Cyclamate is a low-calorie sweetener that is 30 times sweeter than sucrose. It is soluble in liquids and because it is stable in heat and cold, it has a long shelf life. Discovered in 1937, cyclamate is approved for use in foods and beverages in more than 100 countries worldwide, including Canada, Australia and Mexico.

Cyclamate is an excellent complement to other low-calorie sweeteners commonly used to reduce the calorie content of popular foods and beverages. In combination, cyclamate and other low-calorie sweeteners have a synergistic effect that enhances the overall sweet taste and reduces the total amount of sweetener needed to obtain a desired level of sweetness. Cyclamate also masks the aftertaste of other low-calorie sweeteners like saccharin, improving the overall taste of foods and beverages containing this sweetener.

Cyclamate is approved for use in foods and beverages in more than 100 countries worldwide. The World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO/WHO) Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) has, over the past 10 years, reviewed the scientific literature related to cyclamates and consistently determined cyclamate use is safe for human. Cyclamate has also been approved by the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) of the European Commission (now the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)). A petition for the re-approval of cyclamate is currently under review by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The petition reviews new scientific evidence, including some 75 new studies, that demonstrates the safety of cyclamate for human use. In addition, the American Statistical Association and the Society of Toxicology has called upon FDA to reassess the statistical and scientific principles that formed the basis for its 1980 decision not to reapprove cyclamate. Further support for the safety of cyclamate also comes from the Cancer Assessment Committee (CAC) of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US National Academy of Sciences. The CAC reviewed the scientific evidence in 1984 and concluded "[T]he collective weight of the many experiments . . . indicates that cyclamate is not carcinogenic." The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reaffirmed safety of cyclamate in June 1985, noting "the totality of the evidence from studies in animals does not indicate that cyclamate or its major metabolite cyclohexylamine is carcinogenic by itself."

The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for cyclamate has been set at 11 mg/kg body weight by JECFA and at 7 mg/kg body weight by the SCF. The ADI-level is the acceptable daily dietary intake of sweeteners that these regulatory bodies have determined may be consumed every day over one?s lifetime without any appreciable risk. The ADI is not a toxicological threshold. It is a bona fide figure for the amount that can be consumed safely, every day over a lifetime, and without any harm. Studies on eating habits have shown that adults rarely exceed the ADI levels established for low-calorie sweeteners. For example, a 70 kg (150 lb) adult would need to drink more than 3 liters of a soft drink sweetened with cyclamate to exceed the JECFA ADI for this sweetener and nearly 2 liters to exceed the SCF ADI.

No single low-calorie sweetener can match the taste and functionality of table sugar (sucrose), but using blends of low-calorie sweeteners, particularly blends containing cyclamate, can achieve a sweetness that’s very close. Using blends of sweeteners can also reduce the amount of total sweetener needed to obtain a desired level of sweetness. That’s because some sweeteners are synergistic (that is, their sweetness in combination is greater than the sum of their sweetness if used separately). Of all of the non-caloric sweeteners, cyclamate is most notable in the synergies that it exhibits with other sweeteners. It is synergistic with saccharin, aspartame and with acesulfame-K and thus the binary blends cyclamate/saccharin, cyclamate/aspartame and cyclamate/acesulfame-K as well as the ternary blends cyclamate/saccharin/aspartame and cyclamate/acesulfame-K/aspartame are all sweetener systems with good taste quality. In all of these blends, synergy enables significant reductions in total non-caloric sweetener usage. Using a blend can also improve product stability.

In 1969, as a result of a very controversial animal study in which rats given extremely high does of cyclamate developed tumors, the use of cyclamate in food and beverages was discontinued in the USA and England. Since then, over 75 scientific studies on cyclamate have proven it to be safe for human consumption. In 1984, after analysis of all the scientific evidence, the Cancer Assessment Committee of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) came to the conclusion that Cyclamate is not carcinogenic. In 1985 this finding was confirmed in an independent evaluation of the report by the US National Academy of Sciences. As a result of these new studies, many authorities, including the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO/WHO) Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) of the European Commission (now the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and food safety authorities in Mexico have approved its use in a wide range of foodstuffs. A petition for the re-approval of cyclamate is currently under review by the US FDA.