Aspartame - Industry Says 'No Evidence' Of Cancer

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11 Apr 2006 11:01:26 -0000

Health Supreme Update: Aspartame - Industry Says 'No

Evidence' Of Cancer

sepp

 

 

 

Health Supreme Update: Aspartame - Industry Says 'No Evidence' Of

Cancer

 

2006.04.11 13:01:24

 

 

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http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/04/11/aspartame_industry_says_no_evide\

nce_of_cancer.htm

 

A feeding study of aspartame on rats, published by researchers at the

Italian Ramazzini Foundation in Environmental Health Perspectives,

showed increased leukemia, lymphoma and some cancers, but now a review

of an earlier government-funded study in the U.S. is touted as

" rejecting aspartame risks " .

 

" It goes a fair way toward allaying concerns about aspartame, "

said Michael Jacobson, head of the Center for Science in the Public

Interest, which had urged the government to review the sweetener's

safety after a troubling rat study last year.

 

Unfortunately, the relief provided by the new study is not so

clear-cut as its promoters would have us believe. Betty Martini goes

so far as to call it " cockamamie claptrap " in her recent comment

published in the Idaho Observer.

 

Mark Gold is more careful in his analysis, but comes to the same

conclusion. There are important reasons why the new study should not

be construed as a " all clear " signal for the artificial sweetener. The

original aim of the government-sponsored study was not the evaluation

of the effects of aspartame on humans, and the time period of

consumption the study looked at - just 12 months - seems too short to

say anything about the usual long-term consumption of the sweetener

that is encouraged by industry and various diabetics associations...

 

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Aspartame and Cancer

 

Comment on the 2006 U.S. National Cancer Institute Research

 

by Mark Gold

 

In 2005, scientists from the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology

and Environmental Sciences (Italy) published research linking

aspartame ingestion to lymphomas and leukemias as well as kidney and

peripheral nerve tumors. (1)

 

In the research, aspartame was fed to rats from the time they were

eight weeks old until natural death. The study was meant to simulate a

lifetime of aspartame ingestion -- the equivalent of 50 to 90+ years

of aspartame ingestion in humans. The results indicated that lifetime

ingestion of even moderately low levels of aspartame caused lymphomas

and leukemias in female rats. A significant increase in kidney and

peripheral nerve cancer was also seen in the research. The scientists

attributed this finding to the significant formaldehyde exposure from

aspartame ingestion. Significant formaldehyde exposure and

accumulation from aspartame ingestion has been seen in recent European

research. (2)

 

Recently, there has been a flood of press releases related to a U.S.

National Cancer Institute-sponsored study of aspartame and cancer. (3)

The study involved 340,045 men and 226,945 women, ages 50 to 69.

Participants in the study completed surveys in 1995 and 1996 that

included several questions about diet beverage ingestion in the

preceeding 12 months. No link was found between participants who

ingested diet beverages in the preceeding 12 months and lymphomas,

leukemias or brain tumors.

 

There are several obvious differences between the two studies. The

study by the Ramazzini Foundation was an animal study, but was

designed to simulate life-long ingestion of aspartame (e.g., 50 to 90+

years for humans). The study funded by the National Cancer Institute

was a human study, but only looked a 12 months of diet beverage ingestion.

 

The questionnaire used in the National Cancer Institute study was not

designed to provide a long-term history of dietary intake. It was

designed to determine which types of foods the participants regularly

ingested over the previous 12 months. Participants who used large

amounts of aspartame from 1981 through 1994, but stopped before they

received the survey would be classified as " non-users of aspartame. "

But participants who recently started to use aspartame in 1995 would

be counted as " users of aspartame " even though they may have only used

it for several months. Therefore, some people may have used aspartame

for over a decade, but they would be classified as " non-users " while

others may have used aspartame for only a few months and they would be

classified as " users. "

 

The questionnaire was not designed to calculate aspartame intake.

There are no questions in the survey asking participants to estimate

aspartame intake or even intake of a variety of common

aspartame-containing products. In fact, only persons drinking diet

beverages or coffee/tea with aspartame would be counted as aspartame

users. A participant in this study could ingest hundreds of

aspartame-containing products per week in the form of syrups, candy,

gum, etc. and they would be classified as " non-users of aspartame " so

long as that refrained from regular diet beverages ingestion.

 

While it is to be expected that the manufacturer of aspartame and

their public relations organizations such as the Calorie Control

Council will try to flood the media with press releases proclaiming

safety, it is clear from a look at the questionnaire used in the

National Cancer Institute-funded study that it was intended to look at

only 12 months of diet beverage use and the Ramazzini Foundation study

was designed to look at life-long use of aspartame. Negative findings

in the National Cancer Institute-funded study are not surprising given

the short period of time looked at.

 

In defense of the researchers involved in the National Cancer

Institute-funded study, they have not claimed that their 12-month look

at diet beverage use in relation to lymphomas, leukemias or brain

tumors is in any way similar to the life-long use of aspartame looked

at by the Ramazzini Foundation. The scientists involved in creating

the questionnaire in the mid-1990's are aware of limitations of

looking at only 12 months of diet history:

 

" Furthermore, a single [Food Frequency Questionnaire] FFQ-based

measurement in adulthood may not represent long-term intake without

error and may not assess the diet accurately for times when exposure

is most critical in determining disease outcome. " (4)

 

The press releases claiming that aspartame does not cause cancer

appear to originate from the aspartame manufacturer's public relations

organizations.

 

Finally, as can be seen online or by looking at independent scientific

research, cancer is just one of many aspartame toxicity concerns

published in the scientific literature.

 

 

(1) Soffritti M, Belpoggi F, Degli Esposti D, Lambertini L, Tibaldi E,

Rigano A, " First experimental demonstration of the multipotential

carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered in the feed to

Sprague-Dawley rats, " Environmental Health Perspectives, Volume 114,

Number 3, Pages 379-385, 2005.

www.ehponline.org/members/2005/8711/8711.pdf

 

(2) Trocho, C., et al., 1998. " Formaldehyde Derived From Dietary

Aspartame Binds to Tissue Components in vivo, " Life Sciences, Vol. 63,

No. 5, pp. 337+, 1998.

 

(3) Press Release: Five-Year, Government Funded, Epidemiology Study

Shows No Risk Between Aspartame and Cancer

 

(4) Andrew Flood, Ellen M Velie, Nilanjan Chaterjee, Amy F Subar,

Frances E Thompson, James V Lacey, Jr, Catherine Schairer, Rebecca

Troisi and Arthur Schatzkin, " Fruit and vegetable intakes and the risk

of colorectal cancer in the Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration

Project follow-up cohort " American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol.

75, No. 5, 936-943, May 2002

 

 

Mark D. Gold

Aspartame/NutraSweet Toxicity Info Center

12 East Side Dr., #2-18

Concord, NH 03301

603-225-2110

mgold

http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/

 

 

See also:

 

 

Betty Martini: New Fed Aspartame 'Study' Is Cockamamie Claptrap

 

http://www.rense.com/general70/coca.htm

 

 

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http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/04/11/aspartame_industry_says_no_evide\

nce_of_cancer.htm

 

 

 

 

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