Too many sugary drinks may cause brain development issues, study finds

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - It’s no secret that too many sugary drinks can cause general health issues. Overdoing it overwhelms your intestines, so your body sends it elsewhere, like the liver.

"When that takes up fructose, that's a bad thing, at least for fatty liver disease and other liver problems,” Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist Iker Etchegaray, Ph.D., said.

But a recent discovery found that’s not the only place it travels.

"It also goes to the brain,” he said.

Etchegaray said his recent study found high levels of fructose in mice, at the equivalent of one soda per day for a human, leads to brain development issues that can start as early as in the womb if consumed by a pregnant woman.

"It can lead to mood disorders such as anxiety and other behaviors,” he said.

The issues can last into adolescence or even adulthood. Etchegaray said high amounts of fructose, commonly used as high fructose corn syrup in sugary drinks, impacts your brain's immune cells and changes their function. He compared those cells to gardeners and your neurons are the trees that they normally trim so only the right connections are touching.

"If the tree overgrows because the gardener is not trimming it, that's when your thought processes can lead to things like anxiety or other mood behaviors,” he said.

It can also impact the development of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Whether that’s a good or bad impact is still to be determined as the study continues.

"It's opening up the field of how our diet can actually shape our brain,” Etchegaray said.

The study is still in its early stages. High fructose corn syrup has been implicated in Type 2 Diabetes and other metabolic disorders as well.