Children are the highest consumers of added sugar, even as high-sugar diets have been linked to health effects like obesity and heart disease and even impaired memory function. Breakfast cereals, snacks, sweet deserts and, most of all, soda and sugar sweetened fruit juices all contain large amounts of added refined sugars.
A University of Georgia faculty member in collaboration with a University of Southern California research group has shown in a rodent model that daily consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages during adolescence impairs performance on learning and memory tasks during adulthood. The group further showed that changes in the bacteria in the gut may be the key to the sugar-induced memory impairment.
"Early life sugar increased Parabacteroides levels in the gut, and the higher the levels of Parabacteroides, the worse the animals did in the tasks," said Emily Noble, assistant professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences who served as first author on the paper. "We found that the bacteria alone was sufficient to impair memory in the same way as sugar, but it also impaired other types of memory functions as well."
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a joint publication of the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services, recommends limiting added sugars to less than 10 percent of calories per day. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Americans between the ages 9-18 exceed that recommendation, the bulk of the calories coming from sugar-sweetened beverages.
Consider also that the habits we develop as children tend to stay with us throughout the rest of our lives. Acquiring a taste for sugar is a habit that will be hard to break the longer it persists. Do your children a favor and build healthier choices into their diet while they are young.
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