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What happened?
Scientists from Boston’s tufts University argue that “high consumption of sugary drinks and fruit juice associated with a decrease in total brain volume and lower performance on tests of episodic memory”. Article was published in the medical journal “Alzheimer’s &Dementia”.
On the same day, the Internet exploded with headlines: “Soda kills annually to 184 thousand people, researchers found”, “Soda admitted killer”, “Scientists have linked the consumption of soda and atrophy of the brain”. How justified are these fears? Edition Hit.Media appealed to the original text, available by subscription, as well as an expert from the HSE Vasily Vlasov.
According studies Matthew Landsca, those who consume more than a certain number of drinks with sweeteners, juices, and soda, a brain volume was on average 1% less than other study participants. The volume of the hippocampus, responsible for memory, decreased by 2%. Fans of sweet drinks could remember 6% less of the stories that were told them by the doctors during the experiment. In addition, patients with addiction to soda was more difficult to remember and retell these stories through the day.
The authors of the research interpret their results as a basis for further research and conclusion about a possible connection to the high consumption of sugary drinks with the studied diagnostic markers as a cause for scientific debate.
expert Comments specifically for hit.media
Vasily Vlasov, doctor of medical Sciences, Professor of the faculty of social Sciences at the HSE:
β For decades thousands of scientists and activists under the guise of scientists are trying to find something harmful in the food that you eat millions, but to detect the damage by scientific means is not possible. Are you surprised? Yes! The quality of the food chains, like McDonald’s, is all because of evil interest good, and the food in them are harmless.
But such research is carried out again and again, including the fact that the results of these studies attracted the attention of the press, readers, give clicks β the circle closes. So this study caught the attention. It is made on materials of world-famous Remengesau research. This is an unprecedented study now three generations of Americans living in Framingham outside of Boston. This study accessible to scientists around the world and analyzed to check the most fanciful hypotheses.
In this analysis compared people who reported drinking sodas with those who say that it consumes little or no drinking. Found that consuming soda, the brain is smaller, and the poorer the results of one test on the memory.
Commentators in the press, including Russian, was handing out these modest results a lot. In fact correlation, but the causal nature of the relationship no question. It is quite a common mistake: as if the researchers found that among sailors more than men, and commentators said that the penis is the cause of the choice of profession.
Research “cross design” does not allow to identify the causes, they can only indicate possible directions for further research. The title “brain atrophy” indicates that the brain was, and then atrophied. The study only found that people have different brain size, and the connection of the small size of the brain with drinking soda.
Is false and the statement that “diabetes and other consequences from the abuse of soda kill approximately 184 thousand people a year.” Although diabetes called “diabetes disease”, this is because in the urine contains glucose. But there is no evidence that increased use of sucrose (regular sugar) leads to diabetes.
The title “Soda kills annually to 184 thousand people,” β a vivid example of irresponsible journalism.
How to drink soda in different countries
Most sweet drinks like in South America and on nearby Islands. In the Dominican Republic, Barbados and Cuba consume more than one bottle a day, in the U.S. on an average day drink 250 ml. least of all lovers of sugary drinks in East Asia. Most soda buy young people, and least likely to drink it of an elderly woman. Statistics show that the global average every person drinks 133 ml of soda per day.
In Russia, the consumption of carbonated drinks is also at the level of 133 ml per day, which gives about 20% of the daily value of sugar for a healthy adult. Half-liter bottle β that’s 75%, but drinking a liter or more of coke or juice a day, we are one and a half times the searched normal.
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