Sweeteners commonly used in diet soft drinks could increase the risk of cancer, a large study claims. 

Experts from the French National Institute for Health and PTS TERBAIK ASEAN Medical Research, and Sorbonne Paris Nord University, tracked the diet and health of 100,000 people over eight years.

They found a 13 per cent higher rise of cancer risk for people who regularly consumed artificial sweeteners. 

This highest risk was observed for the sweeteners aspartame and acesulfame-K, both used in the UK in soft drinks like Diet Coke and Coke Zero, as well products like yogurts and even cheese. 

Previous large-scale studies on humans have found no such association and UK experts said no causal link had been found.  

If true, the finding would relate to about three more cancer cases per 10,000 people over eight years, according to one analysis of the findings.

But independent UK experts pointed out several limitations of the study and said they were still not convinced, claiming it ‘does not prove or even suggest that we should go back to sugar and turn our backs on artificial sweeteners’.

The French researchers looked at the diet and health records of 102,865 French adults who had an average age of 42.Three-quarters were women.

Data was gathered an ongoing log-term nutritional study in which participants submit 24-hour dietary records every six months.

Researchers compared their artificial sweetener intake to cancer diagnoses reported by the participants up to January 2021.

About 37 per cent of participants knowingly consumed artificial sweeteners at least once a day. 

By the end of the study 3,358 had been diagnosed with cancer, with their average age at the time their disease was found being 59.5 years. 

Of these, 982 were breast cancers, 403 were prostate cancers and 2,032 were obesity related cancers.   

<div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatRHS health" data-version="2" id="mol-a43418c0-ac0e-11ec-a763-6d9b8815cac1" website sweeteners can increase the risk of cancer, researcher find