Dietary intake of four artificial sweeteners by Irish pre-school children

ABSTRACTIn spite of rigorous pre- and post-market reviews of safety, there remains a high level of debate regarding the use of artificial sweeteners in foods. Young children are of particular interest when assessing food chemical exposure as a result of their unique food consumption patterns and comparatively higher exposure to food chemicals on a body weight basis when compared with the general population. The present study examined the intakes of four intense sweeteners (acesulfame K, aspartame, saccharin, sucralose) in the diets of children aged 1–4 years using food consumption and sweetener presence data from the Irish National Pre-school Nutrition Survey (2010–11) and analytical data for sweetener concentration in foods obtained from a national testing programme. Four exposure assessment scenarios were conducted using the available data on sweetener occurrence and concentration. The results demonstrated that the mean daily intakes for all four sweeteners were below the acceptable daily intake (ADI) (...