Do artificial sweeteners ingested in pregnancy affect the offspring?

Abstract

RATS treated with approximately 20 mg/kg of cyclamate each day have been found to behave abnormally1 and it is believed that the behavioural changes may be induced during meiosis and embryonic development2. The offspring are hyperactive and slow to develop a response to food reward and, once trained, they are deficient, in comparison with controls, in tasks requiring response inhibition. Our results suggest similarities to certain types of brain-lesioned rats and to minimal brain-damaged human offspring. We have studied the effects of artificial sweeteners on human offspring because, in the past decade, they have been consumed by vast numbers of women, particularly during pregnancy. The questionnaire technique, with all its inherent faults, has been used because this was the only method readily available; the area of interest was "hidden" in the series of questions asked. The data suggest that during the past decade there were correlations between the known use of artificial sweeteners during pregnancy and behavioural and physical aberrations in human offspring. ©1971 Nature Publishing Group.