Studies suggesting the artificial sweetener aspartame may be dangerous have been misinterpreted and are largely “irrelevant,” the largest ever study of existing research found.
“Even at the highest doses, when you eat it, it?s broken down into two amino acids and some traces of methanol,” said Bernadene Magnuson, professor at the University of Maryland, College Park?s school of Nutrition and Food Sciences and lead researcher on the study. “Your body sees the same thing it would see if you ate an egg.”
The study was sponsored by Japanese food products firm Ajinomoto Company Inc., but it was set up through a third-party consulting firm. Aspartame study panelists were not told who funded the research, and the sponsor was not involved in choosing the panelists or the research they accessed.
Current-use levels of aspartame, even by high-volume users, remain well below the U.S. Food and Drug Administration?s and European Food Safety Authority?s acceptable daily doses of 50 and 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, respectively, the study stated.
Consumption of large doses of aspartame all at once will affect levels of phenylalanine and aspartic acid in the blood and some brain neurotransmitter levels. However, “investigations into the possibility of neurotoxic effects of aspartame, in general, do not support the hypothesis that aspartame in the human diet will affect nervous system function,” the study stated.
Researchers found no risk of cancer or neurological damage, even at doses up to at least 4,000 milligrams per kilogram.
