Hi guys,
Here is this week’s EMTC Article of the Week. Remember that you can still sign up for a week at:
Not sure how many of you saw the articles in last weeks NEJM about sugar-sweetened beverages and their effect on body weight in children and adolescents. I thought they were particularly interesting (although not surprising in their results) in light of the new law passed in NYC by Mayor Bloomberg and the DOH limiting the size of any sugar-sweetened beverage sold at restaurants, street carts/trucks and entertainment venues to 16oz.
The first (Ruyter, et al) looked at children between the ages of 4 years and 12 years and gave each child an 8 oz beverage each day at school. The children received either an 8oz sugar-free, artificially sweetened beverage or an 8oz sugar-containing beverage (104 kcal). They followed the kids for 18 months and found (not surprisingly) that the children who were drinking the sugar containing beverages had statistically significantly higher BMIs, amount of weight gain, increase in fat mass and increase in skinfold-thickness measurements.
The second article (Ebbeling et al) looked at overweight and obese adolescents who regularly drank sugar-sweetened beverages (at least 12oz/day). Their intervention was a 1-year long program that included home-delivery of bottled water and diet beverages q2 weeks, monthly motivational phone calls with parents and 3 check-in visits with the adolescent over the course of the year. They also mailed written messages and reminders to the participants to drink the delivered drinks and not to buy or drink anything with sugar in it. The control group, on the other hand, got nothing. At the end of their 1-year intervention, they found that the intervention group was drinking fewer sugar-sweetened beverages each day, and had a lower BMI and less increase in weight as compared to the control group. At 2 years, however, (one year AFTER the intervention was complete), there was no significant difference in the BMIs between the 2 groups, even though the experimental group reportedly continued to drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages. Despite this incredibly intense intervention, the results were not sustainable.
I think these articles go to show that limiting sugar-containing beverages for ALL children can make a difference in decreasing BMIs and slowing weight gain, but that the intervention needs to be sustained … maybe like limiting their access to sugar-sweetened beverages??
Oh, and of course the beverage industry is suing… (courtesy of the NY times)
These are fascinating and compelling set studies. Might we change the soda selling practices in our own waiting rooms? Or even something as simple as providing water.
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