Is Aspartame safe?

Calorie counters and dieters agree – the diet cola, which allows you to indulge in the glory of a fizzy, sugary drink, without taking on any calories – is one fine invention.

But there may be a spoiler, or so the internet rumour mill goes, in aspartame, the artificial sweetener that makes diet colas and other sugar-free soft drinks possible.

Invented in 1965, aspartame has the same calories as sugar, but only a small fraction is needed to sweeten a drink to the same level, which makes it a useful substitute. It is used widely in consumer foods, including colas, chewing gum, and cereals.

Aspartame has been plagued for decades with rumours about the many ill effects it has on consumer health, and the internet has multiplied this phenomenon manyfold.

Aspartame is found in many products

So what are the facts?

Aspartame was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1974, and cleared for use in the UK in 1982.

A standard 330 ml can of diet cola contains about 1 kcal, compared to a standard cola, which has about 140 kcal per can. As aspartame is quite unpalatable, it is often blended with other sweeteners, such as acesulfame K, to mask its taste.

In 1988, the Scientific Committee on Food, the main body providing advice about food safety to the European Commission, found that aspartame was safe at acceptable daily intakes of 40mg/kg/day.

In the real world 40mg/kg/day equates to more than 14 cans of sugar free drink every day, assuming that the can drink was using aspartame at its maximum permitted level.

The SCF looked at the issue again in 2002, reviewing more than 500 published papers between 1988 and 2001 on the safety of aspartame, and confirmed its previous finding that aspartame was safe for consumption.

In other words, dozens of studies have failed to find a relationship between the consumption of aspartame and long term health risks. While many people have reported adverse reactions to aspartame, most commonly headache, this has not been proven in research involving double blind trials looking at short term effects.

Despite this, it is possible that some people may have an unusual reaction and therefore might want to avoid consuming aspartame.

There is, in fact, one medically proven warning relating to the consumption of aspartame. It relates to one of the breakdown products of aspartame, an amino acid called phenylalanine.

Patients diagnosed with the rare hereditary disease Phenylketonuria should avoid aspartame as they have difficulty in metabolising phenylalanine, which accumulates and causes health problems.

For this reason, drinks containing aspartame are clearly labelled in the UK with a warning “contains a source of phenylalanine”.