![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/VP-COMP-BRAIN-DRINKS-v2-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYOU have heard that you are what you eat, right?<\/p>\n
Well, as it turns out you are also what you drink – and this is especially the case when it comes to brain health.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Guzzling drinks high in free sugars increases your risk of dementia, German scientists have found. <\/p>\n
This includes fruit drinks, flavoured milk drinks and full fat fizzy drinks, they found. <\/p>\n
Free sugar is what we call\u00a0any sugar added to a food or drink during the making process.<\/p>\n
Fruit juices, which contain naturally occurring sugars, were also associated with the brain-eating disease, but to a lesser extent. <\/p>\n
While tea and coffee do not increase the risk of dementia at all, the experts found. <\/p>\n Experts don't quite know why increased sugar intake can increase the risk of the disease.<\/p>\n However, some studies suggest it could be because sugar can cause inflammation, which is thought to play a role in neurodegenerative conditions like\u00a0Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of the condition.<\/p>\n Around 944,000 Brits are currently living with\u00a0dementia\u00a0and experts predict the numbers will exceed one million by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n It's thought to be caused by build-ups of proteins in the brain, including tau and amyloid.<\/p>\n There is currently no cure for the disease, although three promising\u00a0drugs\u00a0to slow down its progress are currently in trials.<\/p>\n In the meantime, experts say focusing on how to improve your lifestyle is the best way to fight the disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n The study, published in Springer Nature, looked at how eating sugar in different forms effected the risk of dementia. <\/p>\n They analysed the diets of 186,622 UK Biobank participants – an online database of medical and lifestyle records – between the ages of 37 to 73 for up to ten years – after which 1498 incident dementia cases occurred<\/p>\n Overall health such as body mass index (BMI), socioeconomic status, and family health history were taken into account. <\/p>\n The scientists from the University of Giessen wrote consuming drinks with free sugars and naturally occurring sugars was "significantly associated with dementia risk." <\/p>\n They found drinking a small\u00a0milk drink, like a McDonald's\u00a0vanilla milkshake\u00a0each day, increased the was associated with a 39 per cent increased dementia risk over 10 years.<\/p>\n While drinking a can of full-fat Coke increased the risk of dementia by 21 per cent. <\/p>\n This compares to eating foods with free or naturally occurring sugars for which there was "no significant association" found. <\/p>\n Separate studies have found that getting sugar in liquid form is much worse than getting it from solid food. <\/p>\n This is partially because the brain doesn\u2019t register liquid sugar calories\u00a0like it does the calories from solid food.<\/p>\n Drinking calories doesn\u2019t elicit the same fullness signals as eating them. This means you end up eating more and are at risk of gaining weight. <\/p>\n In addition to promoting weight gain, liquid sugar calories can lead to elevated blood sugar levels and\u00a0insulin resistance, which can lead to diabetes. <\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/tp-composite-kicking-cake-1.jpg\")
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