Consuming energy drinks before pregnancy may raise risk for gestational hypertension

Key takeaways:

• Energy drink use before pregnancy was linked to increased gestational hypertension risk.
• Stronger associations were noted between energy drink intake and gestational hypertension in women aged 28 years or older.

Energy drink consumption before pregnancy was associated with an increased risk for gestational hypertension, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.

“Given that the majority of energy drink consumers are young adults of reproductive age, including individuals who may become pregnant, it is of high importance to examine associations of energy drink intake with adverse pregnancy outcomes,” Ming Ding, ScD, researcher in the department of emergency medicine at the University of North Carolina and the department of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and colleagues wrote. “However, few studies have addressed this issue, which is likely due to the lack of available longitudinal data allowing the prospective assessment of the association between energy drink intake and pregnancy-related outcomes.”

Ding and colleagues conducted a prospective cohort study with data from 3,045 women (mean age, 30.2 years) who were enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study 3 (NHS3) from June 2010 to September 2021 and 1,691 women (mean age, 25.7 years) from the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS). All women reported at least one singleton pregnancy from 2011 to June 2019. Researchers evaluated energy drink consumption as measured by a food frequency questionnaire.

The primary outcomes were self-reported adverse pregnancy outcomes, including pregnancy loss, gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, preeclampsia or preterm birth.

Overall, researchers evaluated data on 7,304 pregnancies from 4,736 women with information on energy drink consumption before pregnancy and 4,559 pregnancies from 4,559 women with information on energy drink consumption during pregnancy.

At baseline, 14% of women from GUTS (mean age, 24.7 years) and 9% of women from NHS3 (mean age, 28.8 years) reported energy drink consumption. Energy drink consumption before pregnancy was associated with a higher risk for gestational hypertension (OR = 1.6; 95% CI, 1.12-2.29), but was not associated with pregnancy loss, preterm birth, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia or composite adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Researchers also observed a significant interaction between age and energy drink consumption in relation to gestational hypertension (P = .02) or any hypertensive disorders (P = .04), with stronger associations observed for women aged 28 years or older compared with ages younger than 28 years.

“Given the low prevalence of energy drink intake in the study population, the results should be interpreted with caution,” the researchers wrote. “However, our findings suggest that caution regarding energy drink consumption in reproductive-aged individuals should be exercised and that replication in future studies is needed.”