New discovery on sweeteners in sugar-free soft drinks

A large-scale study by French scientists showed that eating and drinking sweeteners can increase the risk of cancer by more than 13%.

Millions of people around the world consume sweeteners every day through many products such as diet soda, sugar-free soft drinks when losing weight, cutting sugar from the diet. However, according to AFP, this practice can put us at a higher risk of cancer.

Researchers at the INSERM Institute, France, analyzed data on more than 100,000 people in the country. From these data, the team of experts found that the volunteers who ate and drank the most sweeteners (beyond the average) had a 13% higher risk of cancer than the group that did not use this substance.

Of the 103,000 participants, 79% were women and 37% consumed artificial sweeteners. Soft drinks accounted for more than 50% of the sweetened beverages they consumed.

The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine on March 24, found a particularly high risk of cancer with the sweeteners aspartame and acesulfame potassium. Both of these substances are widely used in soft drinks and carbonated soft drinks. In addition, the risk of breast cancer and obesity-related cancers was highest.

New research has found that people who consume a lot of artificial sweeteners to replace sugar in drinks and soft drinks have a 13% higher risk of cancer.

Professor Mathilde Touvier, director of the INSERM Institute, called on other experts to do more studies to confirm this finding. Currently, the US National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research UK both confirm that sweeteners do not cause cancer and they have been approved by the European Food Safety Authority.

According to biomedical scientist James Brown, Aston University, UK, the relationship between artificial sweetener consumption and cancer risk has been controversial since the 1970s, when the sweetener cyclamate was banned because of its presence. associated with bladder cancer in rats. However, this has never been proven in humans.

The expert assessed the findings of the authors in France as quite reasonable and with an impressive number of research samples. However, he said the evidence they presented was 'not strong enough' for the UK's National Health Service to revise its recommendation on sweeteners.

Meanwhile, Professor Michael Jones of the Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK, countered the link reported in the study "does not imply causation". He denied this result and said it was not evidence that artificial sweeteners cause cancer.