Why is diet soda worse for brain?

In, 2016, 11 million tons of sugar was consumed by the Americans, much of which was drank in form of sweetened beverages like sports drinks and soda says the US Department of Agriculture.

Recent research now suggests that brain might be damaged if excess sugar-especially the fructose in sugary drinks-is taken. Fructose, the sweet molecule of sugar is considered the most damaging. Some other type of food we take daily like rice and potatoes contain another molecule of sugar i.e. glucose. Knowledge of different types of sugar molecules could change the life of many people.

Taken from the data at the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), researchers found out that poorer memory, smaller overall brain volume, and a significantly smaller hippocampus—an area of the brain important for learning and memory is usually found among people who drink sugary beverages frequently.

It has been shown by a developmental study that people who are in the habit of drinking soda daily were almost three times likely to develop stroke and dementia when compared to those who did not. So, it’s much better to have a second thought when reaching out for sweet tea and soda every day.

Correlation and not cause-and-effect was demonstrated from the journals of Alzheimer’s & Dementia and Stroke. This make researchers warn against over-consuming either soda or sugary drinks. Further research will be needed as to determine whether these drinks actually damage the brain and vascular disease or diabetics and if they do, to what extent.
The American Beverage Association said that the worldwide government safety authorities as well as hundreds of scientific studies have already proved that low-calorie sweeteners are safe and no other research can change this well-established fact. It has even been reviewed by the FDA, World Health Organization, European Food Safety Authority and others and they all confirmed that they are safe for consumption - the same conclusion.

Moreover, it was not mentioned by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that low calorie sweeteners are risk factors for developing stroke and dementia but they mentioned age, hypertension, diabetes and genetics.
A senior author, Sudha Seshadri, a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, also confirmed the report that it is a strong data and a very strong suggestion and she advised that maybe we will have to go back to our old-fashioned water and we may have to get used to it.

Matthew Pase, a fellow in the MED neurology department and an investigator at the FHS has also said that excess sugar has never been associated with long-term effects on the human brain but has long been associated with metabolic diseases like obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. He said, “measuring the overall sugar in a meal is difficult and that’s why we use sugary beverages as proxy”.

From a study published on March 5, 2017 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, researchers found a multiple signs of brain aging, including smaller overall brain volume, poorer episodic memory, and a shrunken hippocampus which are risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease from people who take more than two sugary drinks daily or more than three sugary drinks weekly. They also found out that smaller brain volume was associated with higher diet of sugar.