MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
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Dr. Hatch[/caption]
Dr. Elizabeth E. Hatch, PhD
Professor, Epidemiology
School of Public Health
Boston University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We are conducting a large, ongoing, preconception cohort study, PREgnancy STudy Online or PRESTO
http://sites.bu.edu/presto/ in the U.S. and Canada of couples who are planning a pregnancy. The overall goal of the study is to identify factors that affect fertility, measured by the time taken to conceive, and factors that affect the risk of miscarriage. Since many women are postponing pregnancy until the later reproductive years, we would like to help find behavioral and environmental factors that might either help or harm fertility so that couples can avoid the stress and expense of infertility workups and treatment. As part of the larger study, we looked at consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) by both the male and female partner, since some previous research suggested that sugar-sweetened beverages might harm semen quality and ovulation.
For this analysis, we included 3,828 women aged 21 to 45 and 1,045 of their male partners. We asked both males and females (in separate baseline questionnaires) about their usual consumption of SSBs over the last month, and we had a drop-down menu with names of individual sodas (both sugar-sweetened and diet) and energy drinks. We also asked general questions about the frequency of fruit juice and ‘sports drink’ consumption. In our analysis, we controlled for multiple factors that might ‘confound’ the associations, such as body mass index, education, caffeine, smoking and alcohol consumption, as well as a measure of overall diet quality.
Scott Kaplan PhD
Assistant Professor of Economics
United States Naval Academy
Annapolis, MD 21402
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Sugar-sweetened beverages (colloquially known as SSBs), which include sodas, fruit drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, and sweetened coffee drinks, are the leading source of added sugars in the American diet, according to the CDC. They are associated with serious negative health outcomes, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, kidney disease, 
Dr. Jinhee Hur[/caption]
Jinhee Hur, PhD
Research Fellow
Department of Nutrition
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, MA 02115
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Early-onset colorectal cancer (EO-CRC, age <50 years at diagnosis) is rapidly rising in the US since the mid-1980s, with an unclear understanding of its etiology and contributors to the rise. Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) exert adverse metabolic repercussions throughout the life course, including insulin resistance and inflammation. Higher SSB intake can induce obesity, which has been linked to risk of EO-CRC. A recent experimental study also suggests that high fructose corn syrup, a primary sweetener in SSBs, may promote colon tumor growth, independent of metabolic dysregulation. In the US, SSB consumption has dramatically increased during the 2nd half of the 20th century, and adolescents and young adults have been the heaviest SSB drinkers across all age groups. Thus, we expect SSBs may be an emerging risk factor for EO-CRC and likely contribute to the rising incidence of EO-CRC.
Nadia Koyratty[/caption]
Nadia Koyratty PhD student
Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health
University at Buffalo
State University of New York
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The literature suggests that sugars contribute to the incidence of breast cancer, but few exists on the prognosis after a breast cancer diagnosis.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: Compared to breast cancer patients who never or rarely drank non-diet soda, those who reported drinking non-diet soda five times or more per week had a 62% higher likelihood of dying from any causes, and were 85% more likely to die from breast cancer specifically.
Dr. Crosbie[/caption]
Eric Crosbie, PhD, MA
Assistant Professor
School of Community Health Sciences
Ozmen Institute for Global Studies
University of Nevada Reno
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: My colleague Dr. Laura Schmidt and I established a framework for studying preemption (when a higher level of government limits the authority of lower levels to enact laws) by studying the 
Dr. Rebholz[/caption]
Casey M. Rebholz, PhD, MS, MNSP, MPH, FAHA
Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Core Faculty, Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research
Baltimore, MD 21287
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Individual beverages have been previously shown to influence risk of a wide range of cardiometabolic diseases. Less is known about beverage consumption and kidney disease risk.
In this study population, we found that one such beverage pattern consisted of soda, sugar-sweetened beverages, and water, and that higher adherence to the sugar-sweetened beverage pattern was associated with greater odds of developing incident kidney disease, even after accounting for demographic characteristics and established risk factors. 
Jennifer Woo Baidal, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Director of Pediatric Weight Management,
Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition,
Columbia University Medical Center &
New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Childhood obesity prevalence is historically high, with most incident obesity among children occurring before age 5 years. Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in childhood obesity are already apparent by the first years of life. Latino/Hispanic children in low-income families are at-risk for obesity. Thus, understanding potentially effective ways to prevent childhood obesity, particularly in vulnerable populations, should focus on early life.
Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption is a modifiable risk factor for obesity and is linked to other adverse health outcomes. Maternal SSB consumption in pregnancy and infant sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in the first year of life are linked to later childhood obesity.
We sought to describe beverage consumption in a modern cross-sectional cohort of 394 low-income, Latino families, and to examine the relationship of parental attitudes toward sugar-sweetened beverages with parental and infant SSB consumption.
