Does Aspartame Cause Cancer? Product is considered safe – 06/29/2023 – Equilibrium

The sweetener aspartame, found in a wide variety of foods and soft drinks, should officially be classified as “possibly carcinogenic” to humans, reports say.

This classification often causes confusion, as it does not allow a clear sense of whether the potential risk is large or small.

Other “possibly carcinogenic” substances include aloe vera, diesel and some pickled vegetables.

The BBC has learned that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) will make an announcement on 14 July.

What takes aspartame?

Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar, so it gives you the taste without the calories.

It is on the ingredient list of many diet or sugar-free foods, including diet drinks, chewing gum, and some yogurts.

Widely consumed beverages containing aspartame include “zero” sodas, but the sweetener is present in about 6,000 food products.

Aspartame has been used for decades and approved by food safety agencies, but there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the ingredient.

Iarc, the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), reviewed nearly 1,300 studies on aspartame and cancer.

Reuters news agency says it has spoken to sources close to the lawsuit and that aspartame will be classified as “possibly carcinogenic” – but what does the classification really mean?

The ‘possibly carcinogenic’ classification

Official announcements are to be made by Iarc and a separate committee of experts on food additives — along with a publication in the medical journal Lancet Oncology on July 14.

IARC uses four possible classifications:

This is where there can be confusion.

“The IARC categorization doesn’t tell us anything about the actual level of risk from aspartame, because that’s not what the IARC categorizations mean,” says Kevin McConway, professor of statistics at the Open University.

IARC tells us how strong the evidence is, not how risky a substance is to your health.

The “possibly” category is used when there is “limited” evidence in people or data from animal experiments.

This classification covers products such as diesel, talc, nickel, aloe vera, some preserved vegetables and a series of chemical substances.

“I emphasize, however, that the evidence that these things can cause cancer is not very strong or they would have been placed in group 1 or 2A,” added Professor McConway.

The IARC ratings have caused confusion in the past and have been criticized for creating unnecessary alarm. When processed red meat was categorized as a carcinogen, it led to reports equating it with smoking.

But giving 100 people an extra 50g of bacon – on top of what they already eat – every day for the rest of their lives would lead to a case of bowel cancer.

There are no equivalent figures for aspartame. However, the WHO-Food and Agriculture Organization Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives is expected to report in July.

Its position since 1981 has been that a daily intake of 40 mg per kilogram of body weight per day was safe.

That’s between 12 and 36 cans of diet drinks (depending on the exact ingredients) per day for a 60 kg adult.

‘Considered safe’

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 “may unnecessarily induce consumers to consume more sugar, instead of choosing safe no- and low-sugar options.”

Rick Mumford, Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA), said the body will “closely study” the reports, but that the agency’s view was that “safety of this sweetener has been evaluated by several scientific committees and is considered safe at current permitted usage levels”.

A study in the early 2000s linked the sweetener to cancer in mice and rat experiments, but the results were criticized and other animal studies found no risk.

Last year, a study of 105,000 people compared people who didn’t consume sweeteners with those who consumed large amounts.

High levels of sweeteners – including aspartame – have been linked to a higher risk of cancer, but there are many differences in health and lifestyles between the two groups.

Frances Hunt-Wood of the International Sweeteners Association said: “Aspartame is one of the most researched ingredients in history, with over 90 food safety agencies worldwide declaring it safe.”

There are some people who cannot consume aspartame safely. These are people with an inherited condition called phenylketonuria or PKU.

People with PKU are unable to metabolize a component of aspartame.

This text was published here