Calorie Control Council | Low-Calorie Sweeteners: Cyclamate


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Description: Cyclamate is a non-caloric sweetener discovered in 1937. It has been used widely in low-calorie foods and beverages.

Relative Sweetness: 30 times sweeter than sucrose.

Metabolism: Most people do not metabolize cyclamate. A small portion of the population metabolizes some of the cyclamate they consume.

Assets: It is stable in heat and cold and has good shelf life. Its solubility in liquids enables use in beverages. When cyclamate is combined with other low-calorie sweeteners, they enhance each other so that the combinations are sweeter than the sum of the individual sweeteners.

Limitations: It has the least "sweetening power" of the commercially acceptable intense sweeteners.

Applications: Cyclamate has been widely used as a tabletop sweetener, in sugar-free beverages and other low-calorie foods, particularly in combination with saccharin. It also can be used in baked goods.

Safety: Cyclamate was banned in the United States in 1970. Currently there is a petition before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reapprove cyclamate in the U.S.

Status: FDA's Cancer Assessment Committee (CAC) reviewed the scientific evidence and reached the following conclusion in 1984: "[T]he collective weight of the many experiments... indicates that cyclamate is not carcinogenic." In June 1985, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reaffirmed the CAC's conclusion noting, "the totality of the evidence from studies in animals does not indicate that cyclamate or its major metabolite cyclohexylamine is carcinogenic by itself."

Cyclamate is approved for use in more than 50 countries worldwide.

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