The International Sweeteners Association (ISA) has said that “aspartame is safe” after a report from UK academics questioned the safety of the artificial sweetener.

The organisation has now pointed to scientific opinions from food safety authorities around the globe which, it says, “have consistently confirm that aspartame is safe”.

The response follows new research from academics at the University of Sussex which found that the safety of aspartame for human consumption has not been “adequately proven”.

The ISA said that prior to market approval, aspartame – codified as E951 in the EU – was subject to extensive safety assessments.

The conclusions of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Scientific opinion on aspartame, published in December 2013, reconfirmed that aspartame is not a safety concern.

The EFSA Opinion on aspartame represents the most comprehensive assessment of the aspartame safety database that has ever been undertaken, examined by leading scientists from across Europe.

based on those data, EFSA’s experts could rule out any potential risk of aspartame causing damage to genes or to the brain, the ISA said.

Additionally, a recent UK government-funded study on self-reported aspartame sensitivity, concluded that “there was no evidence of any acute adverse responses to aspartame”.