Reacción a "Reactions: aspartame sweetener is classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans, although the acceptable daily intake remains unchanged"

The IARC has made the assessment that leaked reports over the last few weeks suggested they would and classified aspartame as category 2b, the 2nd lowest level. This means there is insufficient evidence of a link. Other things in this category include mobile phone use and petrol engine exhaust fumes.

This is the first time that the IARC has looked at aspartame and seems to have been prompted by a paper that came out in 2022 that mentioned liver cancer. The IARC expert committee would have reviewed all the available literature when coming to this conclusion, but not done any new research themselves.

There are two terms we need to understand here. The first is ‘hazard’ which just means a possible harm (even if that harm would be very unlikely to occur), and ‘risk’ which is the likelihood of the harm occurring. Think of it like driving a car. There is definitely a hazard; cars crash, and people get injured, and even die, but the risk of that happening when you drive to the shops or take the kids to school is fairly low, most of us don’t think about it - even though the risk is not zero.

Now, the IARC only looks at hazard, which in this case means they just looked to see if there was any evidence that aspartame might be linked to cancer. They do not make an assessment of how likely the hazard is to occur.

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives committee has not changed its safety rating on Aspartame which they set at about 40mg/kg body weight which for a 70 kg adult would mean drinking roughly 17 cans of Diet Coke a day, over a long period. This is consistent will all the major food safety agencies around the world who regularly conduct their own assessments and all classify aspartame as safe at the levels it is used at.

We should also remember that we all exposed to carcinogens every day. It sounds scary but its about risk. Even things that the IARC classifies as class one carcinogens, such as UV light and alcohol, do not cause cancer instantly just because you are exposed to them once. For example, if you get too much sun on the beach in summer you might get sunburn but you’ll recover. If you continually sunbathe with no sun protection then your risk of skin cancer goes up.

In short, I will continue to enjoy my Pepsi Max and I think you can too.