NIH-AARP Diet Health Study: Consumption of Aspartame-Containing Beverages and Incidence of Hematopoietic and Brain Malignancies
Summary
For the past 25 years, aspartame has been the predominant artificial sweetener in the United States and is currently found in thousands of food and beverage products. Throughout this period, however, there have been questions of whether or not aspartame is a 'carcinogen', that is, a cancer-causing substance. The NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study investigated these concerns.
The 285,079 male and 188,905 female participants completed a self-administered food frequency questionnaire about their consumption of aspartame-containing beverages during the previous year. Specifically, they were asked about four beverages – soda, fruit drinks, sweetened ice tea, and hot coffee and tea to which an aspartame sweetener had been added. Ranging in age from 50 to 71, the study participants had no previous history of cancer and resided in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Louisiana, and metropolitan Atlanta and Detroit.
1,888 cases of lymphoma (cancer of immune system cells) and 315 malignant brain tumors were ascertained during a five-year follow-up (1995-2000). Higher levels of aspartame consumption were not associated with the risk of the two conditions or their subtypes in men and women. The study concluded, therefore, that consuming aspartame, at least at the levels consumed by most individuals (less than, say, 7 cans of diet soda a day) does not likely increase a person’s lymphoma or brain cancer risk.
View the abstract or visit the study website to learn more about the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study.
Further information about the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study may also be obtained by contacting Nancy Wood of AARP at media@aarp.org or 202-434-2583.
