High maternal sugar intake during lactation impairs cognitive development in breastfed infants.
Breastfeeding has profound effects on an infant’s brain, greatly influencing their intellectual development. Evidence indicates that children and adolescents who were breastfed as infants score higher on intelligence tests than those who were not breastfed, even after taking maternal intelligence into consideration. However, components of a mother’s diet during lactation can counter the beneficial aspects of breastfeeding. Findings from a recent study suggest that sugar intake during lactation impairs cognitive development in breastfed infants.
The average person living in the United States consumes more than 500 calories per day in sugars, translating to roughly 100 pounds of sugar per year. High sugar consumption is associated with an increased risk for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease.
The prospective observational study involved 88 mother-infant pairs. The authors of the study collected demographic data that included maternal age, pre-pregnancy body mass index, and education level, among others. The mothers reported how many times they breastfed their infants every day and provided information about what they had eaten in a 24-hour period (using dietary recalls) when their infants were one and six months old. The authors of the study tested the infants' cognitive development when the infants were 24 months old.
Analysis of the recalls indicated that the women consumed approximately 1,650 calories per day when their infants were one month old. More than 22 percent of these calories were from total sugar, and more than 13 percent were from added sugar, particularly fructose. The mothers consumed as many as five sugar-sweetened beverages or juices per day, which are high in fructose.
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The authors found that higher maternal fructose consumption at one month postnatal was associated with worse infant developmental outcomes at 24 months postnatal. These findings held true even when considering maternal age, pre-pregnancy BMI, education level, caloric intake, infant age, sex, and birthweight.
The results of this study suggest that maternal sugar consumption during breastfeeding adversely affects infant cognitive development. The authors of the study conceded that the study’s design precluded determining causation.