Opinião do Conselho Europeu de Informação Alimentar sobre o Aspartame

Muitas são as vezes em que me colocam questões sobre a utilização de adoçantes artificiais, denominadamente o aspartame e os seus eventuais malificios para a saúde.

A EFSA - Conselho Europeu de Informação Alimentar, publicou a sua opinião sobre o assunto, tendo como base dois estudos realizados, um estudo sobre a sua carcinogeneses e uma cohort, tendo chegado à conclusão de que não existe inconveniente na utilização desta substancia.

EFSA assesses new Aspartame study and reconfirms its safety

Aspartame, a sweetener used in a variety of food and drinks, has been authorised for use for over 20 years in countries throughout the world.  The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) considers Aspartame safe for human consumption and there is no scientific evidence to date which would support a change in EFSA’s risk assessment.  As part of a continuing review of scientific studies on Aspartame, EFSA has issued a statement on two new studies on Aspartame.

 

The European Food Safety Authority was asked to provide scientific advice on two studies, namely a carcinogenicity study in mice (Soffritti et al., 2010) and a prospective cohort study on the association between intakes of artificially sweetened soft drinks and preterm delivery (Halldorsson et al., 2010) and to conclude on the need to revise previous evaluations of aspartame or of the other sweeteners authorised in the European Union. The study by Soffritti et al. (2010) is a long-term carcinogenicity study in mice with transplacental exposure to the artificial sweetener aspartame. The authors concluded that, based on their results, aspartame induces cancer in the livers and lungs of male Swiss mice. EFSA has evaluated this carcinogenicity study and has concluded that, on the basis of the information available in the publication, the validity of the study and its statistical approach cannot be assessed and that its results cannot be interpreted. Furthermore, in view of the generally recognised lack of relevance for human risk assessment of the type of tumours observed in Swiss mice when they are induced by non-genotoxic compounds, EFSA concluded that the results presented in Soffritti et al. (2010) do not provide a sufficient basis to reconsider the previous evaluations by EFSA on aspartame. Halldorsson et al. (2010) investigated preterm delivery in a cohort of 59 334 pregnant women. The authors concluded that their results show an association between intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks and preterm delivery in the cohort. EFSA assessed this study and concluded that there is no evidence available to support a causal relationship between the consumption of artificially sweetened soft drinks and preterm delivery and that additional studies are required to reject or confirm an association. Overall, EFSA concluded that the information available from the Soffritti et al. (2010) and Halldorsson et al. (2010) publications do not give reason to reconsider the previous evaluations of aspartame or of other food additive sweeteners authorised in the European Union.

 

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/faqs/faqaspartame.htm

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/afc060504.htm

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/2089.htm