Why you need to watch out for aspartame in packaged food ingredients

At 14 Afreen ElSiddique could polish off a onelitre tub of her favourite ice cream in one sitting She also would be one of the first to try out the newest chips available at the local kirana store and had a steady supply of refined sugar in the form of carbonated drinks and sugarrush inducing pastries that we know all too wellBy the time she was 16 ElSiddique one of the many Indian teens who are the target audience of the packaged food industry weighed 100 kg Today at 26 ElSiddique practices mindful eating and admits that her relationship with food was toxicmdashshe didnrsquot know any better The Sanpada resident has now cut out refined sugar in all formsldquoI believe in a moderate diet and have firsthand experience of the follies of an unbalanced diet including a high protein diet recommended by trainers when I began to gym in my first year of collegerdquo says ElSiddique who now practices business law It has taken a decade of work but her body is now free of packaged food ldquoI am not as militant as some other people are when it comes to diet but yes by and large processed and packaged food and artificial sweeteners are out of my life for goodrdquo she tells us over the phoneAfreen ElSiddique 26 has cutoff packaged food from her diet after she had reached 100 kgs as a 16yearold Today she practices mindful eating and advocates eating in moderation even if you binge on your favourite home made sweetdishThe artificial sweeteners part in particular has been a subject of intense debate lately with latest research connecting aspartame a widely used sugar substitute to possible cancer The once hot favourite ingredient is often found in anything that wants to mimic sweetness without the calorie bomb but is now dangerous because according to latest research it could possibly be carcinogenicThe revelation was made in a joint report released on July 14 by the World Health Organisation WHO along with the International Agency for Research on Cancer IARC and the Food and Agriculture Organisationrsquos FAO Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives JECFA about the possible links of aspartame with cancer In the report titled Aspartame Hazard And Risk Assessment IARC classified aspartame as possibly carcinogenic to humans on the basis of limited evidence for cancer in humans specifically for hepatocellular carcinoma which is a type of liver cancer There was also limited evidence for cancer in experimental animalsThe IARC though has made sure to use the term ldquopossiblyrdquo while JECFA in the same report has stated that there is ldquono sufficient reasonrdquo adding that a person weighing 70 kg would need to consume more than nine to 14 cans of diet soft drink per day to exceed the acceptable daily intake given that there are no other sources of food providing the chemical as wellIndian supermarkets are flooded with junk food and it has become necessary to read the fine print as you never know whatrsquos in there PicGetty ImagesldquoThe findings of limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and animals and of limited mechanistic evidence on how carcinogenicity may occur underscore the need for more research to refine our understanding on whether consumption of aspartame poses a carcinogenic hazardrdquo observes Dr Mary SchubauerBerigan of the IARC Monographs programmeBut this ambiguity says Professor Shailesh V Shrikhande deputy director of Tata Memorial Hospital and the Head of Division of Cancer Surgery is what has caused a wave of confusion and panic among the general publicldquoThe current evidence is weak so we definitely need further studies to be absolutely certain that there is a link between aspartame and cancerrdquo Ask him why this link is difficult to establish and Shrikhande tries to simplify itDr Salil Patkar Amita Gadre and ShivamldquoOne of the reasons it is difficult to conduct a study for the chemical is that even if we study two groups of people each with the first group having those who consume aspartame there are other factors beyond our control This includes other substance like tobacco and liquor that are known to be carcinogenic and other confounding factors that would make it hard to lay the blame definitively Also how do we know that the other study group that does not consume aspartame isactually not doing so because it is present in a lot of products and will be impossible for scientists to monitor Furthermore a detailed long term follow up would be essential to reach definitive conclusionsrdquoAnd then he adds there is also the ethical conundrum that has hindered research since the 1980s ldquoKnowingly exposing humans to a chemical without knowing just how harmful it is or isnrsquot poses an ethical conundrum which is why studies have only been conducted on people who already have cancer deep diving into their lifestyle and eating habitrdquo Shrikhande saysShailesh V Shrikhande deputy director of Tata Memorial Hospital and the head of division of cancer surgery right Dr Sewanti Limaye director of medical and precision oncology at Sir HN Reliance Foundation HospitalEarlier this week this writer was part of a heated discussion in the newsroom where those who earlier slept easy knowing they had replaced cola with diet cola were now wondering if anything is safe at allThe answer unfortunately for them was not really Not according to the research in question at least The joint report also lists out other products that use aspartame and these include chewing gum gelatin ice cream