Posted by Darwin on February 24, 2006, at 5:36:20
In reply to What's the diff: L-Phenylalanine vs. Aspartame, posted by honeybee on February 20, 2006, at 15:41:08
When I first started drinking diet coke (many years ago), I noticed that I would get a pleasant spaced-out feeling that would last about an hour. I'm fairly certain that this was due to the high aspartame content of diet coke. The pleasant spaced-out feeling faded away after a few months probably due to some type of tolerance mechanism.
I think I have a mild addiction to aspartame. For many years I would drink about one 2-liter container of diet coke per day (I recently switched to non-cola diet sodas because I think they are less harmful). Like you, I suspect that this may be some form of self-medication. 2-liters of diet coke provides about 1 gram of aspartame which in turn provides about 500 mg of L-Phenylalanine.
Diet sodas are generally unhealthy (particularly those which contain caramel) and you don't need the aspartic acid and methanol provided by aspartame. So I think it would be healthier to get your L-Phenylalanine directly from a supplement. In fact, that's what I started doing recently. I take one 500 mg tablet of L-Phenylalanine per day which provides some needed mental stimulation. Unfortunately, I'm still drinking lots of diet soda. I need to work on that.
BTW, I've tried DL-Phenylalanine and didn't like it. It made me more depressed and sometimes gave me a headache. L-Phenylalanine works much better for me. I've never tried pure D-Phenylalanine.
Darwin
poster:Darwin
thread:611486
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20060130/msgs/612730.html