More than 90 countries have given the artificial sweetener aspartame the green light to be used in thousands of food and beverage products.

Two hundred times sweeter than sugar, aspartame allows food manufacturers to produce sweet foods they can market as “low calorie,” “diet,” or “sugar-free,” appealing to hundreds of millions of consumers looking to cut sugar from their diets.

No doubt about it, the less sugar you include in your diet, the better. But replacing sugar with aspartame is not the solution, and in fact is likely to be even worse for your health.

Despite assurances from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other public health agencies that aspartame is safe, the research says otherwise.