Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in the United States has decreased in recent decades, hopefully translating into lower rates of obesity and cardiovascular disease, both associated with excess sugar consumption. Although the cardiometabolic effects of added sugars in adults have been well-documented, the effects of sugar sweetened beverages on brain function, especially in children, is under-investigated. Findings of a new report show an association between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and poorer cognitive performance in children.
Executive function refers to a set of high-level cognitive skills, such as complex reasoning, goal-oriented activity, and self-regulation, that begin development during gestation and continue throughout childhood. Previous research has demonstrated that excess sugar consumption causes neuroinflammation, decreased hippocampal function, and poorer spatial learning ability in adolescent rats, but not adult rats. While it is plausible that excess sugar consumption causes similar effects in children, this area is under-investigated, especially in less developed countries such as China.
The researchers recruited more than 6,000 children (ages, 6 to 12 years) who were enrolled at one of five participating school districts in Guangzhou, China. Parents of these children completed questionnaires about their child’s sugar-sweetened beverage (e.g., soda, fruit juice, energy drinks) consumption, executive function (e.g., emotion regulation, organizing, memory), and other demographics and lifestyle information (e.g., socioeconomic status, parental education, parental smoking status, exercise habits). The researchers categorized children as consuming zero, one, or two or more eight ounce servings of sugar-sweetened beverages per week.
Compared to non-consumers, children who consumed even one serving of sugar-sweetened beverages per week had worse scores on all executive functioning subscales including behavior regulation and metacognition. This trend was even stronger in children consuming two or more servings per week, with a 45 percent increased chance of poor behavior regulation and 70 percent increased chance of poor metacognition compared to non-consumers. These relationships were not altered when taking sex, age, and BMI into account.
In this large observational study, consumption of just one serving of sugar-sweetened beverages per week was associated with worse executive function in children. The authors noted that interventional trials are needed to establish the causal mechanisms of this relationship.
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