I mostly stay away from artificially sweetened products, mostly because there seems to be lingering debate on their safety and I don’t miss them.  My one weakness is Diet Pepsi, although I probably drink 1 or 2 per week on average, so I doubt that would cause any harm.

I just ran into this article: Aspertame Dangers

One of the references in the article has this to say:

Out of 90 independently-funded studies, 83 of them found one or more
problems caused by aspartame. But out of the 74 studies funded by
the aspartame industry (e.g., Monsanto, G.D. Searle, ILSI, etc.),
every single one of them claimed that no problems were found.

This kind of difference in results has always really bothered me.  Why can’t we have truly objective tests?  The biased influence of the industry reports is obvious, but what about the independent ones?  I’d bet at least some of those were funded by organizations who are trying to show the dangers of aspartame.

I guess the best thing to do, for now, is look at the whole picture.  164 total studies done and 83 showing problems caused by aspartame.  That’s over 50% and sounds like a good enough reason to avoid it.