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GUTS II: Sports drinks led to weight gain
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The risk for weight gain associated with soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages has been established. However, sports drinks are now being examined as a potential predictor for weight gain, according to data presented at The Obesity Society’s 30th annual scientific meeting.
“I think many people may be aware that soda contains a lot of sugar, but they are less aware that sports drinks contain similar numbers of calories per container,” researcher Alison E. Field, ScD, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, staff scientist at Children’s Hospital Boston, and associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in an interview.
Field told Endocrine Today that parents should seek to limit their children’s intake of sports drinks, as well as sodas.
Using the ongoing Growing Up Today Study II (GUTS II), Field and colleagues conducted a prospective study including 5,995 girls and 4,906 boys (aged 9 to 16 years at baseline).
The researchers collected questionnaires in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011 which included information on the adolescents’ beverage intake, weight and height. In 2008, dieting information was examined.
At baseline, the adolescents ingested an average (standard deviation) of 1.1 (1.6) servings per week of sports drinks, 2.5 (3.4) servings per week of sugar-sweetened soda, and 1.3 (3.0) servings per week of diet soda, according to data. Researchers found that BMI was moderately related to diet soda intake (males; r=0.24, females; r=0.23). However, this was unrelated to the intake of regular soda or sports drinks.
Data indicated the intake of sports drinks (0.03 kg/m2 per serving per week; P=.002) and diet soda (0.03 kg/m2 per serving per week; P<.0001) were linked to a greater increase in BMI, independent of gender, age, Tanner stage, time spent watching TV, and physical activity.
“Sports drinks are at least as predictive as sugar-sweetened soda of gaining weight,” Field said.
To appropriately consider confounders associated with diet soda, researchers restricted the analysis to BMI change between 2008 and 2011, and made further adjustments for dieting. This resulted in a disappearance of an association with diet soda, according to researchers (-0.00 kg/m2 per serving per week; P=.9).
Furthermore, the association with sports drinks (0.10 kg/m2 per serving per week; P=.02), as well as regular soda (0.05 kg/m2 per serving per week; P=.05), were stronger after adjusting for dieting, according to data.
The researchers suggest that sports drinks be limited much like other sugar-sweetened beverages due to their role in weight gain, independent of other predictors. Field said she and colleagues will continue to follow the adolescents, with emphasis on associations with energy drinks and sweetened coffee beverages.
Field suggests that clinicians should explain to patients that unless they are active for extended periods or active in very hot temperatures, there is no need to consume sports drinks. Clinicians should try to help their patients devise an appropriate hydration plan, she said. – By Samantha Costa
For more information:
Field AE. 27-OR. Presented at: The Obesity Society 30th Annual Scientific Meeting; September 20-24, 2012; San Antonio, Texas.
Disclosure: This study was funded by the NIDDK. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.