This post was written by Jesse Reynolds. His article was entitled “Determination of Aspartame and its Breakdown Products in Soft Drinks by Reverse-Phase Chromatography with UV Detection.”
Introduction:
Aspartame is a non-calorie alternative to sugar that is thought to have an advantage over other sugar substitutes because its flavor is so similar to sucrose. In fact, Aspartame does have calories but is close to 200 times sweeter than sucrose, and such a minimal amount is not required to be labeled by the FDA. We can find it in everything from breakfast cereal to the soft drinks consumed in many parts of the world. The question of concern deals with Aspartame’s degradation under factors of heat moisture and pH. The experiment set out to run soft drinks through an HPLC at varying shelf life periods to test the sustainability of aspartame flavored soft drinks. The effects of storage were tested with the product being kept in storage for periods of 1 and 6 months at 22 ±1ºC. This was relevant due to the increasing intake of aspartame by diabetics and those that are dieting or just prefer the taste.
Methods:
Readings were verified on aspartame, citric acid, saccharin, DKP, caffeine, sodium benzoate, and phenylalanine separately on HPLC before the soft drinks were tested as a whole. Soft drinks from Canada were used due to their consistency of having only aspartame sweetened when compared to America made soft drinks, which have a mixture of aspartame and saccharin. The choice to use saccharin free products eliminated a large peak which would be made by saccharin that may have skewed the results. Also, Canadian made soft drinks are required to label how much aspartame is in each can, which ensured an accurate initial quantity. Two brands of lemon-lime and two brands of cola were tested.
Results:
The first test was the one month period where the lemon-lime had an average of 88.5%, and the colas averaged 89.25% of the initial amount of aspartame present. The 6 month test resulted in 46.9% for the lemon-lime and 33.2% for the colas. While the 36 month test averaged aspartame levels of 10.06% for the lemon-lime and 3.84% for the colas from the original quantity. In correlation with the decreasing percentages DKP, aspartylphenylalanine, and phenylalanine all rose in the sum of quantities equivalent to the loss of aspartame.
Conclusions:
Aspartame, being 200 times sweeter than sucrose, is used in small dosages. Though its degradation formed some unsettling compounds, these soft drinks contain such trace amounts that there won’t be any effects with moderate consumption. Although, those suffering from PKU should not be consuming these products, but due to this circumstance all products with aspartame clearly state “PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE.”
