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

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 i...

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Autores principales: Pisarik, Paul, Kai, Dasha
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20126318
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1757-1626-0002-0000009237
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author Pisarik, Paul
Kai, Dasha
author_facet Pisarik, Paul
Kai, Dasha
author_sort Pisarik, Paul
collection PubMed
description 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. CASE PRESENTATION: A 29-year-old white female had a 20-month history of nausea and headache, progressively getting worse with time and eventually to also involve vomiting, vertigo, and ataxia. She was extensively evaluated and diagnosed with a vestibular neuronitis versus a chronic labyrinthitis and treated symptomatically with limited success. In response to a newspaper article, she stopped her aspartame consumption with total cessation of her symptoms. Fifteen years later, her then 47-year-old white brother had a 30-month history of an intermittent, initially 5-10 minute long episode of a mild sensorineural hearing loss in his right ear that progressed over time to several hour episodes of a moderately severe high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss to include tinnitus and a hypoesthetic area in front of his right tragus. After a negative magnetic resonance scan of the brain, he remembered his sister's experience with aspartame and stopped his consumption of aspartame with resolution of his symptoms, although the very high frequency hearing loss took at least 15 months to resolve. For both, subsequent intentional challenges with aspartame and unintentional exposures brought back each of their respective symptoms. CONCLUSION: Aspartame had a vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings, suggesting a genetic susceptibility to aspartame toxicity. Even though the yield may be low, asking patients with dizziness, vertigo, tinnitus, or high-frequency hearing loss about their aspartame consumption and suggesting cessation of its use, may prove helpful for some.
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spelling pubmed-28156502010-02-03 Vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports Pisarik, Paul Kai, Dasha Cases J Case Report 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. CASE PRESENTATION: A 29-year-old white female had a 20-month history of nausea and headache, progressively getting worse with time and eventually to also involve vomiting, vertigo, and ataxia. She was extensively evaluated and diagnosed with a vestibular neuronitis versus a chronic labyrinthitis and treated symptomatically with limited success. In response to a newspaper article, she stopped her aspartame consumption with total cessation of her symptoms. Fifteen years later, her then 47-year-old white brother had a 30-month history of an intermittent, initially 5-10 minute long episode of a mild sensorineural hearing loss in his right ear that progressed over time to several hour episodes of a moderately severe high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss to include tinnitus and a hypoesthetic area in front of his right tragus. After a negative magnetic resonance scan of the brain, he remembered his sister's experience with aspartame and stopped his consumption of aspartame with resolution of his symptoms, although the very high frequency hearing loss took at least 15 months to resolve. For both, subsequent intentional challenges with aspartame and unintentional exposures brought back each of their respective symptoms. CONCLUSION: Aspartame had a vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings, suggesting a genetic susceptibility to aspartame toxicity. Even though the yield may be low, asking patients with dizziness, vertigo, tinnitus, or high-frequency hearing loss about their aspartame consumption and suggesting cessation of its use, may prove helpful for some. BioMed Central 2009-09-15 /pmc/articles/PMC2815650/ /pubmed/20126318 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1757-1626-0002-0000009237 Text en Copyright ©2009 Pisarik and Kai; licensee Cases Network Ltd. licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Case Report
Pisarik, Paul
Kai, Dasha
Vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports
title Vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports
title_full Vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports
title_fullStr Vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports
title_full_unstemmed Vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports
title_short Vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports
title_sort vestibulocochlear toxicity in a pair of siblings 15 years apart secondary to aspartame: two case reports
topic Case Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20126318
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1757-1626-0002-0000009237
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