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[Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]
Candy canes. Christmas cookies. And, predictably, your little cousins are bouncing off the walls. An article published last week in BMJ says that our skewed perception of hyper behavior post-sugar might be mostly in our heads.
Most reviews, including this one, have concluded that if you slip kids some sugar without them knowing it, it doesn’t have a hyperactivity effect in most children, even ones with ADHD.
One study shows that parents can fall prey to the placebo effect, seeing their kids as more hyperactive when under the false impression that the kids have eaten sugar.
Researchers gave 30 boys a drink of sugar-free Kool-Aid, but they told some mothers that they had been given a very sugary beverage, instead.
Those moms who thought their kids had ingested sugar rated their sons as more hyperactive than those who were told the truth.
So if your cousin is being a pain in the rear, maybe you should be the one to chill out.
—Susannah F. Locke
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8 Comments
Add CommentBut what was in the drink to begin with? Hyperactivity might be triggered by the activiation of sugar receptors in the tongue, not necessarily the physiological effect of the sugar itself. The experiment as described seems weak.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink about it, Gary. All the kids got the same drink. This particular experiment tells us nothing about the effect of sugar substitutes in children. The parents were being tested, not the kids. The controls were the moms who were not told their children got lots of sugar.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOther tests with other controls would answer the question you have in mind. The particular one described here doesn't.
There has NEVER been anything saying that sugar causes hyperactivity, it's always been just a fad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder who funded this study? The sugar sugar/confectionery industry is hugely profitable and, like the tobacco and pharmaceutical companies, have a vested interest in presenting their products as harmless..and biased studies regularly make it into prestigious peer reviewed medical journals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyway..the culprit is food coloring..
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/11/14/1226318927579.html
Sugar may not be responsible for hyperactivity in kids but it depletes the body of B. vitamins which are necessary for a healthy nervous system...and it rots teeth.
I taught some sixth graders once who conducted their own study about the meaning of the word "hyper" among their peers. It became overwhelming clear that the word granted a kind of freedom to be uninhibited vs inhibited, loud vs quiet, ebullient vs decorous, active vs still -- a number of qualities that kids associate with having fun and teachers and parents associate with acting out. The study inferred that kids learn to see "sugaring up" was a way of getting to be hyper that is beyond their control -- i.e. for which adults were willing to cut kids slack because it was the "sugar's" fault.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese were terrific kids at a famous private school in Westchester NY. They were delighted whenever adults pooh-poohed their results....
I agree with Johnson...... some myths never die no matter how many studies disprove it. This sugar myth has been around for at least 35 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs someone already mentioned, this study only examines the parents' perception of hyperactivity. Before making such broad based conclusions, maybe a double blind study that focuses on the behavior, brain activity, heart and respiratory rates would be more conclusive than what moms thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would be interested to see sugar, sugar substitutes, with and without caffeine tested. I might have to try this in one of my science classes. There sure seems to be a correlation in high school between hyperactivity/disruptive behavior and the junk food machine being reloaded.
The issue is not with sugar but the additives that are in high sugar products like soft drinks and candy- studies from the University of Southampton have shown that a variety of artificial food colourings and preservatives (especially in combination) do exacerbate behavioural problems. So don't be reassured by this rather simplistic study that high sugar products are OK.
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