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James G. Gurney, Janice M. Pogoda, Elizabeth A. Holly, Stephen S. Hecht, Susan Preston-Martin, Aspartame Consumption in Relation to Childhood Brain Tumor Risk: Results From a Case-Control Study, JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 89, Issue 14, 16 July 1997, Pages 1072–1074, https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/89.14.1072
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Brain cancer incidence rates in the United States have been increasing in both adults ( 1 ) and children ( 2 ). The possibility that aspartame, a widely ingested artificial sweetener, may be a cause of brain cancer in humans was suggested in a recent report by Olney et al. ( 3 ). From a descriptive analysis of national cancer data, they noted increased brain cancer incidence rates in the United States that coincided with the introduction of aspartame into food stuffs in the early 1980s.
As part of a population-based case-control study of environmental and nutritional risk factors for pediatric brain tumor occurrence, we collected data on aspartame consumption before the date of diagnosis for case patients (or a comparable reference date for control subjects) from the biologic mothers of study children by in-person interview. The methodology for the study has been published previously ( 4 ). Briefly, case patients were 19 years of age or older and were diagnosed with a primary brain tumor between 1984 and 1991 in 19 West Coast counties of the United States. Control subjects were recruited using random-digit dialing and were frequency-matched by age at diagnosis, year of birth, sex, and study site. We present data on aspartame consumption among the subset of participants from the Los Angeles and San Francisco sites where questions on aspartame consumption were added to the original questionnaire midway through the interviews. Our analysis of the child's exposure was conducted on 56 case patients and 94 control subjects who were born in 1981 or later (to correspond with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA] approval of aspartame). We also evaluated brain tumor risk in relation to mother's consumption of aspartame during pregnancy and breast-feeding for 49 case patients and 90 control subjects who were in utero in 1981 or later. We calculated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals and adjusted for the frequency-matched variables with the use of unconditional logistic regression. Additional adjustment for known or suspected risk factors (maternal vitamin use, cured meat consumption, passive smoke exposure, x-ray exposure, head injury, and family history of brain cancer) did not change our results.
