May 21, 2012 - The Memory of a Rat

Happy Monday morning to you all, Can I say how PROUD I am hat watermelons have dropped in price??? That is one of my staple foods and when funds are tight I have to ask myself do I REALLY NEED that watermelon. :) The answer - absolutely yes! News flash - Crissy sent me a text last night that she found a Smucker's jam sweetened with stevia and it was good. YEA! The food industry is changing so that we are having more and more options. I know the pharmaceutical companies are not very happy as they need us "taking our meds." But........choosing healthy living means we get to choose to decrease, or eliminate, our weight-related meds. :) Smaller clothes, more energy, focused life, better health = win, win, win, win situation. Yes?? Today I want to leave you with a thought-provoking article. I know you guys think I am the sugar nazi - but this research article supports another wonderful reason to decrease or eliminate sugar in your diet as well as your family. How many of us want to increase our memory potential??? That would be me! Hope you enjoy this - have a blessed day and choose LIFE. PK Lab Notes: Sugar Sours Memory, Fish Oil Trumps By MedPage Today Staff Published: May 18, 2012 Rats fed a sugary diet forgot how to run a maze they had previously mastered, but the effect was countered by omega-3 fatty acid supplements. Also this week: new hope for Fanconi anemia. Sugary Diet Impairs Memory Rats in a maze study performed worse when their diet was supplemented with fructose water, researchers at the University of California Los Angeles found. The team trained 24 rats to run a maze over 5 days, and then randomized them to a diet enriched with or without docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and with or without a fructose solution. After 6 weeks on one of four diets, the rats ran the maze again from memory, the researchers reported in The Journal of Physiology. Rats with a DHA-enriched diet that were not given fructose water had significantly better times on the maze than did rats given sugar, whether or not their diet was enriched with the omega-3 fatty acid. However, rats given sugar water and the fatty acid managed to perform better than ones without DHA. Rats given neither fructose nor fatty acids performed better than either fructose group, but not as well as rats with the DHA enriched-only diet. The research team noted that "the lack of [omega-3] fatty acids in the diet elevated parameters of peripheral insulin resistance, and resulted in disrupted insulin signalling in brain, and these effects were aggravated by fructose treatment" and that "dysfunctional insulin receptor signalling was associated with lowered learning performance" in the maze. In short, the omega-3 deficiency led to memory deficiency, which was amplified further by drinking sugar water. -- Cole Petrochko