Will eating aspartame for so many years have any effect on the body?

Audit expert: Wang Guoyi

Postdoctoral fellow in Nutrition and Food Safety, China Agricultural University

Aspartame has been at the center of public opinion recently, making its presence felt.

First, there was news at the end of June that it might cause cancer. Then on the 14th of this month, the World Health Organization released a report on its official website, clearly classifying aspartame as "possibly carcinogenic to humans (IARC Category 2B)".

Lovers of sugar-free drinks are starting to panic. Is there no hope for losing weight?

Diabetic patients are suddenly depressed. Do they no longer need to eat sugar substitutes?

Source: The Paper

1What is aspartame?

Aspartame is a synthetic sugar substitute, a sweetener that adds sweetness to food, and is mainly used in sugar-free beverages. This word may be unfamiliar to everyone, but if you look at the ingredient list of a sugar-free beverage, you will always see aspartame listed in it.

Source: Beverage Ingredients List of a Certain Brand

In addition to aspartame, most sugar-free beverages usually also contain sweeteners such as acesulfame potassium, sucralose, and sucralose. They are also artificial sweeteners and are often used together because of their different sweetness, taste, and characteristics.

Depending on the synthetic raw materials, in addition to the artificial sweeteners mentioned above, there is also a type of natural sweeteners, which are generally sweeter than sucrose and are mainly extracted from plants such as fruits, vegetables, and algae. They include sugar alcohols such as erythritol and xylitol that are more familiar to the public, as well as non-sugar alcohols such as steviol glycosides and monk fruit glycosides.

Source: pexels

In terms of market share, natural sweeteners are not widely used because of their low sweetness (lower than sucrose) and high price, which will increase the production costs of food manufacturers. Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame are highly sweet, taste good, have no calories, and are low in price, so they are bound to be favored by the market. Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sucrose, which means that only a very small amount needs to be added to achieve the same sweetness . The commercial profits can be imagined.

Source: pexels

However, aspartame has been suspected of causing epilepsy since its inception, and it is clear that patients with phenylketonuria will have problems if they consume aspartame, so in the ingredient list, a bracket needs to be added after aspartame to indicate that it contains phenylalanine.

Once the news that aspartame may cause cancer was released, the safety of artificial sweeteners once again became the focus of attention.

Is 2nd generation sugar safe?

Artificial sweeteners have been controversial since their inception: - From the 1950s to the 1970s, rat experiments showed that long-term consumption of saccharin and sodium cyclamate would lead to the risk of bladder cancer;

Aspartame intake has been shown to be positively correlated with lymphoma and leukemia in women;

Acesulfame potassium may alter the intestinal flora and lead to glucose intolerance;

Experiments on mice have demonstrated that sucralose can trigger intestinal reception dysfunction, leading to increased glucose absorption and a negative impact on blood sugar regulation.

More and more evidence points to the potential risks of artificial sweeteners to health. Erythritol, considered by the public to be a perfect natural sweetener , was also pointed out to be associated with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases in a study published in the journal Nature Medicine on February 27 this year. It has also been confirmed that natural sugar alcohol sweeteners are generally prone to causing diarrhea.

Source: pexels

However, sugar substitutes are still active in the market. The reasons are mainly two-fold: on the one hand, the toxicity of sugar substitutes is suspected to be related to the dosage. Whether the risk of cancer in rats that consume sugar substitutes for a long time is equivalent to the risk of cancer in humans requires further research. On the other hand, the harm of sugar to health is clear. In order to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and other diseases, governments around 2020, at the recommendation of the World Health Organization, began to impose sugar taxes on high-sugar foods; in order to avoid paying high sugar taxes, food companies began to transform to sugar-free products.

Source: Screenshot of the World Health Organization website

Carefully interpreting this news can help us have a clearer understanding of the safety issues of sugar substitutes.

The report on the WHO official website was jointly released by the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), WHO and the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; IARC cited "limited evidence" of carcinogenicity to humans and classified aspartame as "possibly" carcinogenic to humans (IARC Class 2B), while JECFA reiterated the acceptable daily intake of 40 mg/kg body weight.

When it comes to carcinogenicity, the International Agency for Research on Cancer divides carcinogens into three categories and four groups according to their carcinogenic risk to humans , including Category 1, Category 2A, Category 2B and Category 3.

Level 2B means "possibly" carcinogenic to humans. More specifically, there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity to humans for substances in this category, and insufficient evidence of carcinogenicity to experimental animals.

Cigarettes and alcohol, which we should quit, belong to Category 1 - substances that "do" have carcinogenic effects on the human body.

Source: pexels

It is meaningless to talk about toxicity without considering the dosage, so this report once again informs the public that the acceptable daily intake is 40mg/kg body weight. For example, for an adult weighing 70kg, the acceptable daily intake of aspartame is 2800mg, which is equivalent to drinking at least 3 liters of sugar-free cola every day to have a cancer risk. So although sugar substitutes do have risks, their pathogenic and carcinogenic mechanisms are still unclear, and the harm to the human body needs to be studied. Therefore, there is no need to worry too much. Safety is guaranteed within the recommended drinking range.

3. Sugar vs. Sugar Substitutes

It is human nature to love sweets. We cannot live without sweetness. Sugar brings health problems. The emergence of sugar substitutes solves health problems, but they may have safety issues. How should we choose? In fact, if it is purely for health, neither should be chosen. It is best not to drink sugary drinks or sugar substitute drinks. Drinking boiled water is the healthiest. But if you really want to drink sugar-free drinks, just drink them in moderation.

The continued emergence of suspected safety issues with sugar substitutes and the conclusions of these scientific authorities are not increasing our anxiety, but allowing everyone to look at sugar substitutes rationally and giving us consumers the right to make a sober choice.

Whether it is sugar or sweetener, intake is the key, and self-discipline is the problem we need to solve.

If you want to comfort yourself by drinking a bottle of Happy Fat House Water occasionally after a busy day, don't feel burdened, just go for it, it doesn't matter whether it contains sugar or not.

But if you want to drink a bottle of sweet water every day, or several bottles a day, and keep prolonging this pleasure, then you will have to bear the corresponding consequences for your health or safety issues.