Lifestyle Sports: Latest from Food Politics: Industry-funded study of the week: artificial sweeteners and cancer risk

By Marion Nestle

December 29 2025

Industry-funded study of the week: artificial sweeteners and cancer risk

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Thanks to Lais Miachon Silva of the Micronutrient Forum for sending this item.

The study: A Systematic Review of Nonsugar Sweeteners and Cancer Epidemiology Studies. Advances in Nutrition Volume 16, Issue 12, December 2025, 100527. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advnut.2025.100527

Methods: systematic literature review

Results: “We found no consistent associations between any NSS or NSSs in aggregate and any cancer overall, and no evidence for dose–response.”

Conclusions: “Experimental animal and mechanistic evidence for NSSs does not support human-relevant carcinogenicity or any biologically plausible mechanisms by which NSSs could cause genotoxicity or cancer in humans. Overall, the epidemiology evidence does not support associations between any NSS and any cancer type.”

Funding: ABA [American Beverage Association] provided funding for this paper, which was written during the authors’ normal course of employment.

Conflict of interest: All authors are employed by Gradient, Geosyntec, or the American Beverage Association (ABA). Gradient and Geosyntec are environmental and risk sciences consulting firms. ABA is the trade association that represents America’s non-alcoholic beverage industry. ABA provided funding for this paper, which was written during the authors’ normal course of employment. This paper represents the professional opinions of the authors and not those of ABA.

Comment: This is a classic example of an industry-funded study conducted by industry employees producing results favorable to the sponsor’s commercial interests. I am particularly amused by the last conflict of interest statement. It too is a classic example, this time of Upton Sinclair’s famous quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

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