Aspartame and cancer in long-term animal studies
What it found
Rats and mice given aspartame developed more cancers, including blood and liver cancers, and more at higher doses.
Animal results can't show what happens in people.
What the authors conclude
“These studies have shown that aspartame is a carcinogenic agent in experimental animals, inducing a significant dose-related increased incidence of several types of malignant tumors and, among them, hematological neoplasia, and liver cancer.”
Also in their conclusions
- They say these studies "opened a real front" on how artificial sweeteners are assessed.
- They call for the same kind of long-term cancer studies on other common sweeteners, including acesulfame K, sucralose and saccharin, and blends of them.
How it was done
Aspartame is used in more than 6,000 products. The author says the safety tests run by the company that invented it produced "controversial results", so in 1997 the Ramazzini Institute began its own large cancer studies in animals.
The studies used 2,270 rats and 852 mice, started giving aspartame before birth, and followed the animals until they died naturally. The author says this design is more sensitive than standard tests.
What it can’t tell you
- The Ramazzini Institute ran the animal studies this paper reviews.
- These are animal studies. They can't show what happens in people.
- We summarised it from the abstract only, which doesn't give the doses.
Who paid
- Funding
- Not stated in the PubMed record. No conflict-of-interest statement in the PubMed record.
- Authors work at
- Ramazzini Institute, Bologna, and European Foundation Ruberti-Schileo, Treviso (Italy)
The paper
- Title
- Understanding the link between aspartame and cancer
- Type
- ReviewThe authors read earlier studies and describe what they found. It isn’t a new study.
- Evidence
- Animals
- Summarised from
- Abstract only. The full paper isn't free to read.
- Cite
- Soffritti (2024). Understanding the link between aspartame and cancer. Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy. doi:10.1080/14737140.2024.2383675PubMed 39041328DOI
Summary written 24 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error