We all know sugary diets can sabotage a waistline. Now it turns out they might make brains flabby too.
Sweet
drinks scrambled the memories and stunted learning in lab rats in a new
study—leading to “thigh concern” over what sugary diets may do to
people, according to neuroscientist Fernando Gomez-Pinilla. (Read more about memory from National Geographic magazine.)
For
the study, Gomez-Pinilla’s team first trained rats to successfully
navigate a maze, giving them only water and standard rat chow for five
days. During the following six weeks, the rats’ water was replaced with
syrups that were 15 percent fructose.
“Most sodas people consume
are about 12 percent sugar, so imagine if you drank soda with sugar
added instead of water,” said Gomez-Pinilla, of the University of
California, Los Angeles.
