Taiwan will observe the responses of other countries to the World Health Organization's (WHO) recent classification of the artificial sweetener aspartame as "possibly carcinogenic to humans," but will not change its relevant regulations at this time, the country's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Friday.
In an assessment released Friday, the WHO said that while the soda sweetener had been classified as possibly carcinogenic, its consumption was still safe within a daily limit of 40 milligrams per kilogram of a person's body weight.
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener used mainly in Diet Coke, Pepsi Zero Sugar and other diet sodas, and in chewing gum, ice cream and yogurt, among other products.
At a press conference Friday, Taiwan's FDA Deputy Director Lin Chin-fu (林金富) said the country will not change its regulations on aspartame at this time, and there is no need for people to alter their intake.
Taiwan, however, will keep an eye on the response of other countries to the WHO's classification of the artificial sweetener, Lin said, adding that there have been no changes in their regulations so far.
Currently, products in Taiwan that contain the sweetener must carry a label that says they are not suitable for people with phenylketonuria -- a congenital disease that renders the body unable to break down the amino acid phenylalanine -- or they must indicate that phenylalanine is an ingredient, Lin said.
In a phone interview with CNA on Friday, Yen Tsung-hai (顏宗海), head of the Clinical Poison Center at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, said the WHO's recent categorization of aspartame was based on experiments that showed an increase in the risk of cancer in animals, but there was limited evidence of the sweetener causing cancer in humans.
The findings were released Friday by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer and its Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, which identified a possible link between aspartame and a type of liver cancer called hepatocellular carcinoma, after reviewing three large human studies in the United States and Europe that examined artificially sweetened beverages.
