One of the last things a person who suffers from fibromyalgia needs is more toxins in their body as this can easily overburden their immune systems leaving them nothing short of fatigued and depleted.   Did you know that consuming aspartame may be behind several of your symptoms and lead to other side effects or adverse reactions that you may be already experiencing.

There are over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption. It seems surreal, but true. How can one chemical create such chaos?

Aspartame dissolves into solution and can therefore travel throughout the body and deposit within any tissue. The body digests aspartame unlike saccharin, which does not break down within humans.

The multitudes of aspartame side effects are indicative to your genetic individuality and physical weaknesses. It is important to put two and two together, nonetheless, and identify which side effects aspartame is creating within you.

Additives

Food additives are chemicals added to food to “improve” taste, texture, color, and shelf life.  Additives came from the use of salt, smoke, spices, and sugars to preserve foods.  Commercial food additives are regulated by governmental agencies. 

Acesulfame K:

Known commercially as Sunette or Sweet One, acesulfame is a sugar substitute sold in packet or tablet form, in chewing gum, dry mixes for beverages, instant coffee and tea, gelatin desserts, puddings and non-dairy creamers. Tests show that the additive causes cancer in animals, which means it may increase cancer in humans. Avoid acesulfame K and products containing it. Your sweet tooth isn't worth it.

Artificial colorings:

The great bulk of artificial colorings used in food are synthetic dyes. For decades synthetic food dyes have been suspected of being toxic or carcinogenic and many have been banned. Whenever possible, choose foods without dyes. They're mostly used in foods of questionable nutritional worth anyway. Natural ingredients should provide all the color your food needs.

"I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency" – Plato

What is detoxification? 

• Our bodies naturally do it everyday.
 
• Detoxification is a normal body process of eliminating or neutralizing toxins through the colon, liver, kidneys, lungs, lymph and skin.  In fact, internal detoxification is one of our body’s most basic automatic functions.  Just as our hearts beat non-stop and our lungs breathe continuously, so our metabolic processes continuously dispose of accumulated toxic matter.
 
• However, in our world today, body systems and organs that were once capable of cleaning out unwanted substances are now completely overloaded; thus, many unwanted substances stay in our tissues.  Our bodies try to protect us from dangerous material by setting it aside, surrounding it with mucous or fat so it will not cause imbalance or trigger an immune reaction.  (Your body stores foreign substances in its fatty deposits – a significant reason to keep your diet and body fat low.  Some people carry around up to 15 extra pounds of mucous that harbors this waste!)
 

Ideally, we should live in a pollution-free environment, eat untainted foods and drink pure water.  However, since humans are born with a “self-cleaning system,” we know this has probably never been possible.  Today, it isn’t even practical, so the next best thing is to keep pollutants to a minimum and to periodically get rid of them through a detoxification program.

In many ways, you could call fibromyalgia an energy crisis because one of the biggest complaints expressed by people diagnosed with the disorder is the feeling of complete and utter exhaustion and the lack of energy and vitality.   In support of this hypothesis, some studies have found that fibromyalgia patients suffer from a condition in which structures called mitochondria within the muscle cells were inefficient in their production of energy, causing fatigue and a complete drain of energy in the individual.  The lack of cellular energy eventually leads to immune system dysfunction.  This is because the immune system is not able to have the energy it needs to eliminate toxins from the body or to fight infections.  This puts even more demand on the immune system, which is already in a weakened state leading to further exhaustion.

Studies show that poor cellular energy production due to poisoning of the energy-producing machinery of the cell (the mitochondria) is a common characteristic in both fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.  In studies at the Abington Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania, rheumatology researchers found that fibromyalgia patients suffer from a condition that could be described loosely as “muscle toxicity”, in which structures called mitochondria within muscle cells were inefficient in their production of energy.  In addition, fibromyalgia sufferers were found to have smaller than normal muscle fibers that exhibited misshapen mitochondria that were not found in normal subjects.

PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS AND NUTRIENT DEPLETION

Many people who regularly take medications may not be aware that some commonly prescribed drugs can cause nutrient depletions. Studies in the scientific literature for the past thirty years have been reporting the drug-induced depletion of nutrients. However, much of this information has been buried in scientific journals and is only recently coming to light. More than 1,000 commonly prescribed prescription drugs and many over-the-counter (OTC) medications deplete one or more nutrients in humans, according to a recently published book titled The Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook.

Many pesticides and chemicals are so widespread that we are unaware of them. But they have worked their way into our bodies faster than they can be eliminated, and are causing allergies, chronic fatigue, immune system dysfunction and deficiencies, and energy depletion, in record numbers.