Don’t panic over Diet Coke

Radio NZ reports:

One of the world’s most common artificial sweeteners is set to be declared a possible carcinogen next month by a leading global health body, according to two sources with knowledge of the process, pitting it against the food industry and regulators.

Aspartame, used in products from Coca-Cola diet sodas to Mars’ Extra chewing gum and some Snapple drinks, will be listed in July as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” for the first time by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) cancer research arm, the sources said.

This is good to know. The better science we have for consumers, the better off we have.

Since 1981, JECFA has said aspartame is safe to consume within accepted daily limits. For example, an adult weighing 60kg would have to drink between 12 and 36 cans of diet soda – depending on the amount of aspartame in the beverage – every day to be at risk. Its view has been widely shared by national regulators, including in the United States and Europe.

It is this advice that I’ll be most interested in – the safe daily limit. Anyone who drinks 36 cans of diet soda a day is going to have problems regardless of carcinogens!