America and Americans, Canada and Canadians (and most of Western Europeans), are in a health crises. We are overweight, we are physically unfit. Oh, not all of us, but a huge, tremendous proportion of populations of these countries.

So who, or what, is culprit? Well, there's many of them – culprits, that is. But one - let's make that two – of them are: sugar and aspartame/sucaryl. This is perhaps absolute health-related double-edged sword Western World faces today?

Sugar, in its refined state, is a horror for our diets, our nutrition, and our overall health. Aspartame is generally sweeter than sugar and is known to create an imbalance in system that is, of itself, just as bad as sugar. Further, it is a known, proven cancer causing agent. But there's another, equally and faster danger aspect to aspartame.

Some people are allergic to aspartame. I'm one.

Allergies take many forms. Some people break out in hives. Some people get sick. There are other reactions of which I'm unaware. However, in my case, I react to aspartame, sucaryl and their predecessor, exactly same way: they raise my blood pressure. Not just a little, but a lot.

My particular allergic reaction (and I say "allergic" reaction as it was documented over a period of two years by three different doctors and an allergenist and confirmed as an allergic reaction) raises my blood pressure. Not just a little.

My blood pressure normally runs about 135 / 75. On aspartame or sucaryl daily for just one month my blood pressure rises above 165 / 90. If I go longer, say two months, it gets up to 175 / 100 range. This is dangerous territory indeed.

The downside here is not how high it gets. Your blood pressure can go up that high without much danger provided you get it under control. Medication can lower it. But for me, simply going off aspartame is not solution. It takes about four to six months to flush residual aspartame (blood pressure raising constituents of aspartame, that is) out of my system.

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