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'Diet' drinks linked to risk of premature birth

Drinking lots of artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy raises the risk of premature births.

Diet drinks linked to risk of premature birth

Drinking lots of artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy raises the risk of premature births.

Past studies have shown that both soft drinks – containing either artificial sweeteners or natural sugar - are linked to high blood pressure, which increases the risk of premature delivery. "Diet" drinks are widely promoted as a healthy alternative to soft drinks and juices.

To study whether regular consumption of artificial sweeteners is safe in humans, researchers studied 59,334 pregnant Danish women to find out any association between intake of sugar sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks and preterm delivery. Data regarding the how many soft drinks participants had each day was collected at around 25 weeks of pregnancy.

It was found that around 5 percent of women delivered their babies before the normal term of 37 weeks. Women who had at least one serving of artificially sweetened soda a day while they were pregnant were 38 percent more likely to deliver preterm than women who drank no diet soda at all. Women who had at least four “diet” drinks a day were nearly 80 percent more likely to deliver preterm. The association was the same for normal-weight and overweight women.

Also, one in eight babies (13 percent) is born before term. This means that if drinking diet soda does indeed increase risk. A woman who drank at least one diet soda daily would have a 17 percent risk, while her risk would be around 22 percent if she drank four or more diet sodas.

The findings suggest that consumption of artificial sweeteners by pregnant females is associated with a higher risk of preterm delivery, and should be avoided by this group. However, further studies are needed to confirm this association.
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