Diet soda in pregnancy is linked to overweight babies
Drinking diet soda and other artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy is associated with having overweight 1-year-olds, according to a new report.
Canadian researchers studied 3,003 mothers who delivered healthy singletons between 2009 and 2012 and had completed diet questionnaires during their pregnancies. They then examined the babies when they were a year old. Almost 30 per cent of the women drank artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy.
After controlling for maternal body mass index, age, breast-feeding duration, maternal smoking, maternal diabetes, timing of the introduction of solid foods and other factors, they found that compared with women who drank no diet beverages, those who drank, on average, one can of diet soda a day doubled the risk of having an overweight one-year-old.
The study, in JAMA Pediatrics, found no association with infant birth weight, suggesting that the effect is on postnatal, not fetal, growth. The mother's consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks was not associated with increased risk for overweight babies.
"This is an association, and not a causal link," said the lead author, Meghan B. Azad, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba.
"But it certainly raises the question of whether artificial sweeteners are harmless. It's not time to ban them or tell everyone not to consume them, but there's no great benefit to consuming these drinks, so there's no harm in avoiding them."
Heavier people don't die young Being "overweight" may not be as bad for you as you thought. People who have a body mass index of 27 — overweight by current guidelines — have the lowest risk of dying early from any cause, according to a new report. That BMI number is higher than in earlier decades.
Danish researchers used data from three time periods: 1976-78, 1991-94 and 2003-13, to calculate BMI and mortality in more than 120,000 people.
In the earliest group, mortality was lowest among those with a BMI of 23.7, within the normal range. In the 1991-94 group, the lowest mortality was in those with a BMI of 24.6, the high end of normal. But in the 2003-13 cohort, a BMI of 27, well into the overweight range by current standards, was associated with the lowest all-cause mortality. The study was published in JAMA.
"The data are straightforward," said the senior author, Dr. Borge G. Nordestgaard, a clinical professor at the University of Copenhagen.
"Thinking about why is more complicated. It may be that we've become better at treating cardiovascular risk factors. But I have no data to support this belief."
In any case, this does not mean that a person of normal weight should aim to gain weight. "If you're at 27, then maybe you don't have to worry as much as you did," Nordestgaard said.
The authors acknowledge that their results, based on the Danish population, might not be generalizable to other groups.
Pesticide exposure may increase risk of ALS
Exposure to pesticides may increase the risk for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a new study has found.
The study, in JAMA Neurology, included 156 patients with ALS and 128 controls.
All participants completed questionnaires providing information on age, sex, ethnicity, education, marital status, residential history, occupational history, smoking and military service.
The researchers used the information on residence and occupation to estimate long-term exposure to pesticides, and then took blood samples to determine serum levels of 122 persistent environmental pollutants. New York Times Service
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