UCLA Researchers Suggest Fructose Impairs Brain Function
A recent study has claimed that rats fed a diet high in fructose had more difficulty navigating a maze than those that also consumed omega-3 fatty acids, thereby raising questions about the impact of sugar consumption on cognition. Rahul Agrawal and Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, “’Metabolic Syndrome’ in the brain: deficiency in omega-3 fatty acid exacerbates dysfunctions in insulin receptor signaling and cognition,” The Journal of Physiology, May 2012. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), researchers for six weeks supplied two groups of rats with a fructose solution instead of drinking water while supplementing one group’s rat chow with flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). According to the results, the rats in the fructose-only group were not only slower than their counterparts during the maze task, but their brain tissues exhibited an increased resistance to insulin.
“The second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that did not receive omega-3 fatty acids,” said study co-author Fernando GomezPinilla in a May 15, 2012, UCLA press release. “The DHA-deprived animals were slower, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signaling each other, disrupting the rats’ ability to think clearly and recall the route they’d learned six weeks earlier.”
In addition to speculating that fructose blocks insulin’s ability “to regulate
how cells use and store sugar for the energy required for processing thoughts
and emotions,” the researchers noted that DHA intake “seemed to restore
metabolic homeostasis” and protect against the alleged cognitive effects of
sugar. “It’s like saving money in the bank. You want to build a reserve for your
brain to tap when it requires extra fuel to fight off future diseases,” explained
Gomez-Pinilla, who hailed the findings as evidence that diet influences the
brain as well as the body. “We’re less concerned about naturally occurring
fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants. We’re more
concerned about the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup, which is added to
manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative.”
