Jen is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of HobokenGirl. With deep entrepreneurial roots in Hudson County — as her grandparents owned textile businesses on Tonnelle Ave in North Bergen dating back to the 50s — she started the site as a Hoboken resident in to discover the amazing things happening in the area.

She's a former digital editor at Conde Nast, and in a 'prior life' — was school counselor in a North Jersey elementary school. She can usually be found shopping at local boutiques, eating an Insta-worthy meal, walking her two pups, or watching Bravo TV and ordering takeout with her husband.

The FRINK App: A Free Drink a Day {Keeps the Fomo Away} by Jennifer Tripucka November 6, Jennifer Tripucka November 6, Become a local expert in no time. Enter your email address to stay in-the-know. No spam, promise. Email address.

I loved it!!! Just another reason to sign up today. Variety of drink options to choose from and customize! Less than 35¢ a day SIGN UP NOW. One subscription per person, one redemption per subscriber, per day.

Must be at least 18 years of age or older to register. This plan will auto-renew every thirty 30 days when you enroll online, unless the subscription is terminated before the auto-renewal date.

You may cancel at any time. Subscription limited to any size dispensed beverage, including refills up to 64oz per drink, per day. Includes hot coffee, iced coffee, cappuccino, hot tea, fountain drinks, iced tea, Aguas Frescas, and Froster.

Subscription program redemption available only at participating U. stores only. However, we found similar results when the data of these 57 children were left out data not shown. The lack of a statistically significant effect does not exclude that we may have failed to pick up small differences in satiety between beverage groups.

However, since the effects were in opposite directions at 1 and 15 minutes after intake, we consider it likely that sugar-free and sugar-sweetened beverages did not lead to systematically different levels of satiety. The dietary status of our children was less standardized than in previous studies which included an overnight fast plus a standardized breakfast[ 8 , 9 ].

Finally, we measured satiety by questionnaire and we did not quantitate actual food intake following the beverage intake[ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. The participants in our study were healthy Dutch children, and most of them were white and of normal weight.

Future studies should be done to find out whether our findings hold for other ethnic groups or for obese children. Future studies may also examine the effect on satiety at intervals longer than 15 minutes[ 28 ]. One important question is whether our findings are unique for sugars in liquid form.

Short term studies with semi-solid foods such as pudding and jelly suggested that noncaloric sweeteners produced the same degree of satiety as sucrose[ 20 , 29 ]. It is unknown whether covert removal of solid calories is detected by receptors that determine satiety, although there is evidence that such removal reduces satiety and leads to compensatory intake of calories from other sources[ 30 , 31 ].

We found that sugar-sweetened and sugar-free beverages produced similar satiety. This may explain our previous observation that the children in the sugar-free group accumulated less body fat than those in the sugar group[ 1 ].

We thank the children, parents, school administrators and teachers for their cooperation; Emilie de Zoete and Hetty Geerars for assistance in the execution of the study, and Michiel de Boer for statistical analyses.

Conceived and designed the experiments: MBK MRO DGL. Performed the experiments: JCR. Analyzed the data: JCR LDJK. Wrote the manuscript: JCR MRO LDJK DGL MBK. Browse Subject Areas? Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

Article Authors Metrics Comments Media Coverage Reader Comments Figures. Abstract Background Substituting sugar-free for sugar-sweetened beverages reduces weight gain. Methods We randomized children aged years to receive mL per day of an artificially sweetened sugar-free beverage or a similarly looking and tasting sugar-sweetened beverage.

Conclusions Sugar-sweetened and sugar-free beverages produced similar satiety. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials. Introduction Recent trials have shown that sugar-free beverages lead to less weight gain than sugar-sweetened drinks[ 1 , 2 ].

Methods Ethics statement Written informed consent was provided by a parent or guardian who had obtained assent from the child. Study population The primary objective of the DRINK trial was to examine the effect of masked replacement of sugar-sweetened beverages with noncaloric, artificially sweetened beverages on weight gain.

Download: PPT. Figure 1. Randomization and follow-up of the study participants. Study beverages Dutch primary school children habitually bring a snack and a beverage to school for the morning break.

Satiety, liking and wanting We measured satiety, liking and wanting with a questionnaire Figure 2 ; Supporting information, Appendix S1. Statistical Analyses We present outcome variables as medians and interquartile ranges. Results Participants The participants were aged a Values are means SD or percentages, as indicated.

A child is designated Dutch if both parents were born in the Netherlands, and Non-western if one or both parents were born in Suriname, Dutch Antilles, Turkey, Morocco, Russia, Egypt or Vietnam. Lower to intermediate education is Elementary school, Lower vocational secondary education, Technical secondary education, Intermediate secondary education or Intermediate vocational education.

