Sugar Doesn’t Sweeten Memory Functions
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iStock/Thinkstock(LOS ANGELES) — How many more reasons do parents need to discourage their teens from drinking massive quantities of sugar-sweetened soda or energy drinks?
University of South California researchers have come up with another: sugar intake seems to damage the memory and other cognitive functions.
Rather than experiment on humans, Scott Kanoski and his team fed one group of rats a substantial amount of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup that added up to nearly 40 percent of their caloric intake. Then, all the rats ran through a maze.
What happened was that spatial memory of adolescent rats that consumed high amounts of sugar or HFCS was most affected as they did worse in the maze test than any other group.
Kanoski surmises that sugar and HFCS cause inflammation of the hippocampus, which controls memory formation. This damage to the hippocampus is also responsible for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in older adults.
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