After World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research group on Thursday said that it was categorizing aspartame, the common artificial sweetener found in Diet Coke and other sugar-free foods and drinks as a possible carcinogen, the world is wondering if the long-standing sugar substitute is safe to consume.
On the market since 1973, aspartame is known by such brand names as Equal, NutraSweet, and Sugar Twin, and is present in everything from diet drinks to chewing gum.
It’s important to note that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it did not agree that aspartame should be categorized as a possible carcinogen. “Aspartame is one of the most studied food additives in the human food supply. FDA scientists do not have safety concerns when aspartame is used under the approved conditions,” the FDA said in a statement.
Additionally, during a media briefing on Wednesday ahead of the announcement, WHO officials stressed that they were not advising companies to withdraw products or telling people to avoid aspartame altogether. “We’re just advising for a bit of moderation,” said Dr. Francesco Branca, the director of the WHO’s Department of Nutrition and Food Safety.
As NBC News reports, the seemingly conflicting statements from the WHO — that aspartame may possibly cause cancer but is safe to consume — came from two separate groups within the organization. One group, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), focuses on identifying cancer-causing agents. The other, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, looks at the safety of food additives and whether they pose a risk to consumers. The groups undertook the review after an advisory panel marked the compound a “high priority” for review in 2019.
The IARC said in a release Thursday that it was classifying aspartame as possibly carcinogenic, meaning there is some evidence that it may cause cancer in humans, but that the evidence is far from conclusive, according to Mary Schubauer-Berigan, the acting head of the IARC Monographs program. (Exposure to a carcinogen does not mean a person will get cancer.)
Given the limited evidence, the Expert Committee on Food Additives concluded that it is currently not making any changes to the recommended limit of aspartame that a person can safely consume. That limit — known as the acceptable daily intake — is quite high: 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day, or 40 milligrams per every 2.2 pounds a person weighs.
That means an adult who weighs 154 pounds, or 70 kilograms, would need to consume more than nine to 14 cans of diet soda per day to exceed the acceptable daily intake, assuming they aren’t getting aspartame from other foods or drinks. A 12-ounce can of diet soda typically contains 200 to 300 milligrams aspartame. The FDA’s limit is even higher, at 50 milligrams per kilogram a day, or 50 milligrams per 2.2 pounds of body weight.
The Coca-Cola Company did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, American Beverage, the industry trade group, said that the safety of its products is its highest priority and that the “IARC is not a food safety agency.”
American Beverage praised the Expert Committee on Food Additives’ decision to not make changes to the daily acceptable limits of aspartame. “This strong conclusion reinforces the position of the FDA and food safety agencies from more than 90 countries,” American Beverage CEO Kevin Keane said in a statement.
The Calorie Control Council, which represents the low and reduced calorie food and beverage industry, similarly praised the Expert Committee on Food Additives while blasting the IARC ruling as “wrong” and “potentially damaging.”
Despite the food additive committee’s conclusions that aspartame can be consumed safely at fairly high amounts, the WHO’s announcement may give some people pause, said Dr. James Farrell, a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Yale School of Medicine. “People may not know how to assess the risk for themselves,” Farrell said.
Giving people clear information about their risk levels is important, given the popularity of aspartame and other artificial sweeteners. But aspartame’s potential cancer risk as well as the guidance on daily intake “may not be relevant” to the majority of consumers, said George Kyriazis, an assistant professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.
According to estimates from the WHO, people who are on the higher end of aspartame consumption generally get about 30 mg/kg a day — less than the acceptable daily limit of 40 mg/kg. The average person is getting 10 times less than the acceptable daily limit, the WHO said.
“There’s a big difference between a person consuming 20 Diet Cokes a day or 15 Diet Cokes a day versus the average consumer that drinks a diet soda with a meal or has a couple of packages of Equal with coffee,” Kyriazis said of the possible risk.
Dr. Neil Iyengar, a medical oncologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said that some people with a genetic risk for certain cancers want to do everything they can to lower their risk. “This is information they would want,” he said.
Branca, of the WHO, said if people are unsure whether they’re consuming too much aspartame, there’s always an alternative. “If consumers are faced with the decision of whether to take cola with sweeteners or one with sugar,” he said, “I think there should be a third option considered, which is to drink water instead.”
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