Aspartame, one of the world’s most popular synthetic sweeteners as alternative to sugar, is going to be listed as a possible carcinogen next month by the World Health Organization.
In May the WHO had already taken some shots at aspartame, officially stating that they do not recommend it as a replacement for sugar for weight loss, along with a handful of others; which include, acesulfame K, aspartame, advantame, cyclamates, neotame, saccharin, sucralose, stevia and stevia derivatives.
Replacing free sugars with [non-sugar sweeteners] NSS does not help with weight control in the long term. People need to consider other ways to reduce free sugars intake, such as consuming food with naturally occurring sugars, like fruit, or unsweetened food and beverages.
NSS are not essential dietary factors and have no nutritional value. People should reduce the sweetness of the diet altogether, starting early in life, to improve their health.
Francesco Branca, WHO Director for Nutrition and Food Safety, said
WHO also indicated that there may be possible “undesirable effects” from habitual use of NSS, including an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and mortality in adults.
Aspartame can be found in over a thousand different food items and beverages in the United States, especially those marketed as diet, low-calorie, and low-fat.
Environmental Working Group (EWG), a food and health advocacy group, has long warned about the negative effects of aspartame and other similar NSS’.
Many different studies conducted on animal and human subjects have indicated possible links to various cancers, induce and perhaps worsen diabetes, increase risk of stroke and heart disease, brain and nervous system disorders, weight gain, fibromyalgia, kidney disease, and even autism.
Today a document leaked to Reuters reveals that the WHO is planning on listing aspartame as a carcinogen next month. A carcinogen is a substance or chemical that can cause cancer.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research arm, confirmed the leak to Reuters. The public decision is set to be released on July 14th.
Reuters wrote: ‘An IARC spokesperson said both the IARC and JECFA committees’ findings were confidential until July, but added they were “complementary”, with IARC’s conclusion representing “the first fundamental step to understand carcinogenicity”. The additives committee “conducts risk assessment, which determines the probability of a specific type of harm (e.g. cancer) to occur under certain conditions and levels of exposure.”‘
In a statement to Fortune, the WHO said:
[The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)] has assessed the potential carcinogenic effect of aspartame.Following this, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) will update its risk assessment exercise on aspartame, including the reviewing of the acceptable daily intake and dietary exposure assessment for aspartame.
The WHO said in a statement to Fortune.
But companies and groups that use these types of sweeteners are feeling a bit sour:
IARC is not a food safety body and their review of aspartame is not scientifically comprehensive and is based heavily on widely discredited research.
Frances Hunt-Wood, secretary general of the International Sweeteners Association (ISA), said.
Homer Swei, senior vice president for EWG, Healthy Living Science, said in a statement:
For years we’ve known that artificial sweeteners like aspartame are harmful to human health. They’re associated with an increase in Type 2 diabetes and soaring obesity rates. And they’ve recently been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. We suspected aspartame might be a carcinogen as well, but this determination unequivocally solidifies that concern.
The Food and Drug Administration should take seriously these latest troubling findings, which could put consumers, particularly children, at greater risk of cancer.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.
Proverbs 12:18
Gee whiz, WHO, it’s about time you confessed to the obvious, now that generations have been poisoned and sickened with this chemical; one of them, out of the multitude of others, many of which are BANNED in many other countries!
Fortunately I knew about aspartame long before I was even saved, and started cutting it out of my life as best as I could.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Likr the WHO is trying to get on people’s good side.
The WHO wants all nations to praise them and obey them. Not in my life time, only the Lord is deserving of Praise and obedience, for me!!!
What a joke. I had read a long time ago that Aspartame was considered former Vice President and George Bush Senior fellow goon and accused pedophile (read Cathy O’Brien’s book TRANS-formation of America) Dick Cheney’s “baby”. When I read that, I started reading labels to avoid anything with aspartame in it. Interesting. Maybe Cheney is on death’s door and doesn’t need whatever kind of money he pockets, or had pocketed (along with deceased goon Donald Rumsfeld) from that poison. The WHO and Cheney were probably on the best of terms throughout Bush Sr’s presidency and beyond.
Dear winepressnews.com admin, Thanks for the well-structured and well-presented post!