Soda drinks are accelerating brain aging, new study suggests

Soda and sugary drinks are making your brain grow old fast, news study suggests. Researchers form Boston looked at the medical data and sugar consumption of more than 4000 patients and concluded that those with large sugar intake, coming form sodas and other sugary drinks, have shows signs of accelerated brain aging.

Studies have linked sugary drinks with everything form diabetes, heart diseases and other chronic diseases. Now, a new Boston study links the consumption of soda and also other types of fruit juice to accelerated brain aging.

Researchers form Boston University looked at data form the Framingham Heart Study and found that frequent consumption of sugary drinks leads to poorer memory, smaller overall brain volume and a significantly smaller hippocampus, the area of the brain in charge of learning and memory.

The initial study was followed-up by scientists with another one that wanted to point out if there was a link between the intake of sugar form beverages and dementia. The scientists found that people that frequently reached for their diet soda were almost three times as likely to develop stroke and dementia when compared to those who did not.

And while researchers point out that the study does not automatically suggests a cause and effect relationship and that more studies are needed in order to understand the correlation, replacing sugary drinks with those with artificial sweeteners does not help our brains.

“These studies are not the be-all and end-all, but it’s strong data and a very strong suggestion,” says Sudha Seshadri, a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and a faculty member at BU’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center, in a Boston University article. “It looks like there is not very much of an upside to having sugary drinks, and substituting the sugar with artificial sweeteners doesn’t seem to help.”

So how much soda did the patients with smaller brain volume and diagnosed dementia have. Well, in the first study, the “high intake” group was defined as those that had more than two sugary drinks a day of any type, soda, fruit juice, and other soft drinks, or more than three per week of soda alone. And when it comes to dementia, the researchers found that people who drank at least one diet soda per day were almost three times as likely to develop stroke and dementia.

Scientists are asking for more studies in order to understand the direct relationship between sugary drink consumption and accelerated brain aging and also the correlation between artificial sweeteners and Alzheimer’s disease.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest reported that, in 2013, Americans drank just over 38 gallons of soda a year being the single largest source of calories in the American diet. And while adults drink at least one can o soda a day, fizzy drinks are a big part of the teen diet with 20 percent of high school students drinking soda one or more times per day and 13 percent of students drinking two or more a day.

And most of the Americans drink sodas while at home, data from USDA suggests also showing that consumption has decreased slightly over time. Meanwhile, the sales of bottled water have gone up.

The Boston University study used the sugary beverages in order to determine the effects of added sugars as it is difficult to account for all the sugar in our diet.