Taiwan would observe the responses of other countries to the WHO’s recent classification of the artificial sweetener aspartame as “possibly carcinogenic to humans,” but would not change its regulations at this time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday.
In an assessment released on Friday, the WHO said that while the sweetener had been classified as possibly carcinogenic, its consumption was still safe within a daily limit of 40mg per kilogram of a person’s body weight.
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener used mainly in Diet Coke, Pepsi Zero Sugar and other diet sodas, as well as in chewing gum, ice cream and yogurt, among other products.
Photo: AFP
At a news conference in Taipei, FDA Deputy Director Lin Chin-fu (林金富) said the agency would not change its regulations on aspartame at this time, adding that there was no need for people to alter their intake.
The agency would monitor the responses of other countries to the WHO’s classification of the artificial sweetener, Lin said.
Products in Taiwan that contain the sweetener must carry a label that says they are not suitable for people with phenylketonuria — a congenital disease in which the body cannot break down the amino acid phenylalanine — or they must indicate that phenylalanine is an ingredient, he said.
In a telephone interview with the Central News Agency on Friday, Yen Tsung-hai (顏宗海), head of the Clinical Poison Center at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, said that the WHO’s categorization of aspartame was based on studies that showed an increase in the risk of cancer in animals, but that there was limited evidence of the sweetener causing cancer in humans.
The findings, released by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer and its Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, identified a possible link between aspartame and a type of liver cancer called hepatocellular carcinoma, after reviewing three large human studies in the US and Europe that examined artificially sweetened beverages.
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