PepsiCo has decided that aspartame, a neuro-toxin used in their diet cola products as a sweetener, is not “sweet enough” and are “testing a new mix of artificial sweeteners” that will retain its potency longer than high fructose corn syrup.
The new mixture of sweeteners being tested includes acesulfame-potassium, or ace-K. The problem PepsiCo has with aspartame is that it is affected negatively in warm conditions that occur during shipping before their soda products arrive in retail stores.
Ace-K, or acesulfame potassium , is a lab-created chemical that is 200 times sweeter than sucrose. Ace-K is suspected through research to have carcinogenic properties, yet this studied fact was dismissed and further studies were not conducted prior to the FDA approval.
In testing preformed on rats, ace-K was shown to stimulate dose-dependent insulin secretion. In further studies , ace-K provided more of a danger to male rats, than female rats with regard to their signal toward being cancer producing.