We based educational level on whichever of the parents had the highest education. d Body-Mass Index Is the Weight in Kilograms Divided by the Square of the Height in Meters.

e We calculated z score of body-mass index and height from the Dutch reference data[32]. f We used international cut-offs for low and healthy body-mass index [33] and for overweight and obesity.

a Values are median interquartile range, x to x or mean SD unless otherwise notes. Numbers of participants do not match those in Figure 1 because of absentees. Satiety In both groups, satiety was lowest before and highest 1 minute after beverage intake, and then decreased during the subsequent 14 minutes Table 2 ; Figure 3.

Figure 3. Satiety after intake minus satiety before intake of the beverages at 18 months in children. a Odds ratios indicate the likelihood that satiety in the sugar group increased by 1 point more than satiety in the sugar-free group.

b Adjusted for satiety prior to the beverage intake. c Adjusted for satiety prior to the beverage intake, snack intake, gender, and baseline BMI z score. d Odds ratios indicate the likelihood that liking or wanting were 1 point higher in the sugar-group than in the sugar-free group.

e Crude model. f Adjusted for gender and baseline BMI z score. Figure 4. Arithmetic mean scores for satiety, liking, and wanting over the course of the trial. Liking and wanting The children randomized to receive sugar-sweetened beverages liked these slightly more than those who received sugar-free beverages for 18 months; the odds ratio for a difference of 1 point on the liking scale was 1.

Discussion We found that sugar-free and sugar-sweetened beverages produced similar degrees of satiety in a large population of children who consumed such beverages daily for 18 months.

Supporting Information. Checklist S1. CONSORT checklist. s DOCX. Protocol S1. Study protocol including amendments. s PDF. Appendix S1. Sensory questionnaire with English translation.

Acknowledgments We thank the children, parents, school administrators and teachers for their cooperation; Emilie de Zoete and Hetty Geerars for assistance in the execution of the study, and Michiel de Boer for statistical analyses.

Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: MBK MRO DGL. References 1. de Ruyter JC, Olthof MR, Seidell JC, Katan MB A trial of sugar-free or sugar-sweetened beverages and body weight in children.

N Engl J Med PubMed: View Article Google Scholar 2. Ebbeling CB, Feldman HA, Chomitz VR, Antonelli TA, Gortmaker SL et al. View Article Google Scholar 3. Blundell J, de Graaf C, Hulshof T, Jebb S, Livingstone B et al.

Obes Rev View Article Google Scholar 4. Cassady BA, Considine RV, Mattes RD Beverage consumption, appetite, and energy intake: what did you expect? Am J Clin Nutr View Article Google Scholar 5. Tordoff MG, Alleva AM Effect of drinking soda sweetened with aspartame or high-fructose corn syrup on food intake and body weight.

View Article Google Scholar 6. Porikos KP, Booth G, Van Itallie TB Effect of covert nutritive dilution on the spontaneous food intake of obese individuals: a pilot study. View Article Google Scholar 7. Rolls BJ, Kim S, Fedoroff IC Effects of drinks sweetened with sucrose or aspartame on hunger, thirst and food intake in men.

Physiol Behav View Article Google Scholar 8. Holt SH, Sandona N, Brand-Miller JC The effects of sugar-free vs sugar-rich beverages on feelings of fullness and subsequent food intake.

Int J Food Sci Nutr View Article Google Scholar 9. Canty DJ, Chan MM Effects of consumption of caloric vs noncaloric sweet drinks on indices of hunger and food consumption in normal adults. View Article Google Scholar Van Wymelbeke V, Béridot-Thérond ME, de La Guéronnière V, Fantino M Influence of repeated consumption of beverages containing sucrose or intense sweeteners on food intake.

Eur J Clin Nutr Beridot-Therond ME, Arts I, Fantino M, De La Gueronniere V Short-term effects of the flavour of drinks on ingestive behaviours in man. Appetite Berridge KC Food reward: brain substrates of wanting and liking. Neurosci Biobehav Rev Mela DJ Eating for pleasure or just wanting to eat?

Sip & Save FAQ's. With Circle K's Sip & Save subscription program, you can enjoy a beverage of your choice every day for just $ a month (30days) Enjoy the benefits of a complete coffee solution by signing up for your FREE trial. Beverage MakersWater Systems. Food & Snacks. Micro Markets Solutions Conclusions: Masked replacement of sugar-containing beverages with noncaloric beverages reduced weight gain and fat accumulation in normal-

Video

Free beverage trial - Would you like to get a Free Trial of our Coffee Service? Fill out the form below and someone will contact you soon! Sip & Save FAQ's. With Circle K's Sip & Save subscription program, you can enjoy a beverage of your choice every day for just $ a month (30days) Enjoy the benefits of a complete coffee solution by signing up for your FREE trial. Beverage MakersWater Systems. Food & Snacks. Micro Markets Solutions Conclusions: Masked replacement of sugar-containing beverages with noncaloric beverages reduced weight gain and fat accumulation in normal-

Dutch primary school children habitually bring a snack and a beverage to school for the morning break. We replaced the beverage brought from home with our study beverages.

