Sugar is possibly more dangerous than previously imagined, especially for women, a new study claims. Sugar given to rats which equaled three cans of soda a day, proved to have disastrous effects on them.
In a study published today in Nature Communications, researchers found that the animals' health and ability to compete, is negatively affected by a diet that high in sugar which is what many Americans have today.
For their experiment, scientists in the United States split 156 mice into two groups - one fed a normal, healthy diet while the other had naturally-occurring carbohydrates comprising a quarter of their diet replaced by added sugar.
Senior author Wayne Potts, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, said when male mice were given a diet with 25 percent extra sugar - equivalent to about an additional three cans of soda a day in humans - they were less likely to defend their territory and reproduce.
Meanwhile, female mice had a more severe reaction. After 32 weeks on the diet, more than 33 percent of the female mice died. That was double the number of mice who were not given the sugary diet. The rates declined as the study progressed, partly because more of them died.
The study found nothing unusual in terms of obesity or insulin and blood sugar levels.
"Our test shows an adverse outcome from the added-sugar diet that couldn't be detected by conventional tests," said Professor Potts.
"We have shown that levels of sugar that people typically consume - and that are considered safe by regulatory agencies - impair the health of mice," said biologist James Ruff of the University of Utah, who co-authored the study.
"In the end, we have to ask ourselves the question - if it makes a mouse sick do we want it in our bodies?" said Ruff.