that one didnrsquot go down well in the newsroom yogurt breakfast cereal cough drops chewable vitamins and even toothpasteThe scepticism however is still strong Dr Salil Patkar medical oncologist Fortis Hiranandani Hospital Vashi concurs with Dr Shrikhande that the evidence is not strong enough because studies around aspartame consumption were conducted with mice being fed the chemical continuously with a gradual increase The key to unlocking the riddle he says is the dosage and this has been confounding researchers for agesldquoYou might have to consume more than 100 cans of diet soft drink per day as compared to those consuming other harmful substances like refined sugar or nicotine for it to be actually considered harmful People are hyperfocusing on the chemical even though factors like obesity smoking alcohol consumption and even too much stress or too little sleep are found to have a direct connection with cancerrdquo he saysBut well toothpaste we ask more than a little panickyldquoI think spreading this kind of panic that using toothpaste will give you cancer is quite unnecessary One can be eating entire tubes every day and yet not reach the unsafe mark where it might cause some harm And we are still not sure if the harm is cancer Instead I would advise people to kick other habits that we know are directly linked with cancer We are seeing that people find this harder as it involves sugar alcohol and tobaccordquoBesides as Punebased nutritionist Amita Gadre says that any packaged food that might not necessarily be a sweet might still have aspartameldquoPretty much any ultraprocessed food these days has some form of a sweetener With food labelling standards growing stricter and because of more awareness people are checking the quantity of added sugar in the products they buy But at the same time manufacturers want you to buy their products and not be scared of it Hence if you as a consumer would be wary of a product that says it has sugar you would not think twice if it says it contains aspartamerdquo says GadreAlthough sugar has not been directly found to be carcinogenic its contribution to building insulin resistance and the culminating effects resulting in liver cancers have been well documentedldquoThis is why doctors often ask cancer patients to cut out refined sugar completelyrdquo he saysWith regard to why a detailed clinical trial for aspartame has not taken place yet Patkar feels itrsquos about the money ldquoThe challenges of such studies are always more about the economics than anything else If you look back at the research that proved that cigarette smoking can be cancerousmdashthis was known more than 40 years ago The tobacco industry would suppress evidence and studies by buying off scientist and doctors who conducted this survey and if they wouldnrsquot take these bribes they would then ruin their careers The tobacco industry then came out with their research and they hid that research from the public as well The reason behind this gap in empirical data is that today the biggest multinational companies use aspartame and this been a problem for us to firstly see in what products the chemical is used and finally what is it doing to us in the long run Because if conducted properly these studies will require a decade of monitoring of the participants and the longterm effects of itrdquoWhat we must concentrate on says Dr Sewanti Limaye director of medical and precision oncology at Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital is that the fact that the link between weight and cancer has long been establishedldquoLosing five per cent of body weight has also shown to be connected to being at less risk of getting cancer We still need to work to get hard evidence on aspartame but what we should surely do is to shun processed foods Also eat less than your hunger This basically means one should eat 20 per cent less than how hungry they feel if they are of normal weightrdquo says Dr LimayeAnd even if your diet is largely comprised of homemade food that alone is not enough to put your worries to rest Shivam for instance is an emotional intelligence coach from Chandigarh with a family history of heart attacks A routine checkup a couple of years ago brought forth an interesting revelation for him ldquoAs I suspected my cholesterol was high I realised that even though I was largely eating home made food I had favourites like malai chaap which has soya but also a lot of sugar I have managed to reduce my cholesterol levels by a fair bit but the fact remains that what we call normal Indian food is equally riskyrdquo he saysSo what next you wonder Well Big Brother is watching Or more specifically IARC and WHO are The organisations will continue to monitor new evidence and encourage independent research groups to develop further studies on the potential association between aspartame exposure and consumer health effectsUntil then practise moderation say expertsTo quote the GermanSwiss physician Paracelesus ldquoall things are poisons for there is nothing without poisonous qualities It is only the dose which makes a thing poisonrdquoWhat exactly is AspartameAspartame which is a sweetener is made of two amino acidsmdashphenylalanine and aspartic acid It is synthetically manufactured it is not a naturallyoccurring sugar unlike stevioside a natural sweetener Itrsquos made in a lab and has a very sweet taste but zero calories That was the reason essentially why aspartame became popular among diabetes patients as a table sweetener because it does not break down into sugars in the body