We provided children with 1 can per day of a noncaloric, artificially sweetened, noncarbonated beverage or a sugar-sweetened noncarbonated beverage.

We developed custom drinks for this study to ensure that the sugar-free and sugar-sweetened drinks tasted and looked essentially the same. The identical-looking ml cans provided either 0 or 26 g of sucrose 0 or kcal per day. The sugar-free beverages contained 34 mg sucralose and 12 mg acesulfame K as sweeteners.

After the DRINK trial of 18 months the large majority of children were unable to guess whether they had received sugar-sweetened or sugar-free drinks[ 1 ]. Each week children received a box at school labelled with their name and containing 8 cans, 1 for each day of the week plus 1 extra to be used as a spare in case a can was misplaced.

We offered beverages in four flavours: raspberry, peach, lemon and mango. Flavours were rotated every two weeks. We measured satiety, liking and wanting with a questionnaire Figure 2 ; Supporting information, Appendix S1. The satiety scale has been validated in children aged years old who indicated satiety produced by three different imagined eating situations[ 15 ].

Children showed different outcomes for each meal suggesting that our satiety scale indeed measures satiety. Leon et al. compared three methods to measure liking in children aged 4 to 10 years old[ 16 ]. They concluded that the scale used by us provides a reliable and valid estimate of liking in children aged years.

The wanting scale has been used earlier [ 17 ] but has not been formally validated yet. The timeline is indicative because each school had its own timing of the morning break.

Children completed a single questionnaire of satiety, liking and wanting on one day every 6 months. They did this during the am morning break when they consumed their study drink and snack. The teachers instructed the children explicitly how to fill out the questionnaire and to consume their drink.

The teacher also asked them to write down in the questionnaire whether they had finished the contents of the can. One researcher was present at each school and circulated between school classes during the measurements.

The children filled out the questionnaires themselves without assistance. We measured satiety, liking and wanting on 5-point scales; 1 indicated low levels, and 5 high levels Supporting information, Appendix S1.

We measured satiety three times on each test day: just before intake of the study beverage and the food brought from home, 1 minute after intake, and 15 minutes after intake[ 3 ]. We measured wanting 1 minute before and liking 1 minute after intake.

The questionnaire also inquired about snack consumption, i. the amount and type of food eaten with the study beverage. We calculated the calories in these snack food[ 18 , 19 ]. We present outcome variables as medians and interquartile ranges. We used generalized linear mixed model analysis in STATA SE 12 StataCorp LP, Texas, USA.

The generalized linear mixed model analyses took into account the repeated measurements at 0, 6, 12 and 18 months, and the ordinal structure of the 5-point scales. For children who discontinued beverage intake we included the data obtained up until discontinuation.

We calculated regression coefficients for the likelihood that on the 5-point satiety scale the sugar-group increased by 1 point more than in the sugar-free group. We separately calculated increases in satiety from before intake to 1 minute after intake, and from before intake to 15 minutes after intake by adjusting for satiety prior to intake model 1.

In model 2 we additionally adjusted for caloric intake from snacks with the beverage, for gender and for BMI z score. Adjustments for gender and BMI z score served to correct for imbalances in randomization.

We used similar analyses to calculate differences between treatment groups in liking and wanting of the beverages.

Calculations of liking and wanting were adjusted for gender and BMI z score at the start of the study. We also calculated regression coefficients for effect modification by month of measurement. The sugar-free group always served as the reference group. Therefore, odds ratios larger than 1 imply that the effect in the sugar group was larger than that in the sugar-free group, and vice versa.

We also present arithmetic means of scores to show the differences between groups, and how the means changed with time. However, we did not perform statistical analyses of the arithmetic means because the outcomes were on an ordinal scale.

The participants were aged Baseline characteristics were similar for the two treatment groups, except that the sugar group had more girls, a lower mean BMI, and parents had on average achieved higher education levels Table 1.

Table 1. Baseline characteristics of participants. These percentages were similar for the two groups Table 2. Cross contamination and compliance were described previously[ 1 ]. Analysis of sucralose in urine showed that children in the sugar-group had not consumed sugar-free beverages.

The caloric intake from the snacks brought from home was 90 kcal in the sugar-free group and 84 kcal in the sugar group, mean SD Table 2 [ 18 , 19 ].

Table 2. Medians with interquartile ranges of satiety, liking, wanting, and beverage- and snack intake, measured on a 5-point scale in children. In both groups, satiety was lowest before and highest 1 minute after beverage intake, and then decreased during the subsequent 14 minutes Table 2 ; Figure 3.

