Rome: The European Union's food safety agency said yesterday there was no cancer risk from foods and drinks containing the food sweetener aspartame, rejecting a scientific study that said the additive was hazardous.

The European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) dismissed recent findings by an Italian cancer research body which found the sweetener, widely used in diet foods, soft drinks and as a sugar substitute, increased cancers in rats.

EFSA said its review of the Ramazzini Institute study found no conclusive evidence that aspartame was responsible for increased cancers and that although the additive did cause damage to the rats' kidneys, this would not happen to humans.

"Our conclusion on the basis of all the evidence currently available to us is that there's no reason to revise the previously established ADI (acceptable daily intake), nor at this stage ... to undertake any further extensive review of the safety of aspartame," EFSA's Iona Pratt told a news conference.

Aspartame is marketed under trademarks including NutraSweet and Canderel.

The European Union's ADI for the product is 40 mg per kg of bodyweight, Pratt said, the equivalent of consuming around 80 sachets of the sweetener per day.

EFSA said increased incidence of leukaemias and lymphomas in the rats in the Ramazzini study could be put down to chronic health problems that made the animals predisposed to such conditions, and not consumption of aspartame.

The verdict by the EU's top food safety authority was good news for food makers who use aspartame, which have often had to fend off health concerns.

Alain Beaumont, secretary-general of the Unesda industry association that groups leading soft drinks producers such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Cadbury-Schweppes, welcomed the EFSA ruling.

"As a consumer-driven industry, Unesda welcomes further reconfirmation of the safety of aspartame as an important tool in the fight against obesity," he said.

"Unesda stresses that lessons should be learned about the ways in which non-peer-reviewed studies like these are communicated to the public in order to minimise confusion amongst consumers," Beaumont said.