THE PUNCH
On July 13, the International Agency for Research on Cancer evaluated the risk of an artificial sweetener, aspartame, causing cancer and stated that it is “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”
Aspartame is an odourless white powder that was discovered in 1965 by a United States chemist, James Schlatter.
The IARC specifically found that the consumption of this artificial sweetener in beverages was associated with an increased risk of a type of liver cancer called hepatocellular carcinoma, according to a report by Scientific American.
The acting head of the IARC Monographs programme, Mary Schubauer-Berigan, noted that the scientific evidence pointed to the carcinogenic nature of the sweetening agent and not the risk of developing the terminal illness at a specific exposure level.
She said, “The working group classified aspartame as possibly carcinogenic to humans – that is, group 2B – based on limited evidence for cancer in humans. The IARC classification reflects the strength of the scientific evidence as to whether an agent can cause cancer in humans, but it does not reflect the risk of developing cancer at a given exposure level.”
IARC, a World Health Organisation agency, categorises substances that are carcinogenic to humans as group 1 while those that are probably carcinogenic to humans are categorised as 2A, based on available data.
Materials that are possibly carcinogenic to humans are placed in group 2B while those not classifiable as to their carcinogenicity to humans are categorised as group 3. Hence, the IARC put aspartame in group 2B based on “limited” evidence that it causes cancer in humans.
There was also limited evidence that the artificial sweetener causes cancer in laboratory animals and there is limited mechanistic evidence that it shows key characteristics of a human carcinogen.
In a separate ruling, the Joint Food and Agriculture Organisation/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives evaluated the levels of exposure to food additives that could pose a health risk and found that there was no convincing evidence for harm with aspartame consumption below the current Acceptable Daily Intake limit of 40 milligrammes per kilogramme of body weight.
This limit was established by JECFA in 1981 and it infers that for a person with a body weight of 70 kg, their acceptable daily intake of aspartame is equivalent to about 14.5 cans of Diet Coke.
On its part, the United States Food and Drug Administration estimated that a person weighing 60kg would have to consume about 75 packets of aspartame in a day to reach the upper end of the ADI of 50 mg/kg per day.
The low-calorie sugar substitute has also been approved by the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency and many other countries.
But these recent rulings have led many consumers to assume that aspartame could possibly cause cancer, and that when it is consumed less than the currently recommended limit, it would not pose much risk.
Reacting to this, a food safety researcher, Mr Benson Joshua, told Sunday PUNCH that the potential health risk posed by aspartame needed to be assessed before a final conclusion would be drawn.
