Aspartame will be declared as possibly carcinogenic – 06/29/2023 – Health

One of the world’s most common artificial sweeteners is on the verge of being declared a possible carcinogen next month by a leading global health body, according to two sources with knowledge of the lawsuit, putting it at odds with the food industry and regulators.

Aspartame, used in products such as Coca-Cola diet sodas, Mars Extra gum and some Snapple drinks, will be listed in July as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” for the first time by IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer), cancer research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), the sources said.

IARC’s decision, finalized earlier this month after a meeting of the group’s external experts, aims to assess whether something is a potential danger or not, based on all published evidence.

It does not take into account the safe amount of a product that a person can consume. This advice to individuals comes from a separate WHO expert committee on food additives known as JECFA (Food and Agriculture Organization Joint Committee on Food Additives), along with mandates from national regulators.

However, similar decisions by IARC in the past for different substances have raised concerns among consumers about their use, resulted in lawsuits and put pressure on manufacturers to reformulate recipes and switch to alternatives. This has led to criticism that Iarc assessments can be confusing to the public.

JECFA, the WHO committee on additives, is also reviewing the use of aspartame this year. Its meeting began in late June and is expected to announce its findings on the same day IARC makes its decision public – on July 14th.

Since 1981, JECFA has stated that aspartame is safe to consume within accepted daily limits. For example, an adult weighing 60 kg would have to drink between 12 and 36 cans of diet soda – depending on the amount of aspartame in the drink – every day to be at risk. This view has been widely shared by national regulators, including in the US and Europe.

An Iarc spokesperson said the findings of the IARC and JECFA committees were confidential until July, but added that they were “complementary”, with the IACR finding representing “a critical first step in understanding carcinogenicity.” The additive committee “performs risk assessment, which determines the likelihood that a specific type of harm (eg cancer) will occur under certain conditions and exposure levels.”

However, industry and regulators fear that doing both processes at the same time could be confusing, according to letters from US and Japanese regulators seen by Reuters.

“We kindly request that both bodies coordinate their efforts in reviewing aspartame to avoid any confusion or concern among the public,” wrote Nozomi Tomita, an official with Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, in a letter dated 27 March to WHO Deputy Director-General Zsuzsanna Jakab.

The letter also asked that the findings of both bodies be released on the same day, as is happening now. The Japanese mission in Geneva, where the WHO is based, did not respond to a request for comment.

DEBATE

IARC decisions can have a huge impact. In 2015, its committee concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic”. Years later, even with other bodies such as the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) contesting this, companies were still feeling the effects of the decision. In 2021, the German company Bayer lost its third appeal against court verdicts in the United States that awarded damages to customers who attributed their cancers to the use of glyphosate-based herbicides.

IARC decisions have also faced criticism for causing unnecessary alarm over substances or situations that are difficult to avoid. Previously, she classified night work and consumption of red meat as “probably carcinogenic” and cell phone use as “possibly carcinogenic”, similar to aspartame.

“Iarc is not a food safety body and its aspartame review is not scientifically comprehensive and relies heavily on widely discredited research,” said Frances Hunt-Wood, secretary general of the ISA (International Sweeteners Association).

The body, whose members include Mars Wrigley, a unit of Coca-Cola and Cargill, said it had “serious concerns about the IARC review, which could confuse consumers”.

The executive director of the International Council of Beverage Associations, Kate Loatman, said public health officials should be “deeply concerned” about the “leaked opinion” and also warned that it “could unnecessarily mislead consumers into consuming more sugar instead of to choose safe low- or no-sugar options”.

Aspartame has been extensively studied for years. Last year, an observational study in France of 100,000 adults showed that people who consumed higher amounts of artificial sweeteners – including aspartame – had a slightly higher risk of cancer.

This followed a study by the Ramazzini Institute in Italy in the early 2000s, which reported that some cancers in mice and rats were related to aspartame.

However, the first study failed to prove that aspartame caused the increased risk of cancer, and questions were raised about the methodology of the second study, including by the EFSA, which evaluated it.

Aspartame is authorized for use globally by regulators who have reviewed all available evidence, and major food and beverage manufacturers have been advocating the use of this ingredient for decades. Iarc said it evaluated 1,300 studies in its June review.

Recent recipe adjustments by soft drink giant Pepsico demonstrate the struggle the industry faces when it comes to balancing taste preferences with health concerns. Pepsico removed aspartame from soft drinks in 2015, bringing it back a year later, only to remove it again in 2020.

Including aspartame as a possible carcinogen is intended to spur further research, say sources close to IARC, which will help agencies, consumers and manufacturers to draw stronger conclusions.

But it’s also likely to reignite the debate over IARC’s role, as well as the safety of sweeteners more generally.

Last month, the WHO published guidelines advising consumers not to use unsweetened sweeteners for weight management. The guidelines have caused an uproar in the food industry, which argues they could be helpful for consumers looking to reduce the amount of sugar in their diet.

Edited by Michele Gershberg and Mark Potter.