A WHO agency will declare the popular sweetener aspartame, used in Diet Coke, as a possible carcinogen

One of the world’s most common artificial sweeteners will be declared a “possible carcinogen” next month by a health agency. World Health Organization (WHO), according to two sources with knowledge of the process, in news that will shake up the food industry and regulators

He aspartame, used in products ranging from Diet Coke to Extra Mars gum and some Snapple drinks, in the United States, it will be included in July as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” for the first time for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), the sources said.

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The failure of the IARCFinalized earlier this month after a meeting of outside experts from the group, it aims to assess whether or not something is a potential hazard, based on all the published evidence.

Failure it does not take into account the amount of a product that a person can safely consume. The recommendation for individuals comes from a committee of experts independent of the WHO in food additives, known as JECFA (WHO-Food and Agriculture Organization Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives), along with the determinations of national regulators.

all similar to the IARC in the past for different substances have raised concerns among consumers about their use have led to lawsuits and pressured manufacturers to recreate recipes and switch to alternatives. that has generated criticism that IARC assessments can be misleading for the public.

JECFA, the WHO committee on additives, is also reviewing the use of aspartame this year. Its meeting began at the end of June and it is due to announce its findings the same day the IARC makes its decision public, July 14.

Since 1981, JECFA has said that Aspartame is safe to consume within accepted daily limits. For example, an adult weighing 60 kg would have to drink between 12 and 36 cans of diet soda, depending on the amount of aspartame in the drink, every day to be at risk. His point of view has been widely shared by national regulators, in the United States and Europe.

Aspartame sweetener. (Reuters).

An IARC spokesman said the findings of the IARC and JECFA committees were confidential until July, but added that they were “complementary”, and that the IARC conclusion represented “the first critical step to understanding carcinogenicity”. The additives committee “performs a risk assessment, which determines the likelihood of a specific type of harm (for example, cancer) occurring under certain conditions and exposure levels.”

However, the industry and regulators fear that keeping both processes at roughly the same time could be confusing, according to letters from the US and Japanese regulators seen by Reuters.

“We kindly ask both organizations to coordinate their efforts in the review of aspartame to avoid confusion or concerns among the public”, wrote Nozomi Tomita, an official at Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, in a letter dated March 27 to the deputy director of the WHO. general, Zsuzsanna Jakab.

The letter also requested that the conclusions of both organizations be released on the same day, as is happening now. The Japanese mission in Geneva, where the WHOdid not respond to a request for comment.

The failures of the IARC they can have A great impact. In 2015, his committee concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic”. Years later, even when other bodies such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) challenged this, companies were still feeling the effects of the decision. Germany’s Bayer lost its third appeal in 2021 against verdicts by US courts that awarded damages to customers who blamed the use of its glyphosate-based herbicides for their cancers.

IARC decisions have also faced criticism for generating unnecessary alarm about substances or situations difficult to avoid. Previously, it placed night work and red meat consumption in its “probably cancer-causing” class, and cell phone use as “possibly cancer-causing,” similar to aspartame.

“IARC is not a food safety agency and its review of aspartame is not scientifically exhaustive and relies heavily on widely discredited research”, said Frances Hunt-Wood, secretary general of the International Sweeteners Association (ISA).

The body, whose members include Mars Wrigley, a unit of Coca-Cola and Cargill, said it had “serious concerns with the IARC review, which could mislead consumers.”

The executive director of the International Council of Beverage Associations, Kate Loatman, said that public health authorities should be “deeply concerned” by the “leaked opinion”, also warning that “could unnecessarily mislead consumers into consuming more sugar instead of choosing safe alternative sugar-free and low-sugar foods.”

Aspartame has been extensively studied for years. Last year, an observational study in France among 100,000 adults showed that people who consumed large amounts of artificial sweeteners, including aspartame, had a slightly increased risk of cancer.

Earlier, a study from the Ramazzini Institute in Italy from the early 2000s reported that some types of cancer in mice and rats were linked to aspartame.

However, the first study could not prove that aspartame caused an increased risk of cancer, and questions have been raised about the methodology of the second study, including by EFSA, which evaluated it.

Aspartame is authorized for use worldwide by regulators who have reviewed all available evidence, and major food and beverage manufacturers have for decades advocated the use of the ingredient. IARC said it had evaluated 1,300 studies in its June review.

The recent adjustments to soda giant Pepsico’s recipes demonstrate the struggle the industry has when it comes to balancing taste preferences with health concerns. Pepsico removed aspartame from soft drinks in 2015, brought it back a year later, only to remove it again in 2020.

The inclusion of aspartame as a possible carcinogen intended to motivate further research, the sources close to IARC said, which will help agencies, consumers and manufacturers to draw firmer conclusions.

But it is also likely to ignite the debate once again about the role of IARC, as well as about the safety of sweeteners in general.

Last month, the WHO released guidelines advising consumers not to use sugar-free sweeteners for weight control. The guidelines have caused a stir in the food industry, which argues that they may be useful for consumers who want to reduce the amount of sugar in their diet.

Source: Elcomercio