Aspartame or NutraSweet makes your memory worse

[Guest guest]

Sunday, March 31, 2002 11:07 PM

Aspartame or NutraSweet makes your memory worse

 

 

Aspartame or NutraSweet makes your memory worse

 

- http://dorway.com/barclay.txt -

 

- http://onhealth.webmd.com/fitness/news/webmd/item%2C106918.asp -

 

What's Put in Your Mouth Could Go to Your Head

 

Diet Can Affect the Brain -- for Better or Worse

 

By Laurie Barclay, MD WebMD Medical News

 

Reviewed by Dr. Jacqueline Brooks

 

There's good news and bad news when it comes to diet and memory. The bad

news is that the artificial sweetener aspartame may make memory worse, but

the good news is that eating breakfast, fruits, and vegetables may help make

it better. That's according to research presented at a Society for

Neuroscience meeting this week in New Orleans.

 

Since NutraSweet, or aspartame, became popular as a sugar substitute for the

weight conscious, some users have complained of memory problems and

headaches that disappear when they cut back on how much they use. Previous

studies couldn't confirm this link, suggesting that the types of memory

impairments studied were different from those reported by the patients,

explains researcher Timothy M. Barth, PhD, chairman of psychology at Texas

Christian University in Fort Worth.

 

Or, aspartame users might be dieting because of low self-esteem and anxiety

over their body image. If they also were anxious about their intellectual

function, they might be more prone to report perceived memory problems.

 

To help sort out the possibilities, Barth's group gave 90 college students a

nutrition survey and a memory questionnaire. Aspartame users reported more

memory problems than nonusers, especially forgetting that a task was

completed until it was started again, forgetting to perform a task at a

certain time, or forgetting a regular routine.

 

Although these findings suggest that aspartame users as a whole believe they

have memory problems, they performed about the same as nonusers on short-

term memory tests, like remembering a word list, a phone number, or a series

of faces. While these tests measure memory for something that just happened,

they may not reflect memory problems these people have in their lives

outside of the study.

 

" I always have problems with studies investigating the effects of diet on

behavior in uncontrollable real-life situations, " C. R. Markus, PhD, a

neuroscientist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, tells WebMD.

Markus, who was not involved in the study, recommends a study comparing

behavior in subjects given varying amounts of aspartame.

 

Aspartame is broken down into substances that are unhealthy for the brain,

but the body may be able to protect the brain from limited amounts. " Maybe

the normal safeguards break down with time, with stress, and with heavy

exposure, " Barth says. People with brain injury may be especially vulnerable

to the effects of aspartame, as are the elderly and young children. And

future studies might need to look at long-term memory problems after years

of heavy aspartame use.

 

Many students in Barth's study drank four to six diet sodas -- or more each

day. " Occasional use might be OK, but no one in my lab drinks diet soda, "

Barth says.

 

If you drink a diet soda every now and then, don't despair -- there may be

other strategies to boost your memory, like not skipping breakfast. In

research supported by General Mills, USA, the makers of some breakfast

foods, seniors had memory tests up to an hour after a high-carbohydrate,

high-sugar breakfast consisting of whole wheat cereal, 1% milk, and white

grape juice. Relative to seniors given only water at breakfast, these

seniors did better on remembering a word list and a paragraph after a 20-

minute delay.

 

" Performance improvements after eating breakfast have previously been

reported in school children, " Steven H. Zeisel, MD, PhD, tells WebMD.

Zeisel, who was not involved in this study, is the associate dean for

research, and professor and chairman of nutrition, at the School of Public

Health of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

 

" Is it just the calories that help the brain function better, or is it the

sugar itself? " asks researcher Carol Greenwood, PhD, a research scientist at

Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care in Toronto. Further studies will look at

breakfasts varying in protein, fat, and carbohydrate, to see which might be

best for brain function.

 

And who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Researchers at the

University of Toronto and the University of California at Irvine did just

that while studying the effects of antioxidants in the diet -- like vitamins

A, E, and C -- on memory in elderly beagles.

