OPINION | This article contains the author's opinion.
A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio has suggested that pregnant or breastfeeding women who consume diet soda or other products containing aspartame may have a higher likelihood of their sons being diagnosed with autism.
The study found that mothers of boys diagnosed with autism were three times more likely to report daily consumption of at least one diet soda or an equivalent amount of five tabletop packets of aspartame.
“Our study does not prove causality — it does not prove that maternal intake of diet sodas, and aspartame specifically, during pregnancy or nursing increases a child’s risk of autism — but it does raise a major warning flag,” said Sharon Parten Fowler, PhD, adjunct assistant professor of medicine at UT Health San Antonio. (Trending: Unearthed Clip Shows Joe and Hunter Discussing Business)
Scientists examined the aspartame consumption of 235 mothers whose children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
They compared these findings to a group of 121 children who had “typical neurological development.”
The results showed that in comparison to the typically developing children, boys with autism were over three times more likely to have been exposed to aspartame-containing products daily during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
“We saw these associations for autism in boys but not for autism in girls,” Fowler said. (Trending: Biden Family Is Officially In Panic Mode)
“We also saw these associations for boys with autism disorder, but not for all boys with any autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — an umbrella category that includes less severely life-changing conditions, such as Asperger syndrome, as well as the potentially more severe conditions categorized as autism disorder.”
“Also, most of the autism cases in this study (87%) were male,” she added.
“It would be important to study these same relationships in a much larger study population, prospectively, with larger numbers of female as well as male offspring, and with more information collected about additional risk factors of the mothers that might have affected the children’s risk of developing autism.”
“Since 2010, a number of reports have been published about increased health risks among the offspring of women who drank diet sodas and other diet beverages during pregnancy,” Fowler said.