Sugar content of the beverages did not significantly affect satiety Table 3 ; Figure 4. At 1 minute after intake, the odds ratio for satiety was 0. At 15 minutes, the effect was in the opposite direction, with an odds ratio of 1.

Adjustments for caloric intake from the snack, for gender and for BMI z score at the start of the study had only minor effects on outcomes Table 3. Effect modification by timepoint, i.

Satiety was scored from 1 not full at all to 5 very full. Bars indicate the shift in satiety from before to after intake of the beverages. Panel A shows satiety 1 minute after intake; Panel B, 15 minutes after intake.

An increase of 1 means any increase of 1 point on the 5-point scale. Table 3. Odds ratios for the effect of sugar-sweetened versus sugar-free beverages on satiety, liking and wanting across the duration of the trial.

Dashed lines, sugar group; solid lines, sugar-free group. T bars indicate one standard deviation. The children randomized to receive sugar-sweetened beverages liked these slightly more than those who received sugar-free beverages for 18 months; the odds ratio for a difference of 1 point on the liking scale was 1.

However, when the scores on the 5-point scale were averaged arithmetically the differences between the group means were small, and much smaller than the overall fall in liking over the course of the trial Figure 4. Average liking fell by 1. This suggests that duration of consuming the drinks did not influence the differences in liking between groups.

The children also wanted sugar-sweetened beverages more than sugar-free beverages; the odds ratio for a 1-point difference was 1. We found that sugar-free and sugar-sweetened beverages produced similar degrees of satiety in a large population of children who consumed such beverages daily for 18 months.

We previously reported that the children who consumed the sugar-free beverages accumulated less body fat than children who consumed sugar-sweetened beverages[ 1 ]. The present study suggests that this may be explained by similar levels of satiety. When we substituted sugar-free beverages for the sugar-containing drinks that children drank habitually, they apparently did not feel a need to eat more of other foods and drinks to compensate for the missing calories.

We tested satiety under real-life conditions, i. during the morning break at school when children consumed their beverage together with their usual snack. We assume that satiety was determined by snack intake — mostly crackers, sweets, or fruits - , beverage volume, and caloric content of the drink.

Mean caloric intake from snacks and volume of drinks were the same between groups but the sugar-free drinks contained 26 g less sucrose. We conclude that the sugar content of the drinks did not have a measurable effect on satiety.

This finding is consistent with short term experiments in adults[ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ] that also found similar levels of satiety following sugar-containing and sugar-free beverages. Effect modification by month of measurement for satiety 15 minutes after intake was marginally significant.

This could indicate that sugar-sweetened beverages became more satiating as the trial proceeded. However, this may have been a chance finding. We found that the children liked and wanted the sugar-sweetened beverage slightly more than the sugar-free beverage.

These differences persisted throughout the study even though overall liking and wanting of both types of beverage fell drastically with time. In contrast, short-term studies with pudding[ 20 ], or beverages[ 11 ] found similar ratings of pleasantness for aspartame-sweetened and sucrose-sweetened products.

However, beverages containing a blend of aspartame, acesulfame K and saccharin were rated lower in pleasantness than beverages containing sucrose[ 10 ]. Another study reported that cream cheese sweetened with aspartame had a more pleasant taste than cream cheese containing stevia or sucrose[ 21 ].

Thus the pleasantness of artificially sweetened products may be highly dependent on the type and mix of sweeteners used and on other aspects of product formulation. According to the literature different neural pathways are involved in liking and wanting[ 12 ].

However, our data suggest that these concepts may be related since they produced similar results. Future research is needed to examine whether wanting and liking indeed involve the same neural pathway or that our wanting scale lacked validity.

Liking and wanting of the trial drinks decreased markedly in both groups over the course of the trial. Similar declines have been reported in studies with solid foods over periods of 15 days to 6 months[ 22 , 23 , 24 ]. The decrease in liking and wanting agrees with our observation that most children who discontinued intake gave dislike of the beverage as their reason.

A year and a half is indeed a long time for a child to drink the same drink every day, and the variety of flavours that we offered was obviously not enough to overcome this. Sensory-specific satiety may have decreased liking and wanting over time[ 25 ].

Our study had several strengths. One is its long duration. Previous studies had a maximum duration of 4 weeks[ 10 ]. Long term studies may be more informative because short term satiety signals may have little to do with the long term mechanisms that determine weight gain.

Our study was large; we included subjects, as opposed to 11 to 42 in previous studies[ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. Also, we used a double-blind design that eliminated the effects of psychological cues and socially desirable behaviour. Previous studies were either incompletely blinded[ 7 , 9 ] or not blinded[ 8 ].

Finally, we performed our study in children while previous studies investigated adults only. Regulation of food intake in adults may differ from that in children[ 26 , 27 ]. Our study also had limitations. However, we found similar results when the data of these 57 children were left out data not shown.

