Excess sugar, dangerous for our brain?

Excess sugar, dangerous for our brain?

We knew that the abuse of sugar was not good for our balance. We discover that it is also bad for our brain. A recent study conducted by the University of Otago, New Zealand, reveals that excessive glucose consumption can impair our intellectual performance and affect our cognitive abilities.

The research looked at 49 people who drank drinks containing sugar in different forms: glucose (raw sugar), sucrose (table sugar), sucralose (sweetener), fructose (sugar from fruits). The cognitive performances of the participants were then analyzed: they had to answer tests and were evaluated on their response time and their computing capacity. The results showed that those who had consumed glucose or sucrose had much lower performance than those who had taken sucralose or fructose.

"The level of attention seems to be declining after glucose consumption," says Mei Peng, co-author of the study. The researcher plans to continue her work to better understand this process: "Future research will need to quantify how different regions of the brain evolve after sugar consumption - using neuroimaging techniques. Do you want to keep your brain on top, good concentration, good memory, good learning skills? One solution: limit industrial sweets ...