Avoid diet beverages during pregnancy | Fusion - WeRIndia

A recent study has shown that children who are born to women that have drank artificially sweetened beverages during their pregnancy time (at least one drink per day) are more likely to be overweight or even obese by their seventh year.

This, of course, can lead to major health issues in later life, such as diabetes, heart diseases, and even death causing ones such as stroke and certain forms of cancer.

Therefore, the study has shown that artificially sweetened beverages have no less risk than naturally sweetened ones in terms of reducing risks for child obesity later in life.

The amount of amniotic fluid surrounding the fetal baby in the womb increases over time, and as it does, women increase their fluid consumption.

Thus, in order to avoid the consumption of extra calories, several pregnant women attempt to reduce them by replacing drinks sweetened by sugar with drinks sweetened by alternate artificial sweeteners.

However, it was found that children whose mothers had drunk naturally sweetened beverages in their pregnancy were 60 percent more likely to have a high birth weight, and children whose mothers had drunk artificially sweetened beverages were twice as likely to end up overweight or obese by age seven.

Therefore, this study has shown that consuming beverages with artificial sweeteners does not offer any advantage over consuming beverages with natural sweeteners. In fact, the study observed that women who substituted water for sweetened beverages more often actually reduced the risk of obesity for their children by 17 percent.

.

This study was conducted over data from about nine hundred pregnancies that faced gestational diabetes, a type that only occurs in pregnancy.

The conclusion from it adds to previous studies in animals (which tied weight gain to changes in bacteria in the digestive system) by suggesting that these artificial sweeteners prompt weight gain by allowing the intestines to absorb more glucose for the blood.

Image from Pxfuel (Free for commercial use / CC0 Public Domain)

Photo by Lea Green from Pexels (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-ohdcl, https://www.pexels.com/photo/1906357/