The lack of a statistically significant effect does not exclude that we may have failed to pick up small differences in satiety between beverage groups. However, since the effects were in opposite directions at 1 and 15 minutes after intake, we consider it likely that sugar-free and sugar-sweetened beverages did not lead to systematically different levels of satiety.

The dietary status of our children was less standardized than in previous studies which included an overnight fast plus a standardized breakfast[ 8 , 9 ].

Finally, we measured satiety by questionnaire and we did not quantitate actual food intake following the beverage intake[ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. The participants in our study were healthy Dutch children, and most of them were white and of normal weight.

Future studies should be done to find out whether our findings hold for other ethnic groups or for obese children. Future studies may also examine the effect on satiety at intervals longer than 15 minutes[ 28 ]. One important question is whether our findings are unique for sugars in liquid form.

Short term studies with semi-solid foods such as pudding and jelly suggested that noncaloric sweeteners produced the same degree of satiety as sucrose[ 20 , 29 ]. It is unknown whether covert removal of solid calories is detected by receptors that determine satiety, although there is evidence that such removal reduces satiety and leads to compensatory intake of calories from other sources[ 30 , 31 ].

We found that sugar-sweetened and sugar-free beverages produced similar satiety. This may explain our previous observation that the children in the sugar-free group accumulated less body fat than those in the sugar group[ 1 ].

We thank the children, parents, school administrators and teachers for their cooperation; Emilie de Zoete and Hetty Geerars for assistance in the execution of the study, and Michiel de Boer for statistical analyses.

Conceived and designed the experiments: MBK MRO DGL. Performed the experiments: JCR. Analyzed the data: JCR LDJK. Wrote the manuscript: JCR MRO LDJK DGL MBK. Browse Subject Areas? Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. Article Authors Metrics Comments Media Coverage Reader Comments Figures.

Abstract Background Substituting sugar-free for sugar-sweetened beverages reduces weight gain. Methods We randomized children aged years to receive mL per day of an artificially sweetened sugar-free beverage or a similarly looking and tasting sugar-sweetened beverage.

Conclusions Sugar-sweetened and sugar-free beverages produced similar satiety. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials. Introduction Recent trials have shown that sugar-free beverages lead to less weight gain than sugar-sweetened drinks[ 1 , 2 ]. Methods Ethics statement Written informed consent was provided by a parent or guardian who had obtained assent from the child.

Study population The primary objective of the DRINK trial was to examine the effect of masked replacement of sugar-sweetened beverages with noncaloric, artificially sweetened beverages on weight gain.

Download: PPT. Figure 1. Randomization and follow-up of the study participants. Study beverages Dutch primary school children habitually bring a snack and a beverage to school for the morning break. Satiety, liking and wanting We measured satiety, liking and wanting with a questionnaire Figure 2 ; Supporting information, Appendix S1.

Statistical Analyses We present outcome variables as medians and interquartile ranges. Results Participants The participants were aged a Values are means SD or percentages, as indicated. A child is designated Dutch if both parents were born in the Netherlands, and Non-western if one or both parents were born in Suriname, Dutch Antilles, Turkey, Morocco, Russia, Egypt or Vietnam.

Lower to intermediate education is Elementary school, Lower vocational secondary education, Technical secondary education, Intermediate secondary education or Intermediate vocational education. We based educational level on whichever of the parents had the highest education.

The app will ask you to sign up with some simple information about yourself before sending you on your way to your first drink. As of now, the app is strictly set up for Hoboken.

The app also helps get you to the bar by telling you how far you are from each spot and gives you the option of getting directions. Most drinks such as beer, wine and mixed drinks are more than acceptable orders { sadly no specialty drinks — ex: a Moscow Mule, but each establishment may differ }.

We tried out the app, specifically at Little Town Social. The bartenders knew exactly what we were talking about when we brought up the app and were more than willing to tell us about our drink options. Small word of advice, make sure you actually subscribe to the app before you get to the bar.

The app was extremely easy to use, was no hassle and a ton of fun. Download ASAP here and get your Friday night started. Would you like your business featured on HobokenGirl. Email kate hobokengirl. com to find out how. Jen is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of HobokenGirl.

With deep entrepreneurial roots in Hudson County — as her grandparents owned textile businesses on Tonnelle Ave in North Bergen dating back to the 50s — she started the site as a Hoboken resident in to discover the amazing things happening in the area.

She's a former digital editor at Conde Nast, and in a 'prior life' — was school counselor in a North Jersey elementary school.

Free beverage trial - Would you like to get a Free Trial of our Coffee Service? Fill out the form below and someone will contact you soon! Sip & Save FAQ's. With Circle K's Sip & Save subscription program, you can enjoy a beverage of your choice every day for just $ a month (30days) Enjoy the benefits of a complete coffee solution by signing up for your FREE trial. Beverage MakersWater Systems. Food & Snacks. Micro Markets Solutions Conclusions: Masked replacement of sugar-containing beverages with noncaloric beverages reduced weight gain and fat accumulation in normal-

Objective: This study investigated the effects of 13 different commonly consumed drinks on urine output and fluid balance when ingested in a euhydrated state, with a view to establishing a beverage hydration index BHI , i.

