SUGAR SWEETENED BEVERAGES SUPPRESS BODY'S STRESS RESPONSE
Drinking
sugar-sweetened beverages can suppress the hormone cortisol and stress
responses in the brain, but diet beverages sweetened with aspartame do not have
the same effect, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology
& Metabolism
"This is the
first evidence that high sugar -- but not aspartame -- consumption may relieve
stress in humans," said one of the study's authors, Kevin D. Laugero, PhD,
of the University of California, Davis, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Agricultural Research Service. "The concern is psychological or emotional
stress could trigger the habitual overconsumption of sugar and amplify sugar's
detrimental health effects, including obesity."
About 35 percent of
adults and nearly 17 percent of children nationwide are obese, according to the
Society's Endocrine Facts & Figures report. Sugary drinks such as soda and
juice have been linked to this problem. Half of the U.S. population consumes
sugar-sweetened drinks on any given day, according to the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
The parallel-arm,
double-masked diet intervention study examined the effects of consuming sugar-
and aspartame-sweetened beverages on a group of 19 women between the ages of 18
and 40. The researchers assigned eight women to consume aspartame-sweetened
beverages, and 11 to drink sugar-sweetened beverages. For a 12-day period, the
women drank one of the assigned beverages at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The
participants were instructed not to consumer other sugar-sweetened drinks,
including fruit juice.
For 3.5 days prior to
and after the study, the women consumed a standardized low-sugar diet and
stayed at the UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center's Clinical
Research Center.
Before and after the
12-day experimental period, the women underwent functional MRI screenings after
performing math tests to gauge the brain's stress response. The participants
also provided saliva samples to measure levels of cortisol -- a hormone made by
the adrenal glands that is essential for the body's response to stress.
The researchers found
women who drank sugar-sweetened beverages during the study had a diminished
cortisol response to the math test, compared to women who were assigned to
consume aspartame-sweetened beverages. In addition, the women who consumed
sugar-sweetened beverages exhibited more activity in the hippocampus -- a part
of the brain that is involved in memory and is sensitive to stress -- than the women
who drank aspartame-sweetened beverages.
The hippocampus
typically is less active when the body is under stress. When the study
participants drank sugar-sweetened beverages, this response was inhibited. The
findings offer new clues that help explain how sugar positively reinforces the
temptation to eat comfort food when a person is stressed, Laugero said.
"The results
suggest differences in dietary habits may explain why some people underreact to
stressful situations and others overreact," he said. "Although it may
be tempting to suppress feelings of stress, a normal reaction to stress is
important to good health. Research has linked over- and under-reactivity in
neural and endocrine stress systems to poor mental and physical health."
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