There has been a great deal of concern about how drinking sugary soft drinks can cause obesity and therefore associated serious health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and even cancer. Oxford University Press reported in an article which was released from embargo, that a newfound problem with sugary soft drinks has been an association with earlier onset of menstrual periods.
Researchers have found that girls who frequently consume sugary drinks generally start their menstrual periods earlier in life than girls who do not. This is the first study to explore the association between sugar-sweetened drinks and the age at which girls have their first period. The researchers followed 5583 girls who were aged 9-14 years.
The researchers found that the girls who drank more than 1.5 servings of sugary drinks daily had their first period 2.7 months earlier than those girls who consumed two or fewer soft drinks a week. It is significant that this finding was independent of the girls’ body mass index (BMI), height, total food intake and other lifestyle considerations such as physical activity.
There has been a growing problem of childhood obesity in developed countries. Clearly drinking sugary soft drinks makes this problem worse. Now there are also deepening concerns that drinking sugary soft drinks is also associated with girls getting their periods earlier in life because this has been linked to an increased risk of getting breast cancer later in life. Karin Michels (ScD, PhD), Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School who led this study, says this research adds to increasing concerns about the wide-spread consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks among kids and adolescents in the United States and elsewhere across the world.
In this study diet sodas and fruit juices were not found to be associated with any difference in the age at which girls began their periods. The researchers have explained that drinks which have added sugar have a higher glycemic index than the naturally sweetened drinks such as fruit juices. When high glycemic foods are consumed there is a rapid increase in insulin concentrations in the body. The higher insulin concentrations may lead to higher concentrations of sex hormones. It has been observed that significant alterations in the concentrations of sex hormones circulating in the body may be associated to periods starting earlier.
This study has been published in the journal Human Reproduction. Sugary soft drink consumption has been found to be associated with metabolic changes which could potentially impact the timing of a girls first period. Frequent consumption of sugary soft drinks may therefore cause earlier menarche via mechanisms other than increased BMI. Professor Michels says these findings offer further support for public health efforts to decrease the consumption of sugary drinks.
