.
Two interesting notes:
First, the anxiety extended up to two generations from the males who first ingested it.
That means Grandpa Mouse’s ingestion of aspartame affected his grandson’s anxiety.
Second, when the mice from all generations were given the common anti-anxiety drug diazepam, they chilled out.
So if Grandpa Mouse consumed massive amounts of aspartame, that didn’t necessarily consign his grandson to a life of anxiety, thanks to diazepam.
But it certainly shows the potential for generational choices re: health — at least in mice.
And of course, yes, this is in mice.
But it just goes (again) to show how conditions like anxiety just usually have nothing to with spirituality (notable exception: if you’re going to rob a bank and are nervous about it etc).
If you’re the grandson of a mouse who gulped aspartame day and night, and you’re wracked with inexplicable anxiety, who could blame you?
Well, a mouse church probably would, unfortunately.
But studies like these (and there are millions) suggest there are innumerable sources of anxiety that lie outside the spiritual realm and squarely in the physiological sphere.
And yet, the church continues to hammer anxious Christians as faithless when their anxiety has nothing to do with their faith.
I know I’m very one-note on this, but that’s kind of the purpose of this blog.
The great 19th century pastor Charles Spurgeon (who struggled with extreme anxiety himself) once noted:
“I would not blame all those who are much given to fear, for in some it is rather their disease than their sin, and more their misfortune than their fault.”
And here’s the thing – your anxiety may be as simple (and complicated) as the fact that you or your parents or grandparents ate and drank a lot of stuff with aspartame in it.
(P.S. If you follow these things, there’s a lot of stuff on the internet, claiming all kinds of dangers from aspartame consumption. Some of the claims are based on legitimate studies; others, complete hoaxes that have been proven exactly that — hoaxes. There’s a lot of information and misinformation on whether aspartame is really as benign as claimed, and Healthline does a pretty good job trying to sort things out).
If you struggle with anxiety…
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
