Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Serum Uric Acid, and Blood Pressure in Adolescents

Nguyen, Stephanie; Choi, Hyon K.; Lustig, Robert H.; Hsu, Chi-yuan

doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2009.01.015

« Previous Next »The Journal of Pediatrics
Volume 154, Issue 6 , Pages 807-813, June 2009

Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Serum Uric Acid, and Blood Pressure in Adolescents

Stephanie Nguyen, MD
- Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, Arthritis Research Centre of Canada, Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- Reprint requests: Dr Stephanie Nguyen, UCSF Children's Renal Center, 533 Parnassus Avenue, Box 0748, San Francisco, CA 94131-0748
Hyon K. Choi, MD, DrPH
- Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA
Robert H. Lustig, MD
- Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, Arthritis Research Centre of Canada, Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Chi-yuan Hsu, MD, MSc
- Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA

Received 29 August 2008; received in revised form 25 November 2008; accepted 9 January 2009. published online 20 April 2009.

Objective

To evaluate whether sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, a significant source of dietary fructose, is associated with higher serum uric acid levels and blood pressure in adolescents.

Study design

We analyzed cross-sectional data from 4867 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999-2004. Dietary data were assessed from 24-hour dietary recall interviews. Sugar-sweetened beverages included fruit drinks, sports drinks, soda, and sweetened coffee or tea. We used multivariate linear regression to evaluate the association of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption with serum uric acid and with blood pressure.

Results

Adolescents who drank more sugar-sweetened beverages tended to be older and male. In the adjusted model, serum uric acid increased by 0.18 mg/dL and systolic blood pressure z-score increased by 0.17 from the lowest to the highest category of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption (P for trend, .01 and .03, respectively).

Conclusions

These results from a nationally representative sample of US adolescents indicate that higher sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is associated with higher serum uric acid levels and systolic blood pressure, which may lead to downstream adverse health outcomes.

Abbreviations: BMI, Body mass index, NHANES, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

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S.N. was supported by the American Heart Association (0725258Y) and the Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco. C-y.H. was supported by NIH DK70939 and DK67126.

The authors disclose no conflicts of interest.

PII: S0022-3476(09)00015-8

doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2009.01.015