There have been extensive research on low calories sugar substitutes followed by meticulous inspections and law enforcements by official authorities in food industry. This is mainly due to achieving safety measures of sweetener content products rather than taste desirability and quality. Any low calorie sweetener present in food products is legally obligated to be stated in ingredients on the packages.
Analysis of the acceptable daily intake i.e. ADI must be carried out within adequate parameter before being legally permitted to process and manufacture. It is specified as milligrams per kg of body weight that can be safely followed for daily consumption. The acceptable daily intake of each sweetener is evaluated cautiously to the extent that it is dramatically less than the safe portion for animals (resulting from laboratory animal experiments).
Basically the Food and Drug Administration is in charge of controlling the acceptable daily intake in the US while international authorization of the ADI is in association with distinguished organizations including the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives of the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the results of many scientific experiments, commonly used sugar substitutes do not have any connection with risk of cancer. The following outlines the safety aspects studied on certain low calorie sweeteners:
Saccharin
In 1977, using saccharin was forbidden in Canada as a result of some studies carried out in laboratory on experimental rats; increasing risk of bladder cancers caused by saccharin precipitation. In the USA the manufacturers were legally obligated to label a warning (that saccharin may develop the risk of cancer in laboratory animal) on the packages of the Saccharin content products.
However according to a thorough study by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences that ruled out the possibility of cancer induced by saccharin with deep analysis of the fact that cancer developing system in rats is quite different from human mechanisms since the major evaluation was concerned with rats metabolism of sodium after saccharin ingestion and this was considered as an improper theory when animals fed with different sodium salts like sodium citrate; the same symptoms of cancer was diagnosed.
Aspartame
Results of preliminary research suggested that aspartame might be carcinogenic to rats. Subsequently, consumption of this sweetener was banned in the US by the Food and Drug Administration.
However after hypothesis was denied resulting from several researches implemented by international experts concluding that aspartame has no cancer inducing factor and it is safe to be consumed by human and was formally allowed to be used by authorized organization including the FDA and the WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives.
During ingestion aspartame is chemically decomposed into smaller components such as aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The latter may be harmful to those suffering phenylketonuria; a genetic disease with insufficient hepatic enzyme (phenylalanine hydroxylase which is able to metabolize phenylalanine) that can lead to depositing phenylalanine and ultimately turning into phenylketone which is detectable in urine discharge. Thus it is required to be clearly specified on labels that ‘should not be used by phenylketonuria patients, contains phenylalanine’. This specification is a legal obligation in some countries like in the United Kingdom.
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