fruit juice

Weight Gain in Children Linked to Drinking Fruit Juice: Study

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The study was published this week in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The findings are important because past research has shown that children who are overweight or obese during childhood are likely to continue to remain so during adulthood. The authors of this latest study recommended limiting “consumption of fruit juice to prevent the intake of excess calories and weight gain.”

Led by researchers from the University of Toronto in Canada, the team looked at data from 42 past research studies, looking for links between drinking 100% fruit juice and weight gain in adults and in children. They also found evidence that drinking 100% fruit juice was connected  with adult body weight gain but said more research is needed in the area. The researchers did find clear patterns between children’s juice intake and weight gain. 

The 100% fruit juice in the study was defined as having no added sugar, and a serving was 8 ounces.

The researchers analyzed data for nearly 46,000 children ranging in age from 1 to 15 years old. They found that each additional serving  of 100% fruit juice was linked to an increase in body mass index, which is a measure of height and weight used to determine whether someone is overweight or obese. Compared to whole fruit, juice contains little or no fiber and drinking it can result in not feeling full despite drinking a high number of calories, the authors noted. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends not giving fruit juice to infants under 1 year old and limiting it to 4 ounces per day as part of a meal for toddlers and young children. Children between 1 and 6 years old should not drink more than 6 ounces per day, the group recommends.

“Fruit juice offers no nutritional benefits over whole fruit,” the Academy explains on its website for parents. “Whole fruits also provide fiber and other nutrients. Children should not be given fruit juice at bedtime. Also, juice should not be given to children as a treatment of dehydration or management of diarrhea.

Health officials and researchers have sounded the alarm about childhood overweight and obesity in recent years, as 1 in 5 U.S. children ages 2 to 19 years old are medically obese. Having obesity puts children at risk of serious obesity-related health problems like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, asthma, sleep apnea, and joint problems, the CDC warns. 

Children in this latest study gained more weight than children who drank zero-calorie beverages, like water, or when juice was intentionally added to a child’s daily intake and then compared to children with a normal diet. The biggest increase in BMI among children drinking fruit juice was seen among kids ages 8 years old and younger when compared to kids of the same age who drank other non-caloric beverages.

Types of juices that the children drank included pomegranate, berry, tart cherry, apple, citrus, and grape. The researchers didn’t find any differences in the impact on BMI based on the type of juice consumed. They said a potential cause of weight gain from drinking 100% fruit juice was “the consumption of liquid calories, which has been shown to result in greater weight gain compared with the ingestion of solid calories. Compared with whole fruit, 100% fruit juice contains less dietary fiber, leading to the rapid absorption of fructose in the liver.” They explained that this rapid absorption of naturally occurring sugar from fruits can impact how the liver works and can also influence cholesterol levels in the body.

“Our findings are in support of public health guidance to limit consumption of 100% fruit juice to prevent overweight and obesity,” the study authors concluded.

Fruit juice just another sugary drink?

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Inclusion of fruit juice as a fruit equivalent is probably counter-productive, researchers at the University of Glasgow have warned. File photo
APInclusion of fruit juice as a fruit equivalent is probably counter-productive, researchers at the University of Glasgow have warned. File photo
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Drinking fruit juice as a substitute for fruits could be counter-productive due to its high sugar content, researchers at the University of Glasgow have warned.

Writing in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal, Professor Naveed Sattar and Dr. Jason Gill both of the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, call for better labelling of fruit juice containers to make explicit to consumers that they should drink no more than 150ml a day.

They also recommend a change to the U.K. Government’s current five-a-day guidelines, saying these five fruit and vegetable servings should no longer include a portion of fruit juice.

Inclusion of fruit juice as a fruit equivalent is probably counter-productive because it fuels the perception that drinking fruit juice is good for health, and thus need not be subject to the limits that many individuals impose on themselves for consumption of less healthy foods.

Professor Sattar, who is Professor of Metabolic Medicine, said, “Fruit juice has a similar energy density and sugar content to other sugary drinks, for example: 250ml of apple juice typically contains 110 kcal and 26g of sugar; and 250ml of cola typically contains 105kcal and 26.5g of sugar.”

“Additionally, by contrast with the evidence for solid fruit intake, for which high consumption is generally associated with reduced or neutral risk of diabetes, current evidence suggests high fruit juice intake is associated with increased risk of diabetes.

“One glass of fruit juice contains substantially more sugar than one piece of fruit; in addition, much of the goodness in fruit fibre, for example is not found in fruit juice, or is there in far smaller amounts,” Sattar said.

Although fruit juices contain vitamins and minerals, whereas sugar-sweetened drinks do not, Gill argues that the micronutrient content of fruit juices might not be sufficient to offset the adverse metabolic consequences of excessive fruit juice consumption.

“In one scientific trial, for example, it was shown that, despite having a high antioxidant content, the consumption of half a litre of grape juice per day for three months actually increased insulin resistance and waist circumference in overweight adults,” Gill said.

“Thus, contrary to the general perception of the public, and of many healthcare professionals, that drinking fruit juice is a positive health behaviour, their consumption might not be substantially different in health terms than drinking other sugary drinks,” he said.

Fruit juice not a healthy option: UK expert.

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If you are going to drink fruit juice, you should dilute it, says Susan Jebb, head of diet and obesity research at the Medical Research Council’s Human Nutrition Research unit in Cambridge. File photo: V.V. Krishnan
The Hindu If you are going to drink fruit juice, you should dilute it, says Susan Jebb, head of diet and obesity research at the Medical Research Council’s Human Nutrition Research unit in Cambridge.Fruit juice should be removed from the recommended list of five-a-day portions of fruit or vegetables in the U.K. as it contained as much sugar as many soft drinks, an adviser to the government on obesity has said.

Susan Jebb, head of diet and obesity research at the Medical Research Council’s Human Nutrition Research unit in Cambridge, said she did not see juice as a healthy option.

“I would support taking it out of the five-a-day guidance,” she said.

“Fruit juice isn’t the same as intact fruit and it has got as much sugar as many classical sugar drinks. It is also absorbed very fast so by the time it gets to your stomach your body doesn’t know whether it’s Coca-Cola or orange juice, frankly,” she told Sunday Times.

“I have to say it is a relatively easy thing to give up. Swap it and have a piece of real fruit. If you are going to drink it, you should dilute it,” she said.

Ms. Jebb said she had herself stopped drinking orange juice and advised others to do so, or at least drink it diluted.

The paper quoted her as saying she would support a wider tax on sugar-heavy drinks.

Ms. Jebb works closely with the U.K. government on diet and obesity issues, and leads the government’s so-called health responsibility deal, which oversees voluntary pledges by the food and drink industry to improve public health.

Her comments follow a similar warning in September by two U.S. scientists, Barry Popkin and George Bray, who exposed the health risks of fructose corn syrup in soft drinks in 2004.

Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, told the Guardian that fruit juices and fruit smoothies were “the new danger”.

“Think of eating one orange or two and getting filled. Now think of drinking a smoothie with six oranges and two hours later it does not affect how much you eat. The entire literature shows that we feel full from drinking beverages like smoothies but it does not affect our overall food intake, whereas eating an orange does,” he said.

“So pulped-up smoothies do nothing good for us but do give us the same amount of sugar as four to six oranges or a large coke. It is deceiving,” Mr. Popkin said.