Aspartame, a sweetener, is a “possible carcinogen,” but it remains safe to consume at agreed levels, two groups linked to the WHO said yesterday.
The rulings are the outcome of two separate WHO expert panels, one of which flags whether there is any evidence that a substance is a potential hazard and the other that assesses how much of a real-life risk that substance actually poses.
Aspartame is one of the world’s most popular sweeteners, used in products from Coca-Cola diet sodas to Mars’ Extra chewing gum.
Photo: AP
At a news conference ahead of the announcement, Francesco Branca, director of the WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development, said that people weighing beverage choices should consider neither aspartame nor sweetener.
“If consumers are faced with the decision of whether to take cola with sweeteners or one with sugar, I think there should be a third option considered — which is to drink water instead,” Branca said.
In its first declaration on the additive, announced early yesterday, the Lyon, France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer said that aspartame was a “possible carcinogen.”
That classification means there is limited evidence that a substance can cause cancer.
It does not take into account how much a person would need to consume to be at risk, which is considered by a separate panel, the Geneva, Switzerland-based WHO and Food and Agriculture Organization Joint Committee on Food Additives.
After undertaking its own comprehensive review, the committee said that it did not have convincing evidence of harm caused by aspartame and continued to recommend that people keep their consumption levels of aspartame below 40mg/kg a day.
The committee first set this level in 1981 and regulators worldwide have similar guidances.
Several scientists not associated with the reviews said that the evidence linking aspartame to cancer is weak.
Food and beverage industry associations said that the decisions showed aspartame was safe and a good option for people wanting to reduce sugar in their diets.
The WHO said the existing consumption levels meant, for example, that a person weighing 60kg to 70kg would have to drink more than nine to 14 cans of soda daily to breach the limit, based on the average aspartame content in the beverages — about 10 times what most people consume.
“Our results do not indicate that occasional consumption could pose a risk to most consumers,” Branca said.
Reuters first reported last month that the International Agency for Research on Cancer would put aspartame in group 2B as a “possible carcinogen” alongside aloe vera extract and pickled vegetables.
The research panel said yesterday that it had made its ruling based on three studies in people in the US and Europe that indicated a link between hepatocellular carcinoma, a form of liver cancer, and sweetener consumption, the first of which was published in 2016.
Limited evidence from earlier animal studies was also a factor, it said.
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