Saccharin

Saccharin is an artificial sweetener named for the word saccharine, meaning “sugary.” The sweetener may have contributed to the increasing use of “saccharine” in a derogatory sense of “overly sweet” or “cloying.” More than three hundred times as sweet as sucrose (refined white sugar), saccharin is used in such small quantities as to have a negligible calorie count. The first widely adopted artificial sweetener, it enabled the introduction of a large and profitable cottage industry of diet food products, but fell out of favor because of its bitter aftertaste and a since-disproven link between saccharin and cancer. Though it remains in use as a food additive, it is more commonly used in medicines and toothpaste. Competing sweeteners and displaced Saccharin in the diet food market, but it remains commonly available under the Sweet’N Low brand or in the pink paper packets meant to evoke the distinctive trade dress of that brand.

Background

The chemical name of saccharin is benzoic sulfimide, and it was first discovered in 1879 by chemist Constantin Fahlberg, working on coal tar derivatives at Johns Hopkins University. He filed several patents for the substance under the name saccharin, beginning in 1884. Despite Fahlberg’s quick move to monetization, it was not several decades later, when the First World War caused sugar shortages, that saccharin became well known. In the intervening time, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared, in 1912, that saccharin was not harmful. The decision was not easily reached. Harvey Wiley, a chemist and activist instrumental in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the first commissioner of the FDA, clashed with President Theodore Roosevelt over the safety of saccharin, insisting that sugar substitutes were intrinsically fraudulent. Wiley resigned over a number of issues, the same year saccharin was declared safe and became a prominent activist against soft drinks and other products to which caffeine was added.

For a time, saccharin coexisted with cyclamate, a sugar substitute discovered in 1937, and the two were even blended together in a Swiss product called Assugrin. Still, other than in times of sugar scarcity, saccharin remained obscure—much like margarine or “oleo,” in its role as a butter substitute, it was available but not commonplace. The diet industry changed this. While products for “slimmers” had been popular since the nineteenth century, they had tended to focus on exercise, special apparatuses, supplements (or medications like diuretics, for losing water weight), and meal replacements. People who were interested in altering their diet to lose weight did not usually buy special products sold for this purpose, but rather made obvious choices like reducing portions, eating low-calorie foods like lettuce and celery, and avoiding fats and sugars. Recognizing that sweetness, as one of the five basic tastes, is a thing the body naturally craves, the diet industry in the 1960s began to promote low-calorie products made with saccharin.

Saccharin Today

Saccharin’s rise owed much to the 1969 ban of cyclamate in the United States and many European countries following studies showing that it might be carcinogenic. Ironically, similar research proved saccharin’s downfall, at least for a time. Studies in the 1970s found a link between saccharin and the development of bladder cancer in laboratory rodents, which led to the requirement that saccharin products be labeled accordingly from 1977, when the Saccharin Study and Labeling Act was passed, until the end of 2000, when the warning label requirement was repealed following the discovery that the saccharin-cancer link was due to uniquely rodent features of body chemistry, and did not indicate a carcinogenic risk for humans. Cyclamate was similarly found to be safe, and its ban was lifted in most countries other than the United States.

Saccharin was removed from the major national and international lists of hazardous food additives. Some countries that had banned it outright repealed those bans. Canada lifted its saccharin ban for use in foods, but restrictions still apply in some cases. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reassessed saccharin’s acceptable daily intake in 2024. Finding it safe, the agency increased the daily recommended limit. Biases against saccharin persist, perhaps partly because of the bitter aftertaste, but it is also true that the popularity of saccharin never entirely faded. Indeed, many saccharin fans prefer it for its taste or because of the health risks caused by alternatives. While aspartame and sucralose have both overtaken saccharin in popularity, for instance, aspartame is a possible dietary trigger of migraines. Although reliable studies do not support the claim, a popular belief persists that aspartame is linked to neurological or psychiatric symptoms, especially in children.

Most saccharin products are beverages or candies. However, using saccharin instead of sugar in products where sugar would ordinarily provide most or all of the calories, as in soft drinks, allowed manufacturers to sell food products that were essentially zero-calorie. Whether zero calories mean the same thing as having no impact on nutrition or weight is uncertain. In 2023, the WHO recommended against using non-sugar sweeteners for weight control, citing mixed evidence on long-term benefit.

The first diet soft drink was Diet Rite, a diet cola introduced by the RC Cola company in 1958. It originally used cyclamate but was reformulated with saccharin in 1969. Diet Rite added NutraSweet (a brand of aspartame) and eliminated saccharin in 1987. Acting as a sort of bellwether for sugar substitutes, Diet Rite was reformulated yet again in 2000, replacing aspartame with Sunett-brand Acesulfame potassium and Splenda-brand sucralose, becoming the first nationally distributed diet soda with neither aspartame nor saccharin. Coca-Cola introduced TaB, its first diet cola, in 1963 for dieters who wanted to “keep tabs on their weight.” It was formulated with saccharin, and instead of being reformulated after cancer concerns were raised, Coca-Cola introduced the aspartame-based Diet Coke as its flagship diet cola in 1982. With the introduction of Coca-Cola Zero (sweetened with aspartame and Acesulfame potassium), Coca-Cola became the only major soda producer with three separate diet colas using different sugar substitute blends (until the company discontinued Tab in 2020). Coca-Cola Zero Sugar’s formulation continues to vary internationally, but the role of saccharin in these blends is minimal. Many regions have phased out saccharin entirely in favor of acesulfame potassium and aspartame blends.

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