When you eat something loaded with sugar, your taste buds, your gut and your brain all take notice. This activation of your reward system is not unlike how bodies process addictive substances such as alcohol or nicotine -- an overload of sugar spikes dopamine levels and leaves you craving more. Nicole Avena explains why sweets and treats should be enjoyed in moderation. [Directed by STK Films, narrated by Michelle Snow, music by Michael Dow].

In the vein of "Supersize Me", Damon Gameau becomes a human guinea-pig when he puts himself through a grueling 6 week diet consuming the equivalent of 40 tea...

Americans consume way too much added sugar—estimates suggest an average of 24 teaspoons per day—which can have a serious impact on heart health. Consuming natural sugar is better, as plant foods also have high amounts of fiber, essential ...

Sugar subsidies are welfare for the rich. They cost consumers billions a year.---------Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontvLike us o...

Another doozy from Dr. Peter Attia. This time - all things sugar.

I remember one of my mentors in surgical residency made a very important distinction for me. He said, “Peter, never...

Any discussion on the culpability of poor nutrition as the cause of our health woes begins with a discussion on...

"Is glucose a sugar? Yes. Is fructose a sugar? Yes. Are they the same? Not even close." —Peter Attia

Emerging evidence highlights a critical relationship between gut microbiota and neurocognitive development. Excessive consumption of sugar and other unhealthy dietary factors during early life developmental periods yields changes in the gut microbiome as well as neurocognitive impairments. However, it is unclear whether these two outcomes are functionally connected. Here we explore whether excessive early life consumption of added sugars negatively impacts memory function via the gut microbiome. Rats were given free access to a sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) during the adolescent stage of development. Memory function and anxiety-like behavior were assessed during adulthood and gut bacterial and brain transcriptome analyses were conducted. Taxa-specific microbial enrichment experiments examined the functional relationship between sugar-induced microbiome changes and neurocognitive and brain transcriptome outcomes. Chronic early life sugar consumption impaired adult hippocampal-dependent memory function without affecting body weight or anxiety-like behavior. Adolescent SSB consumption during adolescence also altered the gut microbiome, including elevated abundance of two species in the genus Parabacteroides (P. distasonis and P. johnsonii) that were negatively correlated with hippocampal function. Transferred enrichment of these specific bacterial taxa in adolescent rats impaired hippocampal-dependent memory during adulthood. Hippocampus transcriptome analyses revealed that early life sugar consumption altered gene expression in intracellular kinase and synaptic neurotransmitter signaling pathways, whereas Parabacteroides microbial enrichment altered gene expression in pathways associated with metabolic function, neurodegenerative disease, and dopaminergic signaling. Collectively these results identify a role for microbiota “dysbiosis” in mediating the detrimental effects of early life unhealthy dietary factors on hippocampal-dependent memory function.