The sweetener aspartame, one of the most used in the food industry, has been classified as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization (WHO). But the WHO itself warns that aspartame is safe at the doses at which it is commonly consumed.
Liver cancer is the only type of tumor in which there are epidemiological studies that suggest that aspartame could cause it, says the WHO. Studies with rats and mice, on the other hand, have linked high doses of the sweetener with other types of cancer such as lung, breast and kidney.
“It is acceptable to consume products with aspartame,” said Francesco Branca, director of the WHO Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, at a press conference on Wednesday. “We are comfortable that an occasional level of exposure is safe.” But, by declaring aspartame a possible carcinogen, the WHO makes the following recommendations.
To citizens: “We certainly recommend consumers to limit their consumption of sweeteners” and not to substitute sugar for them, Branca declared.
To governments: “The WHO does not recommend that the authorities withdraw products from the market,” he added.
To the food industry: “Companies should reconsider their products; We know that many sweeteners have risks; it is about looking for tasty products without sweeteners”.
And to the scientific community: “a call is made to try to clarify the risk posed by aspartame,” said Mary Schubauer-Berigan, of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of the press conference. of the WHO.
The evaluation of aspartame has been carried out by two groups of experts who have worked separately. On the one hand, 25 scientists from 12 countries convened by the IARC have reviewed the scientific evidence to assess whether the sweetener is carcinogenic or not, regardless of the dose at which it is taken. On the other hand, the Expert Committee on Food Additives of the WHO and the FAO have evaluated the amounts from which aspartame could pose a risk.
The IARC working group has evaluated epidemiological studies of people who frequently consume aspartame, as well as animal and cell culture studies to understand how the sweetener may affect different organs and tissues.
According to the results presented in The Lancet Oncology, where they present their findings today, “aspartame induced oxidative stress in various tissues, including the liver, in multiple rodent studies.” In addition, “it induced chronic inflammation.”
A study based on data from almost half a million people from ten European countries detected in 2016 more cases of liver cancer in people who consume soft drinks with aspartame than in people who do not consume them. Two other US studies (accessible here and here) published last year found the same correlation. But none of the three proved that aspartame was the cause of liver cancers.
The classification of the sweetener as a possible carcinogen “should not be interpreted as a statement that there is a known risk of cancer from the consumption of aspartame,” Schubauer-Berigan said.
The committee of experts on food additives, for its part, has concluded that “there is no convincing evidence of risk for people below the limit of 40 milligrams per day of aspartame per kilo of weight”, which is the maximum level considered acceptable by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). A 140-pound person would need to drink 12 cans of aspartame-sweetened soda a day to reach this amount.
The possible health risk of aspartame “is not something that we can rule out at this time,” especially “for people who consume it in high amounts,” Francesco Branca said. “There is only one very obvious recommendation: reduce your consumption.”
For children and adolescents, the director of the WHO Department of Nutrition and Food Safety stressed that “having a high consumption of soft drinks, and getting used to its taste from an early age, is not a good practice.”
