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Aspartame Safety Controversy Heats Up NewsMax.com Wires A high-stakes conflict is brewing over the safety of one of the world's most popular and widely-used artificial sweeteners, aspartame.
Approved by the FDA way back in 1974, the sweetener is sold under the brand names of Nutra-Sweet and Equal and used in more than 6,000 products worldwide, including many popular sweets and soft drinks. More than $570 million-worth of the product was sold last year.
For years, arguments have simmered about aspartame's safety, and it's possible role in the growth of malignant brain tumors and other cancers.
But a major new study has fired the controversy to the boiling point.
A carefully-done $1-million Italian study, published last summer in Europe and now getting world media attention, demonstrates a clear and unassailable link between aspartame and the risks of various cancers.
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Conducted at the Cancer Research Center in Bologna, Italy, the study was headed by Dr Morando Soffritti, a renowned expert with 28 years of experience researching potential carcinogens.
It involved 1,900 young rats fed varying amounts of aspartame.
The sweetener was associated with unusually high rates of lymphoma, leukemia and other cancers even in rats that had been given doses equivalent to the amount of aspartame in four to five 20-ounce bottles of diet soda a day for a 150-pound person.
Control rats, however, were cancer-free.
It was disturbing that the aspartame-fed rats had an increased rate of developing cancers. It was eve more disturbing that the increased rate appeared at dose levels smaller than those taken by daily millions of people.
"Our study has shown that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic compound whose carcinogenic effects are also evident at a daily dose of 20 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) of body weight notably less than the current acceptable daily intake for humans," declared Dr. Soffritti in a recent New York Times interview.
He is concerned about the large numbers of people who use aspartame, particularly children and pregnant women.
"If something is a carcinogen in animals," he said, "then it should not be added to food, especially if there are so many people that are going to be consuming it."
But any restrictions on the sweetener will come at major economic costs and will jeopardize billions of dollars worth of food products.
No regulatory agency has yet acted on Dr. Soffritti's findings. The European Food Safety Authority, has started to review the data and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has promised to do the same.
Meanwhile, both agencies have said they see no reasons for people to avoid aspartame.
Editor's note:
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