https://www.bbc.com/news/health-66180986
Despite the World Health Organization (WHO) classifying the sugar substitute aspartame, found in tens of thousands of foods and drinks, as a "possibly cancer-causing drug," doctors have been slow to ban it. The thing is that the frightening wording actually only indicates that scientists simply do not have reliable evidence that aspartame is a carcinogen. In addition, most people still use it in amounts below the legal limit.
Aspartame is found in so-called diet and sugar-free versions of commonly used foods, from chewing gum and toothpaste to yogurt, but primarily in beverages such as Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Pepsi Max and 7 Up Free, and has a valuable property : It is 200 times sweeter than sugar and contains almost no calories.
Since its inception in the 1980s, aspartame has generated a lot of controversy about its benefits and safety.
According to WHO spokesman Dr. Francesco Branca, who heads the department dealing with diet and food safety, numerous studies have hinted that aspartame may not be so good for health, but there is no need to talk about real harm either, only when it comes to does not go about abuse.
Aspartame was first evaluated by experts from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of the WHO. At the same time, IARC uses its own classification of risk factors for cancer, derived on the basis of confirmed facts:
- Definitely cause cancer: smoking, alcohol, sun exposure, radiation
- Highly likely to cause cancer: foods released during frying, red meat, night shifts, insecticides like DDT
- Possibly causing cancer: sugar substitutes such as aspartame, vehicle fumes, lead, hairdressing
- Theoretically possible, but not documented, that cause cancer: coffee, paracetamol, mercury, crude oil
The IARC has placed aspartame in a category of "possibly cancer-causing" substances, which, by the way, includes such an unexpected candidate as aloe, based on three studies linking the sweetener with the risk of a certain type of liver cancer.
The characteristic "possibly" refers solely to the solidity of scientific evidence. If they were more convincing, aspartame would be moved to a higher risk category.
In this case, according to Dr. Marie Schubauer-Berigan from IARC, this is more of a proposal to the scientific community to pay closer attention to this sugar substitute.
By the way, one of the main questions remains open: exactly how (if, of course, this is scientifically confirmed) aspartame can contribute to the development of cancer.
According to WHO reports, in the human body, aspartame quickly decomposes into its components - phenylalanine (aromatic alpha-amino acid), aspartic acid and methanol. But these same substances are found in many other products that have nothing to do with cancer. In addition, studies have shown that aspartame does not directly cause carcinogenic mutations in human DNA, although it may increase the level of inflammatory processes.
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