Posted by honeybee on June 8, 2006, at 14:56:48
There was an aspartame article that I was not, as a nonsubcriber, able to access (it takes a few months after publication before I can get it through the publication search engine in my library). Though I still can't post the article, I *can* post the update that's on the website that apparently came out last month (I hadn't checked because I was waiting the additional months to find the other article). The article clears aspartame on the lymphomas and leukaemia that it supposedly caused in a rat study.
Here's the study as follows:
Artificial sweetener given the all clear
13 May 2006
=============================================
HOW sweet it is to be let off the hook.Six months after reports that the widely used artificial sweetener aspartame caused cancer in rats, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) declared on 5 May that the controversial research was flawed.
The rat study, by the Ramazzini Foundation, not only linked the sweetener to cancer, but claimed that it could be caused by half the World Health Organization's acceptable daily intake of 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (New Scientist, 6 May, p 40).
Because the study was done by a respected cancer institute, several national food safety authorities, including EFSA and the US Food and Drug Administration, were concerned enough to review the findings.
“The conclusion was that the apparent links to cancer are an artefact of study design”The committee concluded that the apparent links to cancer were an artefact of the study design, and that the lymphomas and leukaemia were more likely to be caused by lung infections than aspartame. Kidney cancers, which were found in the high dose group, were specific to rats and not relevant to humans.
From issue 2551 of New Scientist magazine, 13 May 2006, page 5
poster:honeybee
thread:654543
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20060601/msgs/654543.html