ReviewFrontiers in medicine2025
The association of artificial sweeteners intake and risk of cancer: an umbrella meta-analysis.
Review in Frontiers in medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Long-term artificial sweetener exposure increases the risk of atherosclerosis.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Previous meta-analyses exploring the relationship between artificial sweetener consumption and cancer risk have shown inconsistent results. To address these discrepancies, we conducted an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies. Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science up to January 2025. Pooled relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were recalculated using a random-effects model. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses assessed the robustness of findings. Results: Ten meta-analyses comprising 35 datasets were included. Based on the AMSTAR 2 tool, three reviews were rated as high quality, two as moderate, and five as low. Overall, artificial sweetener intake was not significantly associated with cancer risk (RR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.96-1.01). This finding reflects the effect of various sweeteners grouped together and should not be extrapolated to individual compounds. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of findings, with no publication bias detected. Across study designs-prospective (RR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.92-1.08), case-control (RR: 0.94; 95% CI: 0.86-1.03), and cohort-case-control (RR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.77-1.14)-associations were consistently non-significant. By sweetener source, no significant associations emerged for artificially sweetened beverages (RR: 0.98; 95% CI: 0.96-1.01) or artificial sweeteners overall (RR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.94-1.06), both with low heterogeneity. Results were consistent across RR, odds ratio, and hazard ratio. By cancer type, no significant associations were found except for gynecological cancers, where higher intake was linked to reduced risk (RR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.79-0.96; Conclusion: The findings of this umbrella review do not support a significant association between artificial sweetener intake and overall cancer risk, with possible protective effects limited to gynecological cancers. Findings were consistent across study types and robust to sensitivity analyses.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.