A study suggested that consuming artificial sweeteners may increase the risk of cancer, but experts not involved in the research said it was not enough evidence to consider changing current health advice.
Millions of sweeteners are consumed every day in products like diet soda, in part as a way to avoid sugar weight gain — but the validity of these same alternatives has long been debated.
To assess cancer risk from localities, researchers analyzed data from more than 100,000 people in France who self-reported their diet, lifestyle, and medical history over periods between 2009-2021 as part of the NutriNet-Sante Study.
They then compared consumption to the rate of cancer, while controlling for other variables such as smoking, poor diet, age and physical activity.
The participants who consumed the largest amount of sweeteners, “other than the average amount, had a 13% risk of developing cancer compared to the non-consumers,” Mathilde Touver, director of research at France’s INSERM Institute, who led the study, told AFP.
The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, said the cancer risk was particularly noted with sweeteners such as aspartame and acesulfame potassium – both used in many soft drinks including Coke Zero.
Of the 103,000 participants, 79% were women, with 37% consuming artificial sweeteners.
Soft drinks made up more than half of the artificial sweeteners consumed, while table sweeteners represented 29%.
The study found that “a higher risk of breast cancer and obesity-related cancers was observed.”
“We cannot completely rule out consumers’ lifestyle biases,” Toffer said, calling for more research to confirm the study’s findings.
Both the US National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research UK say sweeteners do not cause cancer, and their use has been approved by the European Food Safety Authority.
– ‘Not proof’
James Brown, a biomedical scientist at Britain’s Aston University, said: ‘The relationship between consumption of artificial sweeteners and cancer risk is a controversial one, going back to the 1970s when cyclamate (the sweetener) was banned for being linked to bladder cancer in mice – although this has never been proven. That’s how it is in humans.”
Brown, who was not involved in the study, said the study was “reasonably well-designed” and had an “impressive” sample size. But he added that he did not “believe the current study provides sufficient strong evidence” for Britain’s National Health Service “to change its advice so far”.
Michael Jones, from the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said the link in the study “does not suggest causation” and was not “evidence that artificial sweeteners cause cancer”.
He said the findings might indicate that “the risk of developing cancer may be increased for a person who uses an artificial sweetener rather than the sweetener itself.”
Thursday’s findings also don’t mean consumers should rush to sugary drinks — a 2019 NutriNet-Sante study found they were also linked to a higher risk of many types of cancer.
