Alzheimer’s: now sugar is a culprit

THE bad boy of the food world is causing even more damage than previously thought.

Sugar is not only the main cause of obesity and diabetes; according to new research, it is a factor in Alzheimer’s disease.

Scientists at the University of Bath in the UK studied brain tissue from people with and without Alzheimer’s. They found that sugar in the bloodstream had modified certain proteins which then damaged an enzyme that helps with immune responses and insulin regulation.

As a result, “abnormal proteins built up in the brain” because “the enzyme could not do its job of stopping this from happening”.

Researcher Dr Omar Kassaar said: “Excess sugar is well known to be bad for us when it comes to diabetes and obesity, but this potential link with Alzheimer’s disease is yet another reason that we should be controlling our sugar intake in our diets.”

For the Department of Health, the research adds to evidence that the planned sugar tax — announced in former finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s budget last year — is necessary.

Spokesman Khutso Rabothata said: “We are not at all surprised by this finding. Research has been pointing for some time to an association between the risk factors for cardiovascular disease and dementia. The slogan that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain applies.”

He said the finding “adds weight to the decision” to impose a sugar tax.

Neva Makgetla, a senior researcher with Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies who wrote a policy brief on the sugar tax, said mounting evidence against sugar was a thorn in the side of the beverage industry, which opposed the tax.

“The producers want to maintain high levels of consumption to increase their profits despite the known impact on public health,” she said.

When the tax was proposed, the Beverage Association of South Africa claimed “the unintended economic consequences of such a tax are potentially damaging to the lower socioeconomic strata” because “these taxes hit the

The slogan that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain applies to this finding

poor in a demonstrably regressive fashion”.

According to Makgetla, there are many substitutes for sugary drinks so the “cost of living shouldn’t rise”. And poor people had less access to health care and lower savings, so any public health measures that “avoid ill-health” were important to them.

Professor John Joska, head of neuropsychiatry at the University of Cape Town, said poorer South Africans were also more vulnerable than wealthy people in the fight against Alzheimer’s.

“Medications for Alzheimer’s disease, although modest in benefit, are expensive and not freely available in the public sector,” he said.

Joska said there was a shortage of data on dementia in South Africa, but global prevalence in 65-year-olds was about 3%, doubling every five years.