 

As they get older, dogs, like humans, get worse with memory tasks and have

some of the same types of changes in the brain, explains researcher N.

William Milgram, PhD, a professor of psychology and pharmacology at the

University of Toronto. His study divided young and old beagles into groups

receiving either a regular diet or a diet enriched in antioxidants.

 

Antioxidants protect the brain from damaging free radicals -- natural

substances produced in the body as it ages, Milgram tells WebMD. " But there

are many different types of free radicals, so we need a broad spectrum of

antioxidants to protect against them. "

 

Young dogs, in whom free radical damage is presumably small, did no better

on the special diet. But older dogs fed the antioxidant-enriched diet for

five weeks did better on two tasks involving the type of memory that may be

affected by aging.

 

" This study is consistent with ... studies suggesting that antioxidants

protect against [intellectual] loss in aging humans, " Zeisel says.

 

" It's encouraging that we saw effects after a relatively short period of

time, " Milgram says. But Markus and Zeisel find this somewhat surprising, as

damage from free radicals is thought to " slowly accrue over a lifetime,

rather than over a few weeks, " Zeisel says. To see if antioxidants can

prevent age-related changes, researchers will look at young dogs who stay on

an antioxidant diet into old age.

 

" Antioxidants may prevent against death of brain cells, as well as

decreasing the risk of diabetes and heart disease, " Greenwood says. " So it

makes sense to eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. "

 

One important dietary antioxidant is vitamin A, studied by Sharoni Jacobs

and colleagues from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Their work

provides the first direct evidence that vitamin A is required for memory and

learning, as mice fed diets low in the vitamin from birth were impaired in

long-term memory and learning. Restoring vitamin A to their diet reversed

the impairments.

 

As tens of millions of humans, especially children, suffer from vitamin A

deficiency, they may be affected by previously unrecognized, yet reversible,

mental impairment. " This very interesting study ... re-emphasizes the

importance of certain nutrients in maintaining adequate brain development

and function, " Zeisel says.

 

© 2000 WebMD Corporation. All rights reserved.

 

******************************************************

 

Timothy M. Barth has 16 studies listed in PubMed, 1982-2000.

http://www.psy.tcu.edu/psy/barth.htm Tmothy M. Barth Department of

Psychology t.barth Texas Christian University TCU Box 298920 Fort

Worth, TX 76129 Chairman, Physiological Psychology 817-921-7410

 

One of the most important issues facing behavioral neuroscience today is

identifying the neural and behavioral mechanisms that mediate recovery after

damage to the brain. My research program is aimed at investigating these

mechanisms in rats with lesions in the neocortex. There are three areas of

study:

1) determination of functional subdivisions of the rat neocortex through the

development of neurological tasks that are sensitive to sensory and motor

impairments after brain damage;

2) comparison of the recovery patterns and mechanisms of recovery in animals

that received brain injury as infants or adults; and

 

3) investigations of the effects of various drugs on the recovery and

maintenance of function following cortical lesions.

 

Selected Publications: Barth, T. M., & Stanfield, B. B. (1994). Homotopic,

but not heterotopic, fetal cortical transplants can result in functional

sparing following neonatal damage to the frontal cortex in

 

rats. Cerebral Cortex, 4, 271-278. Barth, T. M., Marks, B. B., & Young, L.

S. (1994). Behavioral Neuroscience, 108, 4, 1-5.

*********************************************************

 

Prof. Steven H. Zeisel, MD, PhD steven_zeisel Editor in Chief,

Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry

 

Carol Greenwood, PhD Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care

3560 Bathurst St. Toronto M6A 2E1 phn: (416) 785-2500 fax: (416) 785-2378

Please e-mail your comments and questions to Diana Thomson, Public Affairs:

dthomson

 

http://www.rotman-baycrest.on.ca/ Rotman Research Institute Baycrest Centre

3560 Bathurst Street Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1 phone (416) 785-2500

**************************************************

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about the group, please visit

 

 

To to this group, simply send a blank e-mail message to:

-

To change status to digest: -digest

To change status to normal: -normal

You are receiving this email because you elected to .

To Post: