(Finance) – L‘aspartame, artificial sweetener commonly used in soft drinks, has been classified by theWorld Health Organization as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” when taken in amounts exceeding the acceptable daily intake level set by WHO. Level that the Organization has left unchanged, i.e. equal to 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. “We are not advising companies to recall products, nor are we advising consumers to stop consuming them altogether,” he explained. Francesco Branca, director of nutrition and food safety of the World Health Organization at a press conference presenting the results of two reviews of the available evidence on aspartame –. We’re just advising some restraint.”
L’WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). made its first assessment of the carcinogenicity of aspartame during a meeting in Lyon, France from June 6 to 13. Aspartame has been included in the category Group 2Bbased on tests that specifically targeted the HCC, a type of liver cancer. Other tests were performed on laboratory animals. The Group 2B category also contains aloe vera extract and caffeic acid found in tea and coffee, said Paul Pharoah, professor of cancer epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
“The general public should not be concerned about the cancer risk associated with a chemical classified as Group 2B,” he said. Mary Schubauer-Berigan of the IARC explaining that the evidence for hepatocellular carcinoma comes from three studies, conducted in the United States and 10 European countries. “These are the only epidemiological studies that have looked at liver cancer,” he said Schubauer-Berigan. “We have, in a sense, sent out a signal, pointing – he stressed Branch – that we need to clarify the situation much better”.
A second group, the Jecfathe Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives formed by WHO and another United Nations agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization, met in Geneva from 27 June to 6 July to assess the risks associated with aspartame and concluded that there is not no reason to change the acceptable daily allowance established in 1981, zero to 40 milligrams of aspartame per kilogram of body weight. With a can of sugar-free soft drink typically containing 200 or 300 mg of the sweetener aspartame, a 70 kg adult would therefore need to consume more than 9-14 cans per day to exceed the limit, assuming no further aspartame is taken from other sources . “The problem is for big consumers – said Branca –. Those who drink a drink every now and then shouldn’t worry”.
L’International Sweeteners Association she says she is satisfied with the WHO pronouncement, and reaffirms the safety of aspartame: “As part of a healthy diet and lifestyle it can be used to achieve public health objectives in terms of reducing sugar intake “.
There presence of aspartame – recognizable in labels with the initials E951 – in numerous food products such as snacks, drinks, ice cream, yoghurt, chewing gum and dietetic items – underlines Coldiretti – “develop today a 12 billion euro business in the world”. The declaration of this substance as potentially carcinogenic also proves – highlights Coldiretti – “the unreliability of the Nutriscore color label proposal, which currently in supermarkets rejects foods with natural sugars with the red color and promotes the most well-known carbonated drinks rich in aspartame and artificial sweeteners with the green one, of which we do not even know the complete recipe.”The advice – concludes Coldiretti – is to prefer natural sugars instead, from honey to sugar up to stevia, while for industrial products it is possible to use fructose, which is the natural sugar of fruit”.