Sugar and Mental Health

By Will Meek, Ph.D.
September 30, 2006

Reuters had a story a couple days ago on new research from Norway on sugar intake and psychological problems. The study was done on 5000 10th graders in Norway, and they concluded that there was a significant relationship between sugary soft-drink consumptions and psychological symptoms like hyperactivity and various forms of distress.

“For hyperactivity, there was a direct linear relationship — the more sodas a teen drank, the most symptoms of hyperactivity he or she had.

“The worst problems were seen in boys and girls who drank four or more soft drinks a day. Ten percent of the boys and 2 percent of the girls drank this much.”

There was an inverted U-shaped curvelinear relationship between number of soft-drinks consumed and mental health problems, with those drinking the most and the least having the highest rate of problems, although those on the highest end of consumptions had the worst rate of problems.

This type of study is obviously provocative and funnels right into the current political campaigns against the beverage and fast food industries. Although there certainly could be a direct causal connection between soft-drinks and mental health, this study cannot conclude that based on the methodology employed by the authors. Therefore the study should interpreted with caution, but keep an eye out for future studies drawing similar conclusions.