Will aspartame give you cancer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the summer I switch my afternoon caffeine source from coffee to iced tea, and also consume sugar-free colas like Diet Pepsi and Coca Cola Zero Sugar (which have aspartame).

 

There is an article by James Gallagher at BBC News on June 29, 2023 titled Aspartame - is it a possible source of cancer? It discussed how the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Pert of the World Health Organization, aka the WHO) was going to classify aspartame as possibly carcinogenic (hazardous). But that article title obeys Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, stated in Wikipedia as:

 

“Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”

 

There is another thoughtful article by Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine on July 5, 2023 titled Aspartame and cancer. He clarifies that:

“…researching risk is complex and the evidence is often misunderstood and misrepresented. One type of such research is pre-clinical, basic toxicology research. This focuses on whether the chemical in question does stuff to cells or biochemicals. How is it metabolized, what are the breakdown products, does it increase or decrease inflammation or oxidative stress, is it a potential mutagen, and many other assays. This kind of research just tells us if a substance is a potential hazard, but not if will confer a health risk.

The difference between hazard and risk is important to understand in terms of this research. A good analogy I often go to is – a shark in a tank is a hazard, meaning that it can potentially cause harm in the right circumstance. But as long as you don’t swim in the tank with the shark, the risk is zero. Something happening chemically may be a hazard, but we need to know how the substance is metabolized, will it get to the target tissue and in what dose, and what compensatory mechanisms are there? A potential hazard can be of zero risk depending on exposure.”

Yet another article by Sandee LaMotte at CNN on July 13, 2023 is titled Aspartame, cancer and other health risks: What you need to know. She points out that you need to consume a lot more aspartame in a day than I do with a single can of diet soda.  

The diet soda can was modified from a soda can at Openclipart.