Drinking Sugary Beverages Linked to Memory Problems in Adolescents

It turns out that sugar may cause memory problems in adolescents--as long as you're a rat. Scientists have found that adolescent rats were at an increased risk of suffering negative health effects from sugar-sweetened beverages.

In this cast, the scientists tested a total of 76 rats, giving some of them large quantities of liquid solutions containing sugar or high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The concentrations were equivalent to those found in sugar-sweetened beverages.

"The brain is especially vulnerable to dietary influences during critical periods of development, like adolescence," said Scott Kanoski, one of the researchers, in a news release.

About 35 to 40 percent of the rats' caloric intake was from sugar or HFCS in the new study. As a comparison, added sugars make up about 17 percent of the total caloric intake of teens in the U.S. After feeding these rats over a period of time, the researchers then tested them in mazes that probed their spatial memory.

The scientists found that the rats that had consumed sugary beverages, particularly the ones containing HFCS, performed worse on the maze test than any other group. Scientists believed that this could be the result of an inflammation in the hippocampus, which the researchers spotted in the rats that consumed the beverages. The hippocampus in particular is part of a temporal lobe located deep within the brain that controls memory formation.

"Consuming a diet high in added sugars not only can lead to weight gain and metabolic disturbances, but can also negatively impact our neural functioning and cognitive ability," said Kanoski.

That said, more research needs to be done before any firm conclusions are drawn. That said, this study does show that cutting back on sugary drinks certainly couldn't hurt. Not only can they be bad for your health, but they could also be negatively impact the way you think.

The findings are published in the journal Hippocampus.