The World Health Organization declared on Thursday (13) that aspartame, an artificial sweetener widely used in diet drinks and low-sugar foods, may cause cancer.
However, a committee from the organization claims there is a safe level of aspartame consumption. According to the group’s calculations, a person weighing 150 kilograms can avoid a higher cancer risk and still drink about a dozen cans of diet soda per day. However, the Organization stated it could not establish a daily consumption limit considered safe based on the study conducted.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, or I.A.R.C., said it based its conclusion that aspartame is a possible carcinogen on limited evidence from three observational studies in humans that showed only a link between the consumption of artificially sweetened beverages and an increase in liver cancer cases.
Concerns over rising global obesity and diabetes rates, as well as changes in consumer preferences, have resulted in an explosion of low or no-sugar foods and beverages. Aspartame, one of six sweeteners approved by U.S. regulators, is found in thousands of products, from sugar-free gum, diet sodas, teas, energy drinks, and even yogurts. It is also used to sweeten various pharmaceutical products.
But aspartame has been a controversial ingredient for decades.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approved aspartame decades ago, issued a critique of the global agency’s findings and reiterated its long-standing position that the sweetener is safe. In a statement, the FDA said it “disagrees with the I.A.R.C.’s conclusion that these studies support the classification of aspartame as a possible carcinogen for humans.”
The FDA also stated that “aspartame being labeled by WHO as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ does not mean that aspartame is actually linked to cancer.”
Source: The New York Times