Urine output was then collected for the subsequent 4 h. The BHI was corrected for the water content of drinks and was calculated as the amount of water retained at 2 h after ingestion relative to that observed after the ingestion of still water. Cumulative urine output at 4 h after ingestion of cola, diet cola, hot tea, iced tea, coffee, lager, orange juice, sparkling water, and a sports drink were not different from the response to water ingestion.

The skinfold-thickness measurements, waist-to-height ratio, and fat mass also increased significantly less in the sugar-free group. Adverse events were minor. When we combined measurements at 18 months in children who had discontinued the study with those in children who completed the study, the BMI z score increased by 0.

Funded by the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development and others; DRINK ClinicalTrials. gov number, NCT A trial of sugar-free or sugar-sweetened beverages and body weight in children.

Janne C de Ruyter, Margreet R Olthof , Jacob C Seidell , Martijn B Katan. Nutrition and Health Health Sciences. Overview Fingerprint. Keywords Adipose Tissue Beverages Body Height Body Mass Index Child Child, Preschool Dietary Sucrose Double-Blind Method Energy Intake Female Humans Male Netherlands Obesity Sweetening Agents Weight Gain Journal Article Randomized Controlled Trial Research Support, Non-U.

Excessive drinking is an important social issue impacting public health worldwide. For instance, chronic excessive alcohol consumption can lead to the development of several conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver cirrhosis, and digestive symptoms, and other serious problems including immune system impairment, learning and memory dysfunction, and mental illness [ 1 ].

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that higher alcohol consumption was significantly associated with all-cause mortality risk [ 2 ]. Over the past several decades, many researchers have used animal and human experimental models to investigate methods of reducing the risk of alcohol use disorders [ 3 ], but effective approaches have yet to be established.

In this context, we recently conducted a randomized controlled trial showing that a week intervention involving the provision of free non-alcoholic beverages significantly reduced alcohol consumption in excessive drinkers without alcoholism [ 4 ].

The trial also showed that the reduction in alcohol consumption was significantly associated with an increase in non-alcoholic beverage consumption. These results suggest that the reduction of alcohol consumption might have occurred due to the replacement of alcoholic beverages with non-alcoholic beverages.

Thus, providing non-alcoholic beverages may be an effective strategy to reduce alcohol consumption in excessive drinkers. However, many previous studies reviewed by Frazen et al. demonstrated that various interventions were associated with individual differences in the effectiveness of reducing alcohol consumption [ 5 ].

One of the most representative differences is gender [ 6 , 7 ]. Previous studies showed gender differences in several neurobiological responses to alcohol consumption [ 8 , 9 ]. These studies suggested that the increase in blood alcohol concentration in response to drinking was greater in women compared with men, and therefore women might be at greater risk of harmful effects and addiction.

Moreover, some studies showed that there were gender differences in the responses to treatment for excessive alcohol consumption [ 10 , 11 ]. Thus, the effectiveness of reducing alcohol consumption by providing non-alcoholic beverages might differ between men and women.

While clarifying this issue may be of great public health importance, it has not yet been investigated. Therefore, the present study was performed to confirm our hypothesis that gender influences the effect of non-alcoholic beverage provision on alcohol consumption.

The current study presents expanded data from our recent investigation that examined how the free provision of non-alcoholic beverages impacted alcohol consumption [ 4 ]. That study was conducted after approval by the ethics committee of the University of Tsukuba Notification Number G , and was registered as UMIN Randomized controlled study on the impact of serving non-alcoholic beverages on alcohol consumption.

We adopted a single-center, open-label, randomized, parallel-group design. Individuals who drank on 4 or more days per week, with alcohol consumption of at least 40 g for men or 20 g for women on each of those days, were enrolled.

The cutoff of this volume of alcohol consumption was medium risk was according to the definition of the World Health Organization [ 12 ].

The exclusion criteria were consumption of non-alcoholic beverages at least twice per month, past history of liver disease, current pregnancy or nursing, alcoholism, lack of consent for the use of LINE® a messaging application adopted widely throughout Japan that can be used on personal computers or smartphones; LINE Corp.

This study excluded individuals with alcoholism because it has been suggested that their use of non-alcoholic beverages may enhance alcohol craving and stimulate the desire to drink, which may increase the risk of drinking relapse [ 13 ].

At a group briefing before the intervention, written informed consent was obtained from the participants. At the same time, they were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding factors such as age, sex, race, marital status, highest level of education, employment status, household income, smoking history, and subjective view of health, as well as the Alcohol Quality of Life Scale AQoLS [ 14 ] and questions related to drinking, specifically the number of binge-drinking episodes within the past month and the items in the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test AUDIT [ 15 ].

