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Sunday, 1 February 2015, 15:02 BFH Home 0

More junk science from scientists paid to discover favored outcomes.

NEWSER Reporting – Scientists have previously observed that girls are having their first periods earlier than they once did, and a new study offers a possible reason: sugary beverages like soda. Researchers studied 5,583 US children between 1996 and 2001; they found that girls ages nine to 14 who downed an average of more than 1.5 sugary drinks each day experienced their first periods 2.7 months earlier than girls who had no more than two each week, the Press Association reports via the Guardian. That’s of some concern, experts say, because earlier periods have been linked to a higher risk of breast cancer. Obesity has also been associated with earlier periods, but the study’s findings held true “independently of body mass index,” says a researcher; the results were also independent of physical activity and overall food intake, Today reports.

One possible explanation is that added-sugar beverages can drive up insulin, which can increase sex hormone concentrations, which in turn can lead to earlier periods. (Diet sodas and fruit juices weren’t linked to earlier periods,Medical Daily reports.) Today points to one issue with the study: It didn’t define the serving size involved. And an outside expert wonders whether 2.7 months really means much—but the lead author says it does. The results “are actually very powerful because consumption of these kinds of drinks is something that can be modified,” she notes.

23 Comments on Red Bull

  1. If you had made us guess and not given the answer in this post, I would have guessed climate change was causing it. I’ll bet I can find some scientist that claims sugary drinks are causing climate change and draw all this to the logical conclusion that it is all greedy American Corporations fault, except Apple, Apple is a good corporation, they do now bad.

  4. I call bullshit (as does the rest of the thinking world). As a kid, I drank more sugary drinks that most kids today. We didn’t have diet anything; it was sugar or nothing. Today, most girls are hyperplectic about their looks and weight and drink mostly diet everything.

  6. Uncle Al, I agree re HFCS, and it seems to have some bad effects that haven’t been officially recognized. A sciencey friend of mine told me to check my labels for HFCS after I complained about having aching joints for no reason. Sure enough, just about all of my favorite breads, ice creams, crackers, and other snacks had been reformulated to include HFCS and I was eating massive amounts of the stuff every day. I cut it all out, and voila! Aches went away.

  7. If you take any sample size of, say, 5583 US girls and divided them up in half, thirds, fifths, or dozens. It doesn’t matter how you slice the pie or what the girls are fed. There will always be variances in the data to the degree of some nominal number, say 2.7 months. One could also draw further conclusions from the data they gathered from those 5583 US girls, those that drank the drink also prefered the color pink and larger penis sizes, to the tune of 2.7%. Those that were born in April menstrated 2.7 months later than those born in October, regardless of soda content. I could go on and on…

  8. Hey, let’s piss off the left and blame it on vaccines! Yeah, that’s the ticket! Vaccines cause periods earlier! Oh, and so do smart phones! And Xbox does too! Anything new, like the internet, can be said to cause everything bad just like leisure suits cause cancer in rats in California!

  10. So is Kool-Aid getting a free pass?

    How long has sugar+water been around?

    Forever?

    I like that that the world’s oldest drug happens naturally from sugars in plant materials.

    I once had a fruiting Mulberry tree that was very alcohol-y underneath it in certain times & conditions of the year.

  12. @Dadof4–my thoughts exactly! I used to mix sugar in the Kool-Aid pack and eat it without mixing it with water. I wasn’t an “early bloomer.” Bad science as usual. The only thing I learned in Statistics class was that you can prove anything with the right numbers.

  17. Fructose is metabolized differently than our old friend sucrose (table sugar). These are two good summaries, especially the first:

    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-19/news/ct-met-fructose–20120919_1_fructose-table-sugar-simple-sugar

    http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/index.xml

    Tim, I think the food manufacturers’ lobby is at least as powerful in Washington as the cane sugar lobby, probably more, so I suspect we’re being manipulated into accepting HFCS. It’s much cheaper in both short and long runs to use HFCS in products–cheaper to make the product, and the product has a longer shelf life and tends to have a more appealing texture so people are more likely to buy it again.

    But this is off the original topic. I agree with Factslady about hormones in food. They have long been suspected to cause or help cause premature adolescence. (I had to research this a few years ago for preteen-pregnancy statistics.) The combo of hormones in milk and meat plus excess body fat to store them in was tied to the spike in once-rare preteen pregnancies. I don’t know what the thinking is now.

  19. When the shtf I’ll take either one and so will most of us.
    About the time they convince everybody that it’s bad for you somebody comes out with another study saying it ain’t so.
    HFCS is just cheaper so that what’s in most stuff and we know they would never put crap in our food because they care about the children and such..

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