Posted: May 28 2007

Calls have come for food safety experts to carry out tests on some soft drinks after fears about a preservative used have surfaced.

The fears have come after an academic has raised concerns over E211, known as sodium benzoate.

Today’s Independent on Sunday said research carried out at a British university suggests the common preservative found in drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA.

The newspaper said Professor Peter Piper, an expert in ageing at Sheffield University, had tested the impact of sodium benzoate on living yeast cells in his laboratory.

He said he found it was damaging an important area of DNA in the “power station” of cells known as the mitochondria.

He told the newspaper: “These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether.

“The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it ... then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA – Parkinson’s and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing.”

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat chairman of Parliament’s all-party environment group, said: “A lot of chemicals were tested many years ago when standards were less rigorous than now. Professor Piper has studied this for some years so we should be taking his concerns seriously.

“I will be writing to the Food Standards Agency to ask them to carry out further investigation and I would advise parents to make sure there is no over-exposure to these drinks for their children.”

Richard Laming, communications director of the British Soft Drinks Association, said: “All ingredients used by the soft drinks industry are considered as safe to use by the Food Standards Agency.

“The FSA has assured us that the apparent concerns regarding sodium benzoate have already been investigated and it sees no reason to change its view that sodium benzoate is safe. Consumers can continue to enjoy soft drinks in the full confidence that they are safe to drink.”

An FSA spokesman said: “All additives must be approved for use in foods by the European Commission. Sodium benzoate and benzoic acid are approved for food use. Food additives are only permitted for use after a long and careful process of evaluation. This includes rigorous assessments for safety, undertaken by independent scientific committees.

“The Food Standards Agency is aware of Professor Piper’s paper, looking at the effect of sodium benzoate on yeast cells as published in 1999, this paper has already been considered by the agency and the relevance of this research to humans is unclear.

“The UK, along with other member states is committed to continued monitoring of intakes of additives and their usage in foods.”