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Pooled review (meta-analysis)

Pooled review of 6 studies linked sweeteners in pregnancy to higher baby BMI score

Li and colleagues · Nutrients · 2022

Original title: Consumption of Non-Nutritive Sweetener during Pregnancy and Weight Gain in Offspring: Evidence from Human Studies.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to harm

Babies of mothers who used sweeteners had higher BMI z score at age 1 (weighted mean difference 0.19; 95% CI 0.07, 0.31; p=0.002). Evidence was rated low quality.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Pooled review (meta-analysis)
Who or what was studied
6 studies · mothers who used sweeteners in pregnancy and their babies up to age 1
What was tested
Sweetener use in pregnancy compared with none or lower use
What it measured
The question itself: body weight and metabolic health
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
Nutrients, 2022
Source
PubMed record 36501127. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Pools the results of 6 studies.
  • •A pooled review is only as strong as the studies it pools.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: body weight and metabolic health.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

This paper is not on the ladder. It is a pooled review (meta-analysis), and reviews and opinion pieces discuss studies that are already counted on the steps below.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: body weight

    4

    1 benefit, 1 mixed, 2 no difference

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    7

    1 benefit, 1 mixed, 4 no difference, 1 harm

  4. Population studies

    5

    1 benefit, 4 harm

  5. Blood levels and genes

    1

    1 harm

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Do artificial sweeteners cause weight gain?”

Trials say no; population studies disagree.

Confidence: low. Based on 32 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer
  • Listed with the other papers, but not quoted in the page’s main findings.

Other reviews on this question

See all 32 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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