re what are the problems with nutrasweet aspartame nutrasweet is a synthetic sweetener a couple thousand times sweeter than sugar some people are concerned about the chemicals that the body produces when it degrades nutrasweet it is thought to form formaldehyde and known to for methanol in the degredation pathway that the body uses to eliminate substances the real issue is whether the levels of methanol and formaldehyde produced are high enough to cause significant damage as both are toxic to living cells all i can say is that i will not consume it phenylalanine is nothing for you to worry about it is an amino acid and everyone uses small quantities of it for protein synthesis in the body some people have a disease known as phenylketoneurea and they are missing the enzyme necessary to degrade this compound and eliminate it from the body for them it will accumulate in the body and in high levels this is toxic to growing nerve cells therefore it is only a major problem in young children until around age or so or women who are pregnant and have this disorder it used to be a leading cause of brain damage in infants but now it can be easily detected at birth and then one must simply avoid comsumption of phenylalanine as a child or when pregnant heather
