Sugar-sweetened
beverages suppress body's stress response
Endocrine Society, Science
Daily
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."
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."
Story
Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Endocrine Society. Note: Materials may be edited for
content and length.
Journal
Reference:
Matthew S. Tryon, Kimber L. Stanhope, Elissa S. Epel, Ashley E.
Mason, Rashida Brown, Valentina Medici, Peter J. Havel, Kevin D. Laugero. Excessive Sugar Consumption
May Be a Difficult Habit to Break: A View From the Brain and Body. The Journal of Clinical
Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2015; jc.2014-4353 DOI: 10.1210/jc.2014-4353
Cite
This Page:
Endocrine Society. "Difficult to break the soda habit?
Sugar-sweetened beverages suppress body's stress response." Science Daily,
16 April 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150416132015.htm>.