Aspartame - the ubiquitous artificial sweetener sold under the brand names NutraSweet, Equal, and Sugar Twin - has sparked controversy for decades, but in 2023 a leading health watchdog for the first time ­officially labeled it as a possible carcinogen.

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The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a body of the World Health Organization (WHO), ruled that the faux sugar may cause liver cancer in humans.

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The IARC based its conclusion on observational studies connecting the consumption of artificially sweetened drinks to an increase in cases of the cancer.

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Other organizations rushed to refute this finding, however. “Our results do not indicate that occasional consumption should pose a risk to most,” Francesco Branca, MD, director of the WHO Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, said at a press conference. Still, he added, people who consume large amounts of aspartame should consider switching to water or other unsweetened drinks.

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The U.S. Food and Drug ­Administration (FDA) and the American Beverage Association (ABA) ­continue to maintain that aspartame is safe to consume. The ABA cited the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety announcement, which ­described the evidence for aspartame causing cancer in humans as “not convincing.”

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The FDA, which approved aspartame in 1974, stated it “disagrees with IARC’s conclusion that these studies support classifying aspartame as a possible carcinogen to humans.”

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The agency has previously set the acceptable daily intake of aspartame at 50 mg per kilogram of a person’s body weight. So, for a 150-pound person, approximately 3,400 mg a day is deemed safe. A 12-ounce can of diet soda contains around 200 mg of aspartame. (For more on the downsides of sugar alternatives and sweeteners, tune in to this Life Time Talks episode: The Downsides of the Sweet Stuff: All About Sugar and Sugar Alternatives.)

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This article was originally written by Jemma Cooke and published by Experience Life.