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Sugary beverage intake and preclinical Alzheimer's disease in the community
Matthew P Pase1, Jayandra J Himali2, Paul F Jacques3
1Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA; Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, MA, USA; Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia.
Introduction:
Excess sugar consumption has been linked with Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology in animal models.
Methods:
We examined the cross-sectional association of sugary beverage consumption with neuropsychological (N = 4276) and magnetic resonance imaging (N = 3846) markers of preclinical Alzheimer's disease and vascular brain injury (VBI) in the community-based Framingham Heart Study. Intake of sugary beverages was estimated using a food frequency questionnaire.
Results:
Relative to consuming less than one sugary beverage per day, higher intake of sugary beverages was associated with lower total brain volume (1-2/day, β ± standard error [SE] = -0.55 ± 0.14 mean percent difference, P = .0002; >2/day, β ± SE = -0.68 ± 0.18, P < .0001), and poorer performance on tests of episodic memory (all P < .01). Daily fruit juice intake was associated with lower total brain volume, hippocampal volume, and poorer episodic memory (all P < .05). Sugary beverage intake was not associated with VBI in a consistent manner across outcomes.
Discussion:
Higher intake of sugary beverages was associated cross-sectionally with markers of preclinical AD.
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