What You Need to Know About the Sweetener Aspartame and CancerExBulletin

Foods containing the artificial sweetener aspartame were displayed in New York City on Friday.

Spencer Pratt/Getty Images

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Spencer Pratt/Getty Images

Foods containing the artificial sweetener aspartame were displayed in New York City on Friday.

Spencer Pratt/Getty Images

The artificial sweetener aspartame, which is used in low-calorie products such as Diet Coke, Trident gum and sugar-free jellies, is “potentially carcinogenic to humans,” the World Health Organization announced this week. , many question whether the food is carcinogenic. Additives are safe to consume.

WHO announcement on Thursday International Agency for Research on Canceror IARC reclassifies aspartame, which has been widely used since the 1980s and sold under brand names such as NutraSweet and Equal.

At a press conference in Geneva, Dr Francesco Branca, director of the WHO’s Directorate for Nutrition and Food Safety, said the concern was only with “mass consumers” of diet sodas and other foods containing aspartame, adding that IARC simply said “further investigation”. has been “flagged” to do

Dr. Mary Shubauer-Berrigan, a senior IARC official, stressed that “it really shouldn’t be taken as a direct statement of the known carcinogenic hazards of aspartame consumption.”

Recommended Daily Allowable Intake for Aspartame Has Not Changed

on the other hand, Joint FAO/WHO Technical Committee on Food Additives JECFA, which is jointly managed by WHO and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said the permissible daily intake of aspartame has not changed. A 154-pound adult would need 9 to 14 cans of diet soft drinks containing 200 or 300 mg of aspartame to exceed that limit, they said.

of US Food and Drug Administration says I am aware of the conclusions of both IARC and JECFA, but that “does not mean that aspartame is actually associated with cancer.”

WHO uses a four-level classification system. Possibly carcinogenic. Possibly carcinogenic. and non-carcinogenic.

As Article chemistry Note“Other substances classified as ‘possibly carcinogenic’ include aloe vera extract, traditional Asian vegetable pickles, some motor fuels, dry cleaning, carpentry, and printing. The IARC also classified red meat as ‘probably carcinogenic’ and processed.”Meat is ‘carcinogenic.’ “

Experts say more research is needed

“What this means is that more research is needed to confirm whether there is an association with aspartame,” says Marjorie McCullough, senior scientific director of epidemiology studies at the American Cancer Society.

ToxStrategies Principal Scientist, Toxicologist Danielle Wikoff, has been involved in a number of studies on aspartame at the request of the American Beverage Association (ABA), a lobby group representing the beverage industry. She said her conclusion at Thursday’s press conference in Geneva was that “basically nothing will change”.

The studies on aspartame cited by IARC “really represent only a tiny fraction of the overall evidence base.” The big picture is “much bigger and more indicative of safety,” Wycoff said. The overwhelming majority of those studies support no link between aspartame and cancer.

The ABA’s interim chairman and CEO, Kevin Keane, said it was “disappointing” that IARC had confused consumers’ minds. “The FDA and 95 food safety agencies around the world have confirmed that aspartame is safe,” he says. “Consumers should continue to move forward with confidence.”

But Dr. Darish Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutritional Sciences and Policy, said research into the effects of aspartame on the human body is “woefully inadequate.”

He noted that there are a “very limited number” of randomized controlled trials of aspartame and other artificial sweeteners. “What is worrisome is that while its use in food has exploded, scientific advances have yet to come to ascertain its safety.”

Consumers should still avoid sugary regular sodas

Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, also has concerns about how well aspartame’s possible effects have been studied. He says the problem is he has two things.

“It’s difficult to study free-living populations to get an accurate estimate of how much people actually consume,” he says.

Another challenge is that in the case of rare cancers such as liver cancer, which the WHO has specifically identified, researchers need to follow “hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of enough people to be reliable”. We need to get statistical power,” Hu said. and answer. ”

Aspartame has been focused primarily on low-calorie diet sodas, but what about its use in other beverages?

“I think two sachets of sweetener in your coffee or tea is fine for most people,” Hu said.

Despite the concerns, Taft’s Mozaffarian says the diet variety is still better for those who can’t break the soda habit. “Consuming large amounts of regular sodas has been shown to have a real negative impact on weight gain, obesity and heart attack risk in diabetes.”

“So… that’s right, you should switch to a diet.” [soda]”But it’s even better if you switch from dieting to unsweetened carbonated water,” he says.