Consumption Of Sugary Drinks During Pregnancy May Up Asthma Risk In Kids

Sugary drinks have long been associated with various health problems. Turns out, it may increase the risk of asthma in children between the ages 7 and 9 if their mothers drank a lot of sugar-sweetened beverages while pregnant. According to a study published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, avoiding high intake of sugary beverages during pregnancy and in early childhood could be one of the several ways to reduce the risk of childhood asthma.

For the study, the researchers involved over 1,000 mother-child pairs in the US. After their first and second trimesters, mothers who participated in the study completed questionnaires about their food and beverage consumption, including regular soda and fruit drinks.

When their children reached early childhood, that is around 3.3 years, the mothers completed another questionnaire to report their children's consumption of a variety of foods and beverages, including regular sodas and fruit drinks. In mid-childhood, 19 percent of the children had asthma.

Mothers in the highest quartile of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption during pregnancy were 63 percent more likely than those in the lowest quartile to have mid-childhood age kids with asthma, the findings showed. The authors noted that other studies have found links between obesity and asthma and between sugar-sweetened beverages and high fructose intake and increased asthma attack.

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Recent studies suggest that in addition to increasing asthma risk through obesity, fructose itself may cause inflammation in the lungs.