We prove global existence in time of solutions to relaxed conservative cross diffusion systems governed by nonlinear operators of the form $u_ito partial_tu_i-Delta(a_i(tilde{u})u_i)$ where the $u_i, i=1,...,I$ represent $I$ density-functions, $tilde{u}$ is a spatially regularized form of $(u_1,...,u_I)$ and the nonlinearities $a_i$ are merely assumed to be continuous and bounded from below. Existence of global weak solutions is obtained in any space dimension. Solutions are proved to be regular and unique when the $a_i$ are locally Lipschitz continuous.