Pregnant
women who drink just two cups of coffee a day could be putting their
babies at risk of leukaemia.
A major study has found that their babies
are up to 60 per cent more likely to develop the disease during
childhood.
Academics say the Government should issue
warnings to pregnant women to limit their coffee intake just as they are
told to cut back on alcohol and stop smoking.
Step away from that coffee: Pregnant women who drink just two cups of coffee a day could be putting their babies at risk of leukemia |
They think caffeine may change the DNA in the
foetus’s cells making them more susceptible to the development of
tumours.
Researchers who looked at more than 20 existing studies found
that babies of women who drank coffee during pregnancy were 20 per cent
more at risk of developing leukemia. But if they drank more than two
cups a day the risk rose to 60 per cent.
And
for women who had four or more cups a day it rose to 72 per cent,
according to the study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics
and Gynaecology.
Around 500 children are diagnosed with
leukaemia in the UK every year and it is by far the most common
childhood cancer.
The NHS advises pregnant women to limit themselves to 200mg of caffeine a day, equivalent to one and a half cups of filter coffee or two of instant |
Fortunately,
if detected early enough it can be treated with chemotherapy and
survival rates are around 80 per cent.
But despite
decades of research, scientists have been unable to pinpoint its cause
and previous links to power lines and nuclear power plants have been
dismissed.
The study concludes: ‘The findings suggest
that maternal coffee consumption during pregnancy may increase the risk
of childhood leukaemia.
Because of limited studies, further
prospective studies are urgently needed to explore the adverse effect of
coffee consumption on childhood leukaemia.’
Denis
Henshaw, Emeritus Professor of Human Radiation Effects at Bristol
University, who was not involved in the research but is an expert in the
field said: ‘I don’t think women should give up coffee altogether
during pregnancy but as a precaution they should limit their intake.
‘This could
be to less than two cups a day or maybe even as far as only having it
occasionally.
‘The findings are very striking that the risk
is 60 per cent higher for just two cups a day.
He added:
‘The incidence of childhood leukaemia has increased steadily in recent
decades.
‘So if things are changing over a short-term scale we have to
suspect some environmental factor and there can be more than one of
them.
‘There are lots of things out there we don’t like, power lines,
magnetic fields, pollution, all sorts of things.
‘Coffee
drinking has become popular, with well-known coffee shops expanding, so
coffee drinking has become very popular in the UK.
The NHS
advises pregnant women to limit themselves to 200mg of caffeine a day,
equivalent to one and a half cups of filter coffee or two of instant.
But the
advice is relaxed and it tells women not to worry if they exceed this
amount as the ‘risks are small.’
Tory MP Andrew Percy, who sits on the Commons
Health Select Committee said: ‘This is an interesting study that
requires further investigation.
‘If there are robust findings which show an
association between drinking coffee during pregnancy and leukaemia, then
it makes sense that guidance be issued to women so they can make an
informed choice about whether to drink coffee when expecting.’
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