Moderate consumption seemingly harmless: sweetener aspartame may cause cancer, according to WHO

class=”sc-29f61514-0 fQbOYE”>

A sweetener commonly used in soft drinks, yogurt and chewing gum may cause cancer in humans, but should not be a problem in moderate amounts, says a new expert.

It’s about aspartame, one of the eleven sweeteners approved in the EU. Despite the new classification, the World Health Organization (WHO) does not change its guidelines. He sees no evidence that consumption within the maximum recommended in the underlying studies can be dangerous. According to available information, no one who fits this puts themselves at a higher risk of cancer, WHO reported.

“An occasional soft drink or chewing gum: You shouldn’t worry about that right now,” said Francesco Branca, director of the WHO division of nutrition and food safety. “We don’t recommend that consumers avoid sweeteners completely, but we do recommend caution.” Anyone considering buying sugary or sweetened soft drinks at the supermarket should consider a third option, Branca said: “Drink water” or other sweetener-free beverages.

Certain liver cancer

The new classification for aspartame as “possibly carcinogenic” comes from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon (France). It belongs to WHO. The IARC published its findings Friday in the journal The Lancet Oncology. Three human studies saw limited evidence linking this to a specific form of liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma).

Important to know: IARC experts only assess whether a substance can in principle cause cancer. They don’t take into account how much a person must consume to be at risk for disease, says Mary Schubauer-Berigan. She runs the IARC Monographs program responsible for classification she.

Risk analyzes for humans are carried out by other agencies such as the WHO Committee on Food Additives and the UN Agriculture Organization FAO (JECFA) or by food safety authorities such as the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).

Maximum recommended amount

The maximum recommended amount of aspartame is 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight daily. A person weighing 70 kilograms can reach the limit only if they drink 9 to 14 cans of conventional-size diet drinks with high aspartame content in one day, WHO reported.

IARC experts have found three of hundreds of human cancer studies that have addressed the effects of artificial sweeteners. They also reviewed studies in mice and rats. However, they acknowledged that all studies evaluating aspartame had some shortcomings. Therefore, the IARC emphasizes that the evidence is limited.

According to Schubauer-Berigan and Branca, the new classification is a call to science. More work is urgently needed. (SDA)

Source :Blick