Vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports

Abstract

Introduction: Aspartame may have idiosyncratic toxic effects for some people; however, there are few case reports published in the medical literature. We present two case reports in a pair of siblings, one with a vestibular and the other with a cochlear toxicity to aspartame. The cochlear toxicity is the first case to be reported, while the vestibular toxicity is the second case to be reported.

Non-Caloric Artificial Sweeteners Modulate the Expression of Key Metabolic Genes in the Omnipresent Gut Microbe <b><i>Escherichia coli</i></b>

“…Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sucrose [Magnuson et al, 2007] and consists of phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol [Humphries et al, 2008]. While there are studies that report beneficial roles of aspartame [Tordoff and Alleva, 1990;Blackburn et al, 1997;Raben et al, 2002;De la Hunty et al, 2006], others suggest it as a cause of different ailments, like headache [Lipton et al, 1989], vestibulocochlear toxicity [Pisarik and Kai, 2009], oxidative stress [Ashok et al, 2017], and even cancer [Soffritti et al, 2005;Pandurangan et al, 2016]. Some studies in recent years have reported that artificial sweeteners, including aspartame, change the composition of gut microbiota and induce glucose intolerance [Bokulich and Blaser, 2014;Palmnäs et al, 2014;Suez et al, 2014Suez et al, , 2015.…”

Toxicity in the vestibular system: A literature review

“…Approximately 57% of the studies found were published in the last decade [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Of these, only one has been published in the last fi ve years [8], which confi rms the need for conducting up-to-date research on vestibular system toxicity.…”

“…Among the aminoglycosides, gentamicin was the most recurrent in the studies [7,11,[13][14][15]20], appearing isolated [11,[13][14][15] ,or in combination with other drugs [7,20]. Other substances analyzed in the studies were: derivatives of platinum [8], ethacrynic acid [9], aspartame [16], biosilicate [17], organophosphorus compounds [18] and a nitrile component [19].…”

Toxicity in the vestibular system: A literature review

“…Approximately 57% of the studies found were published in the last decade [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Of these, only one has been published in the last fi ve years [8], which confi rms the need for conducting up-to-date research on vestibular system toxicity.…”

“…Among the aminoglycosides, gentamicin was the most recurrent in the studies [7,11,[13][14][15]20], appearing isolated [11,[13][14][15] ,or in combination with other drugs [7,20]. Other substances analyzed in the studies were: derivatives of platinum [8], ethacrynic acid [9], aspartame [16], biosilicate [17], organophosphorus compounds [18] and a nitrile component [19].…”