SHEET /m/saccharin · PubChem CID 5143 · CAS 81-07-2 · REV 2026.07
Saccharin from source
C7H5NO3S · 183.19 g/mol
o-Benzoic sulfimide · o-Sulfobenzimide · Saccharine · Saccharimide
chemical compound
Fig. 1 · 2D structure RDKit
C1=CC=C2C(=C1)C(=O)NS2(=O)=O
Where you'll find it
Curated by MoleculeFinder from source
The dose makes the poison inferred
A reported rat oral LD50 for Saccharin is 14,200 mg/kg, the dose lethal to half the animals tested. Scaled by body mass alone:
“The dose makes the poison” is a cross-species estimate shown as neutral science, not a threshold anyone should act on. Real toxicity depends on the person, not body mass alone.
Signature properties
Toxicity & hazards
Toxicity · LD50
14,200 mg/kg · very low toxicity · LD50 rat oral from source
The dose lens above scales this to a body weight.
2 more reported values
- 17,500 mg/kgLD50 · oral · mouse
- 7,100 mg/kgLD50 · other · rat
Saccharin was the first artificial sweetener, discovered by accident in 1879 by a chemist who noticed his dinner tasted sweet after a day in the lab. Around three hundred times sweeter than sugar, it carried a cancer warning for decades before the science walked that back.