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| Forgetfulness A Sign Of A Sugar High? |
This news is a little scary but not really a surprise...
Memories that aren’t sweet
Sugary foods may be as bad for your memory as they are for your waistline. UCLA researchers found that rats that were prompted to navigate a maze based on their memory of previous trips through it did significantly worse when their diet was high in high-fructose corn syrup, compared with rats whose diet was high in the omega-3 fatty acids that come from eating fish, seeds, and nuts. After their faulty trips through the maze, a closer look at the rats’ brains revealed that the high levels of high-fructose corn syrup—the kind used to sweeten soda—had disrupted synapse communication in the hippocampus, a brain region devoted to learning and memory. Omega-3s appeared to repair some of those connections, helping to “minimize the damage,” UCLA neurosurgeon Fernando Gomez-Pinilla tells Agence France-Presse. “I was very shocked,” he says, “to see how strong an effect these diets could have on the brain.”
From The Week magazine: June 15, 2012 edition
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