Why a cancer scare around aspartame is mostly unfounded

KATE MOSS, a British model, once quipped that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. Drinkers of Diet Coke, the sugar-free version of the stuff in red cans, and of which Ms Moss is the current face, may agree. Why else would they drink it, when everyone knows (or at least this correspondent does) that Diet Coke isn’t a patch on the real thing? An announcement from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organisation (WHO), may give them pause. On July 14th it categorised aspartame, the artificial sweetener used in Diet Coke, as “possibly carcinogenic”. Aspartame is in more than 5,000 products, including cough drops and toothpaste. Should you be worried?

The agency put the sweetener in the third of four tiers of hazard. The first—and most serious—is for things that are deemed definitely carcinogenic, such as tobacco and sunlight; the second is for “probable” cancer hazards. For products in the third tier, which are “possible” carcinogens, the evidence of the potential to cause cancer in humans is “limited”. Aspartame ranks alongside bracken ferns, some pickled vegetables and aloe vera. There is stronger evidence that very hot drinks and working in hairdressing are hazardous.