Natural and Artificial Sweeteners

Aspartame and cancer:

Mead et al reviewed research studies in laboratory rats that showed a link between high intakes of aspartame and lymphomas, leukemias and mammary tumors. Rats were treated from 12 days of fetal life until death. There was a nonsignificant increase in malignancies found in rats treated with 400 ppm (parts per million) of aspartame, but concentrations of 2000 ppm of aspartame increased the risk of these cancers to 31.4%. A prior study by the same team was done using aspartame postnatally only and leukemias and lymphomas were increased by 18.7%. This 2,000 ppm level of consumption corresponds to about 100 mg per kilogram of bodyweight per day, 5 cans of diet soda for a 45-pound child or 14 packets of sweetener per day consumed by an adult weighing about 150 pounds. The author expressed concern because of an increase in malignancies resulting from prenatal exposure to aspartame over those exposed to aspartame postnatally. (2)