EU food body dismisses food sweetener cancer fears

By Robin Pomeroy

ROME (Reuters) – The European Union’s food safety agency
said on Friday there was no cancer risk from foods and drinks
containing the food sweetener aspartame, rejecting a scientific
study that said the additive was hazardous.

The European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) dismissed recent
findings by an Italian cancer research body which found the
sweetener — widely used in diet foods, soft drinks and as a
sugar substitute — increased cancers in rats.

EFSA said its review of the Ramazzini Institute study found
no conclusive evidence that aspartame was responsible for
increased cancers and that although the additive did cause
damage to the rats’ kidneys, this would not happen to humans.

“Our conclusion on the basis of all the evidence currently
available to us is that there’s no reason to revise the
previously established ADI (acceptable daily intake), nor at
this stage … to undertake any further extensive review of the
safety of aspartame,” EFSA’s Iona Pratt told a news conference.

Aspartame is marketed under trademarks including NutraSweet
and Canderel.

The European Union’s ADI for the product is 40 milligrams
per kilogram of bodyweight, Pratt said, the equivalent of
consuming around 80 sachets of the sweetener per day.

EFSA said increased incidence of leukaemias and lymphomas
in the rats in the Ramazzini study could be put down to chronic
health problems that made the animals predisposed to such
conditions, and not consumption of aspartame.

INDUSTRY

The verdict by the EU’s top food safety authority was good
news for food makers who use aspartame, which have often had to
fend off health concerns.

Alain Beaumont, secretary-general of the UNESDA industry
association that groups leading soft drinks producers such as
Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Cadbury-Schweppes, welcomed the EFSA
ruling.

“As a consumer-driven industry, UNESDA welcomes further
reconfirmation of the safety of aspartame as an important tool
in the fight against obesity,” he said.

“UNESDA stresses that lessons should be learned about the
ways in which non-peer-reviewed studies like these are
communicated to the public in order to minimize confusion
amongst consumers,” Beaumont said.

But the Ramazzini Institute, which tested aspartame on
1,800 rats over their entire lives, stood by its findings and
said it planned further research.

“Because of the globalization of the industrialized diet
and the ever increasing use of artificial sweeteners among
billions of people in both industrialized and developing
countries, the European Ramazzini Foundation considers its work
on sweeteners to be of the highest priority for the protection
of public health,” it said in a statement.

“We have planned and are conducting additional research,
not only on aspartame, but also on other widely diffused
artificial sweeteners and blends used in thousands of foods,
beverages and pharmaceutical products.”

(Additional reporting by Trevor Datson in London)