Drinking Diet Sodas and Aspartame-Sweetened Beverages Daily During Pregnancy Linked to Autism in Male Offspring
September 30th, 2023Via: University of Texas, San Antonio:
A new published study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) has found an association between autism diagnosis in boys and daily consumption of either diet soda or a comparable amount of aspartame by their mothers during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
In this case-control study, boys who had been diagnosed with autism were more than three times as likely as neurotypically developing boys to have been born to mothers who reported consuming one or more servings per day of diet soda, or comparable amounts of the leading artificial sweetener aspartame, during pregnancy or breastfeeding. No statistically significant association was found in female offspring.
“These associations do not prove causality, but taken in concert with reports from earlier studies of increased prematurity and cardiometabolic health impacts among infants and children exposed daily to diet beverages and/or aspartame during pregnancy, our findings raise new questions about potential neurological impacts that need to be addressed,” said Raymond F. Palmer, PhD, senior author of the paper, and professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Health San Antonio.
