By NAOYUKI HIMENO/ Staff Writer
November 11, 2021 at 17:30 JST
White sugar
Adolescents consuming an excessive amount of sugar could risk developing schizophrenia or other mental disorders by causing inflammation in neurons in the brain, according to experiments conducted on mice.
The findings by Japanese researchers will likely contribute to the development of a new medication or prevention of mental dysfunction as the link between inflammation in the brain’s capillary blood vessels and psychiatric diseases has been unknown.
Results of the study, conducted by scientists at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science and other institutions, were published in the Nov. 10 online edition of the U.S. scientific journal Science Advances (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abl6077)
Many patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorders are found in the younger generation.
The former is an illness characterized by distortions in thinking, perception, emotions, language, sense of self and behavior. In the latter, patients demonstrate dramatic shifts in their mood, energy and ability to think clearly.
Researchers believe that a combination of various factors, such as heredity and the environment surrounding them, are responsible for the onset of such illnesses.
It is also known that many patients with mental dysfunction have a propensity for consuming large amounts of sugar, including drinking two liters of soft drinks a day.
In the study, mice with mutations in genes related to mental dysfunction were fed an excessive volume of sugar.
The scientists found that such mice showed a deteriorating ability to recognize positions of objects.
Some also groomed themselves in extreme frequencies, while others engaged in nest building behavior less often than before.
The researchers also discovered that the mice developed inflammation in capillary vessels in the brain, leading to a lesser uptake of glucose, which serves as nutrients for neuronal cells.
The examination of the brains of deceased patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders showed that they also had inflammation in the capillaries in the brain, like the mice.
Shinobu Hirai, a senior researcher with the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, who was involved with the latest study, said the mice may be developing a mental illness due to a decline in nutrients in the brain’s neurons as a result of the reduced uptake of glucose.
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