Artificial sweeteners-do they bear a carcinogenic risk?
Review
Annals of Oncology. 15(10):1460-1465, October 2004.
Weihrauch, M. R. *; Diehl, V.

Abstract:
Artificial sweeteners are added to a wide variety of food, drinks, drugs and hygiene products. Since their introduction, the mass media have reported about potential cancer risks, which has contributed to undermine the public's sense of security. It can be assumed that every citizen of Western countries uses artificial sweeteners, knowingly or not. A cancer-inducing activity of one of these substances would mean a health risk to an entire population. We performed several PubMed searches of the National Library of Medicine for articles in English about artificial sweeteners. These articles included 'first generation' sweeteners such as saccharin, cyclamate and aspartame, as well as 'new generation' sweeteners such as acesulfame-K, sucralose, alitame and neotame. Epidemiological studies in humans did not find the bladder cancer-inducing effects of saccharin and cyclamate that had been reported from animal studies in rats. Despite some rather unscientific assumptions, there is no evidence that aspartame is carcinogenic. Case-control studies showed an elevated relative risk of 1.3 for heavy artificial sweetener use (no specific substances specified) of >1.7 g/day. For new generation sweeteners, it is too early to establish any epidemiological evidence about possible carcinogenic risks. As many artificial sweeteners are combined in today's products, the carcinogenic risk of a single substance is difficult to assess. However, according to the current literature, the possible risk of artificial sweeteners to induce cancer seems to be negligible. (C) 2004 The European Society for Medical Oncology

בנוסף, סקירה שפורסמה בBritish Medical Journal בנוגע לאספרטם:

Food labelling of sweetener is contentious. Six artificial sweeteners are permitted in Europe, each with an acceptable daily intake. Consumers cannot be expected to calculate cumulative daily intakes of each. Instead, manufacturers are encouraged to use cocktails of sweeteners so it becomes difficult for anyone to reach the acceptable daily intake of any sweetener individually—adults need at least 10 cans of a drink fully sweetened with aspartame alone to reach the acceptable daily intake of 40 mg/kg/day. When using combinations of sweeteners, even high level consumers rarely exceed 10 mg/day. Intakes over 1g/day were needed to alter brain neurotransmitters and provoke seizures in monkeys, and randomised controlled trials of high doses in humans have not shown any behavioural or other effects.13 14