Associations of Maternal Non-Nutritive Sweetener Intake During Pregnancy with Childhood BMI Trajectory

Abstract

Abstract Objectives To examine the extent to which non-nutritive sweetener (NNS; e.g., aspartame) intake during pregnancy is associated with offspring BMI z-score trajectory from birth to 15 years. Methods We included 1683 mother-child pairs from Project Viva, a prospective pre-birth-cohort recruited in 1999–2002 in Massachusetts. The main exposure was maternal NNS intake assessed in the 1st and 2nd trimesters of pregnancy using a food frequency questionnaire. We defined NNS as servings/day of diet soda + NutraSweet (aspartame packets) averaged across 1st and 2nd trimesters. We used linear regression models to examine associations of maternal NSS intake with offspring BMI z-score at each in-person research visit (birth, 6 months, 3 years, 7 years, and 12 years). We also used mixed-effects models to examine associations with BMI z-score trajectory from birth to 15 years, including both research and clinical measures of BMI for 1570 participants with ≥3 BMI z-score values. We adjusted all models for maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, age, race/ethnicity, education, parity, and pregnancy smoking status. Results 70% of mothers were white and mean (SD) pre-pregnancy BMI was 24.6 (5.2) kg/m2. Mean (SD; IQR) intake of NNS was 0.23 (0.55; 0.22) servings/day. While maternal NNS intake (per servings/day) was not associated with BMI z-score at birth (β −0.03 units; 95% CI −0.14, 0.08), NNS was associated with higher BMI z-score at 6 months (β 0.17; 0.06, 0.28), 3 years (β 0.13; 0.03, 0.24), 7 years (β 0.16; 0.04, 0.29) and 12 years (β 0.16; 0.01, 0.31). Based on the BMI z-score trajectory, the associations of NNS intake (Q4 vs. Q1) with BMI z-score became stronger with increasing age from 3–14 years (pinteraction with age: <0.01); e.g., 3 years (β 0.13; 0.02, 0.23), 7 years (β 0.24; 0.11, 0.37) and 12 years (β 0.38; 0.20, 0.57). Conclusions Our findings showed higher maternal NNS intake during pregnancy was associated with higher BMI z-score from childhood to early adolescence, and the associations strengthened with increasing age. Funding Sources US National Institutes of Health (R01 HD034568, UH3 OD023286).