Stop. Put down your Coke. Take another look at the soft drink. I know, I know. You have probably read articles concerning the harmful effects of sugar on your body. This study, conducted by UCLA’s Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine and of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science, and his co-author, Rahul Agrawal, a visiting post-doctoral fellow from India, was the first to investigate sugar’s effects on the brain.
Two groups of rats were fed standard rat chow and trained in a maze twice daily for five days before starting the experiment. Both groups then consumed high-fructose corn syrup, a solution six times sweeter than sugar, as drinking water for six weeks. The second group was also supplied with additional omega-3 fatty acids, a form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which prevents damages to the synapses—the connections between brain cells that enable memory and learning. At the end of six weeks, the rats were tested on their ability to recall routes and escape the maze.
Unsurprisingly, the second group turned out to be much faster in escaping the maze. The DHA-deprived brains of the rats in the first group showed a decline in synaptic activity. The synapses had trouble signaling each other, hence disrupting the rats’ ability to think clearly. The rats had also developed resistance to insulin, the hormone controlling blood sugar levels and regulating the brain’s synaptic functions. Examining the rats’ brain tissue, the scientists discovered that insulin, having lost its power to influence brain cells, is able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and to signal neurons to trigger reactions that disrupt learning and cause memory loss.
“What you eat affects how you think,” concluded Gomez-Pinilla. High sugar intake alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information. Based on information from the Canadian Sugar Institute’s 2011 study, the estimated consumption of added sugars (as opposed to natural sugars) in Canada is approximately 51-53 grams per day, an equivalent of 12.5 teaspoons and 10-13% of total energy intake.
Too much sugar is harmful, but that doesn’t mean you can’t order that chocolate sundae. Go ahead, indulge your sweet tooth. Just be sure to enrich your diet with other nutrients, especially DHA and omega-3 fatty acids in salmon, walnuts, flaxseeds, and DHA capsules. Your body produces an insufficient amount of DHA, so the rest must be supplied through your diet. Remember, think twice about sweetening up, and balance in your diet is the key!
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