Diet fizzy drinks while pregnant increase risk of condition in babies, study claims

A new study reveals that nursing or pregnant women who drink diet soda with aspartame in it may be increasing the risk of autism in their male babies.

The survey, which included mothers of 235 children with autism and a control group of 121 children with “typical neurological development,” found that male offspring whose mothers drank at least one diet soda a day were three times as likely to have autism as those whose mothers didn’t drink diet soda.

While this doesn’t prove a direct causal relationship, other studies have found that, not only is aspartame being linked to autism, but other neurological disorders as well. One study also found diet soda sweetener within the amniotic fluid surrounding a baby in the womb.

Sharon Parten Fowler, assistant professor of medicine at UT Health San Antonio and lead author of the study, added, “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.”