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Sugar Free Gold Fanta Orange Sugar Free 7Up Pepsi Max Diet Coke Lipton Iced Tea Lemon Happynut Wave Mentos Pure Sugar Free Mint Flavor Sugar Free Gum Trident Sugar Free Low Calorie Sweetener Thermo Equals Original, Crystal Light Drink Mix, Mars Wrigley’s Air Waves Sugar Free Chewing Gum, Wrigley’s Extra Spearmint Sugar Free Gummies—the list of products that contain an artificial sweetener called aspartame goes on and on.
It’s the same artificial sweetener that caused a stir around the world after a news report said the World Health Organization (WHO) likely declared it a “probably human carcinogen,” meaning it may cause cancer in humans.
Aspartame is used in more than 6,000 products, including artificially sweetened beverages, sugar-free gelatin products, hard candy, and more. Some of these products carry warnings but not necessarily against aspartame. For example: The Diet Coke label states that the product should not be consumed by children or pregnant or nursing women. Likewise, Happywave Xylitol Sugar Free Mint forbids children from consuming the product with those with ‘phenylketonurics’ – a genetic disorder that causes phenylalanine, an amino acid, to build up in the blood.
The aspartame story
In the late nineteenth century, scientists sought to find an alternative to sugar after realizing that its consumption leads to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. After sugar consumption became a public health problem, in 1878, scientists found saccharin – 300 times sweeter than sugar without calories. Then, in the 1930s, cyclamate was found, which was about 50 times sweeter than sugar.
In 1960, aspartame was found, which was 200 times sweeter and had calories comparable to sugar. However, it was much sweeter, so it was used with much less sugar. In 1976, sucralose was found, which is 600 times sweeter and contains no calories.
While sucralose is nowadays used in the majority of foodstuffs apart from the vegetable stevia, aspartame was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981.
It was first sold under the brand name NutraSweet, the patent for which expired in 1992. It was approved for general use in the European Union in 1994.
Until 1995, Indian laws only allowed saccharin to be used as a sweetener and stated that aspartame was known to be unstable in glass bottles under tropical conditions. But later, it was approved and flooded the market as a “sugar-free” option.
The WHO announcement is coming on July 14th
WHO said, in an email News 18 That in the “Program Monographs, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), risk identification is being conducted, which is the first essential step to understanding the etiology of cancer.”
“Risk identification aims to identify the specific characteristics of an agent and its potential to cause harm, ie the agent’s potential to cause cancer,” said Dr. Margaret Harris, WHO spokeswoman.
“The ratings reflect the strength of the scientific evidence about whether an agent can cause cancer in humans, but they do not reflect how high the cancer risk is at a given exposure level,” Harris added.
Harris also said that the assessments were “independent but complementary” and were conducted one after the other in June and July 2023. “Because of the close collaboration between the IARC studies and the WHO/FAO JECFA secretariat, we planned to present the results of both assessments at the same time. This It will allow us to clearly communicate the different purposes of risk identification and risk assessment and help put these findings into context,” said the expert.
Harris added: “These complementary results will be jointly announced by the IARC and JECFA on July 14, 2023, and will be confidential until the Summary of Evaluations for IARC Monographs Volume 134 is published online… by The Lancet Oncology, and the simultaneous publication of the JECFA findings on World Health Organization website.
It was found to be a carcinogen in rats, two decades ago
A study conducted by France in March 2022 was published in PLOS medicinewhich included 1,02,865 French adults, found that artificial sweeteners — especially aspartame — are associated with an increased risk of cancer.
The study found that aspartame intake was associated with an increased risk of obesity-related and breast cancer. It found an increased overall risk of cancer for higher consumers compared to non-consumers. But this wasn’t the first time it had been linked to cancer.
Published in 2005 at Environmental health perspectiveAnd Italian study Aspartame has been shown to be a ‘potential carcinogen’ compound whose carcinogenic effects are evident even at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg body weight – well below the current acceptable daily intake for humans in Europe (40 mg/kg body weight) and in the United States ( 50 mg/kg body weight). The study was conducted on Sprague-Dawley rats.
“The results of our study warrant an urgent re-examination of current guidelines on the use and consumption of aspartame (APM),” the study said in 2005 – nearly two decades ago.
A follow-up study in 2007 found significant dose-related increases in malignancies in some mice. It also showed that when lifelong exposure to aspartame begins during fetal life, its carcinogenic effects increase.
“The results…confirm and reinforce the first experimental demonstration of omnipotent carcinogenicity in (aspartame) at a dose level close to the acceptable daily intake for humans…when lifelong exposure is initiated during fetal life, its carcinogenic effects are increased,” the researchers wrote. in environmental health perspectives.
in 2010, Age study results confirmed again that “(aspartame) is a carcinogenic agent at multiple sites in rodents and that this effect occurs in two species, rats (male and female) and mice (male), the researchers reported in American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
Harvard researchers in 2012 found in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition A positive association between aspartame intake and an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma in men and leukemia in men and women. The researchers said the findings “maintain the possibility of an adverse effect … in selected cancers” but “do not allow the exclusion of chance as an explanation”.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calls it the most studied food additive
On the contrary, the majority of studies have proven that one needs to consume a lot of aspartame to be at risk. For example: A report states that an adult weighing 60 kg would need to drink more than 30 cans of diet soda each day to be at risk.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – the most stringent health regulator in the world – says aspartame is one of the most studied food additives in the human food supply. “To determine the safety of aspartame, the FDA reviewed more than 100 studies designed to identify potential toxic effects, including studies evaluating effects on the reproductive and nervous systems, carcinogenicity, and metabolism,” it said on its website.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set an acceptable daily intake (ADI) for aspartame at 50 mg/kg of body weight per day – a limit that easily fits into the use of aspartame on a daily basis.
What needs to be seen now is the latest evidence compiled by the World Health Organization and the impact of advertising on the food and beverage industry. For us, the rule remains the same – excess of everything is bad and moderation is key.
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