I’m 32 and an Aspartame sufferer. I started drinking four litres of Pepsi max daily between January 2001 and August 2004.
During this time I developed a catalogue of debilitating symptoms, none of which I ever considered to attribute to Aspartame consumption, naively I figured if a product has made the shelves and been deemed fit for human consumption, such a conclusion would have been born of fair and rigorous testing.
My symptoms which weren’t apparent immediately, included the following, weight gain (aggravated, very bad), anxiety, fatigue (a doctor diagnosed me as suffering from CFS), slurred speech, bright flashes in my vision, hives, rashes, allergic reactions (to animal saliva, and plants something I never suffered previously), phobias, insomnia, depression (terrible), confusion, a lack of clarity in thinking, fluid retention (around the waist.)
And these are just the symptoms I can remember.
After stopping, almost all of the symptoms I’ve listed have greatly reduced, with the exception of the fluid retention and the weight gain.