In addition, height and body weight were measured and a saliva test was administered to assess the activity of genes related to alcohol metabolism, such as alcohol dehydrogenase 1B ADH1B and aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 ALDH2 [ 16 ]. Following the briefing, simple randomization using a random number table was used to randomly allocate the participants to the non-alcoholic beverage provision intervention group or to the control group [ 17 ].

In this study, we used non-alcoholic beverages that contained 0. Since the purpose of this study was to investigate whether increased availability of non-alcoholic beverages would change the amount of alcohol consumption, there were no stipulations regarding how to drink amount or frequency.

Participants in both groups were asked to record their consumption of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in a calendar-format drinking diary every day, from 2 weeks before the start of the week intervention to 8 weeks after its completion. All participants were also required to submit the drinking diary to the research staff every 4 weeks using LINE®.

After the briefing, the study participants were contacted only by phone or via internet. At the end of the study, a gift card worth 10, yen approximately In addition, each participant in the control group received up to five cases of non-alcoholic beverages of their choice. Although the amounts of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages consumed were obtained every 4 weeks, for practical purposes the mean amounts of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages consumed per day were used in the analyses.

We also calculated drinking frequency drinking days per 4 weeks , the number of days on which participants consumed either alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages or both, and alcohol consumption on the day of drinking. In this study, we separately analyzed the measurements by gender, and compared the effect of providing non-alcoholic beverages between men and women Fig.

As a previous study suggested that the absolute amount of alcohol consumption is higher in men than women [ 7 ], we expressed changes in alcohol consumption during the intervention and follow-up period as percent changes from baseline levels in men and women in the control and intervention groups.

Percent changes in non-alcoholic beverage consumption could not be calculated if participants did not consume non-alcoholic beverages at baseline. Hence, the change from baseline in the consumption of non-alcoholic beverages was calculated based on the amount mL of non-alcoholic beverages consumed.

Furthermore, to examine whether alcohol consumption was reduced by replacing alcoholic beverages with non-alcoholic ones, the correlation between changes in alcohol consumption and the consumption of non-alcoholic beverages was analyzed.

The normality of the data was evaluated by the Kolmogorov—Smirnov test. Intergroup comparisons of baseline data in each gender were performed by the t-test in cases of normal distribution, and by the Mann—Whitney U test in cases of non-normal distribution.

Two-way analysis of variance ANOVA was used to analyze longitudinal changes in the consumption of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in the two groups separated by gender, using group and time as factors.

Using group and gender factors, two-way ANOVA was also used to analyze changes in the consumption of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in men and women during the study period, including the intervention and follow-up period, relative to baseline levels. Normality of the data was not observed for either variable.

The effect size of the two-way ANOVA was described as partial η squared η p 2. GraphPad Prism v. One-hundred twenty-three people participated this study and all of them were randomized. After the randomization, we confirmed that there were no significant differences in basic attributes, as previously shown in our original study [ 4 ].

The baseline characteristics of participants stratified by gender are shown in Table 1. For both genders, there were no significant differences between the control and intervention groups in age, height, body weight, AUDIT score, number of binge-drinking episodes, number of episodes of heavy episodic drinking, AQoLS score, subjective view of health, proportion of individuals who were Japanese, marital status, highest level of education, employment status, household income, or smoking history Table 1 and Table S1.

The proportion of participants with polymorphisms of the ADH1B and ALDH2 genes was significantly different between the control and intervention groups in men, but not in women Table 1.

The longitudinal changes in non-alcoholic beverage consumption and alcohol consumption, which were separately analyzed by gender, are presented in Figs. In the intervention group, non-alcoholic beverage consumption increased after the start of the intervention in both men and women Fig.

Although this consumption gradually decreased after Week 4, it remained significantly greater than that in the control group from Week 4 to Week 20 in both genders. The absolute alcohol consumption in the intervention group was significantly decreased compared with baseline from Week 4 to Week 20, irrespective of gender; however, significant differences between the control and intervention groups were observed only in men during the week intervention Fig.

The percent changes in alcohol consumption from Week 0 at Weeks 4, 8, and 12 were significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group in both genders, whereas no significant differences between the two groups were observed during the follow-up period i.

Non-alcoholic beverage consumption. A Absolute values of mean non-alcoholic beverage consumption throughout the study period in men and women.

B The changes in non-alcoholic beverage consumption from baseline Week 0 in men and women. Week Alcohol consumption. A Absolute values of mean alcohol consumption throughout the study period in men and women. Week 0 within the same group. the control group at the same time point. B The percent changes in alcohol consumption from baseline Week 0 in men and women.

