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Children of the 90s alcohol research features in ITV's Exposure tonight

Press release issued: 3 March 2015

Research by Dr Sarah Lewis from Children of the 90s will feature in ITV’s Exposure: When Pregnant Women Drink tonight [Tuesday 3 March]. Her research shows that drinking even small amounts of alcohol during pregnancy can affect the future child’s IQ.

Using a novel genetic technique called ‘Mendelian Randomisation’, which was pioneered in Bristol, Dr Lewis looked at different versions of a number of genes responsible for processing alcohol in the body in over 4,000 women and their children.

Speaking about her discovery, Dr Lewis said:

What we’ve discovered suggests that, even at levels of alcohol consumption which are normally considered to be harmless, we can detect differences in childhood IQ, which are dependent on the ability of the foetus to clear this alcohol. This is evidence, that even at moderate levels, alcohol is influencing foetal brain development.

Exposure airs on ITV at 21.00 tonight.

Dr Lewis’s paper is available here.

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