Figure 4 shows the correlation coefficients between the percent changes in alcohol consumption and the changes in non-alcoholic beverage consumption at Weeks 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 in both men and women in the intervention group Fig.

Significant relationships between the changes in alcohol consumption and non-alcoholic beverage consumption were observed at Weeks 8 and 12 in men Fig.

Correlation between changes in alcohol consumption and non-alcoholic beverage consumption at Weeks 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 in the intervention group. The longitudinal changes in alcoholic beverage drinking frequency and alcohol consumption on the day of drinking, both of which were separately analyzed by gender, are presented in Figs.

The absolute value of the drinking frequency was significantly lower than at Week 0 in both men and women Fig. The reduction in drinking frequency from the values at Week 0 was significant only at Week 4 in men, but from Weeks 4 to 16 in women Fig.

The absolute values and relative changes of alcohol consumption on drinking days were decreased by the intervention only in men Fig. Alcohol beverage drinking frequency. A Absolute values of mean alcoholic beverage drinking frequency throughout the study period in men and women.

B The changes in alcoholic beverage drinking frequency from baseline Week 0 in men and women. Alcohol consumption on drinking days. A Absolute values of mean alcohol consumption on drinking days throughout the study period in men and women.

B The percent changes in alcoholic beverage drinking frequency from baseline Week 0 in men and women. The mean changes in non-alcoholic beverage consumption, alcohol consumption, drinking frequency, and alcohol consumption on drinking days relative to baseline values throughout the study period are shown in Fig.

There was no significant difference between genders in the consumption of either non-alcoholic or alcoholic beverages Fig. In contrast, the change in alcoholic beverage drinking frequency relative to baseline was decreased by the intervention in both genders, and the magnitude was lower in women compared with men Fig.

Moreover, alcohol consumption on the day of drinking was decreased by the provision of non-alcoholic beverage provisions in men, but not in women Fig. Comparisons between men and women regarding changes from baseline in behaviors related to alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

A Mean non-alcohol beverage consumption, B Mean alcohol consumption, C Alcohol beverage drinking frequency, D Alcohol consumption on drinking day. Each box represents the interquartile range IQR , with the lower edge of the box indicating the 25th percentile and the upper edge indicating the 75th percentile.

The whiskers extend from the box to the minimum and maximum values. control in men. We also counted the number of days on which participants consumed either alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages or both, and the results are shown in Fig.

Irrespective of gender, the provision of non-alcoholic beverages significantly decreased the number of days on which participants drank alcoholic beverages only Figs.

S1 A and S1 B , and significantly increased the number of days on which they drank non-alcoholic beverages only Figs. S1 D and S1 E or both types of beverages Figs. S1 G- S1 H. Relative to baseline values, the number of days on which participants drank both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages was marginally higher in men compared with women Fig.

In this study, we investigated whether the provision of non-alcoholic beverages differentially affected alcohol consumption in men and women. We found that providing non-alcoholic beverages reduced alcohol consumption in both men and women, but only men exhibited a significant reduction in the absolute amount of alcohol consumption.

Moreover, the pattern of replacement of alcoholic beverages with the provided non-alcoholic beverages differed between genders. In contrast, the percent change in alcohol consumption throughout the study period was comparable between genders.

These findings suggest that the provision of non-alcoholic beverages may serve as a valuable strategy in public health for reducing alcohol consumption, regardless of gender. However, it is important to note that the effectiveness of this approach differed between genders in some regards.

In this study, a week intervention involving the provision of non-alcoholic beverages significantly increased non-alcoholic beverage consumption until 8 weeks after the completion of the intervention in both genders, which was consistent with our previous results [ 4 ].

Although it is well known that the absolute volume of alcohol consumption is higher in men than women [ 7 ], the present result suggests that providing non-alcoholic beverages increased their consumption to a similar extent in men and women.

However, as we did not distinguish whether the consumed non-alcoholic beverages were provided or voluntarily purchased, we cannot be rule out the possibility that the origin of these beverages differed between genders.

Interestingly, absolute alcohol consumption was significantly reduced in the intervention group compared to the control group in men but not women.

We further analyzed the frequency and amount of drinking, and found that men in the intervention group exhibited both a lower drinking frequency and a lower amount on days that they drank, whereas the women in this group demonstrated only reduced drinking frequency.

Moreover, the number of days on which participants consumed non-alcoholic beverages was marginally higher in men compared with women. Another possible reason why absolute alcohol consumption was lower in the intervention group compared with the control group in men but not women is that there are gender differences in the likelihood of behavioral changes following the provision of non-alcoholic beverages.

A previous study demonstrated that a 3-month online self-help intervention reduced the average number of weekly drinks and the number of drinks per day on which alcohol was consumed in both men and women, but the reduction was significantly greater in men than women [ 11 ].

Moreover, Meier et al. These findings suggest that men are more likely to change their drinking behavior than women.