Scientists fed rats cola-based soda for 2 months and they got obviously dumber

By Alma Fabiani

Published Aug 29, 2022 at 09:00 AM

Reading time: 2 minutes

35194

By now, you probably thought that you had heard it enough as a kid to know better: sugary drinks aren’t good for you and they should definitely not be consumed on a daily basis. They’ll rot your brain—quite literally, as we’ll see in a short moment.

And yet, despite the fact that soft drink consumption in the US dipped again for the 13th straight year in 2018, the country still has some of the highest consumption rates in the world, with over 50 per cent of respondents of an international Statista survey stating that they consumed sugary drinks at least multiple times in a week, if not every day.

Can you hear the sound of all those poor pearly whites slowly decaying and eventually falling off as you read this too?

Energy drinks and juices aside, when one thinks of other soft drink options, popular cola-based products such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi obviously come to mind. Heck, even after the majority of the world realised just how much damage the ‘normal’ versions of these sugary delights could do to us—think diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay and liver complications, to name a few—the multinational beverage corporations behind those sodas managed to fool us into thinking ‘diet’, ‘zero’ and ‘max’ options were the miracle solution to all of our problems.

Newsflash: just like real sweeteners, fake sweeteners come with a myriad of health issues. But enough with the scolding, we’re actually here to prove just how bad cola-based beverages are, and in order to do so, we got a little bit of help from a couple of adventurous and thirsty rats.

While the debate is still ongoing about whether sodas with damaging sugar levels should include warning labels, there is now new evidence to suggest that long-term consumption of sugary beverages, more specifically cola-based ones, can impair cognition, cause cellular distress and result in memory issues.

How do we know this, you ask? Well, a team of Brazilian researchers took it upon themselves to bring the fizzy drink industry down by conducting a two-month experiment recently published in the journal Experimental Gerontology. The assessment consisted of feeding rats soft drinks including Coca-Cola and Pepsi in an attempt to learn more about their impact on someone’s brain.

First, the scientists separated the rats into three age groups: two-month, eight-month and 14-month olds. Each of those age groups were then split into water-drinking and cola-and-water-drinking cohorts. After 57 days, they then ran the rodents through maze-based behaviour testing. Ten days after that, the rats were euthanised so that the scientists could examine any differences in their brains.

While the water-drinking animals were perfectly fine, the cola addicts were in a completely different state. The soda-sipping younger rats, the two and eight months old, showed memory impairment in multiple maze-based tests, although the older ones did not. In other words, it seemed like their sugar intake had directly messed up their memory skills.

Upon further inspection, the scientists discovered that the soda groups had all sustained varying degrees of damage to the frontal cortex—which controls vital mental functions like attention, memory and judgement—as well as the hippocampus, which plays a major role in both memory and learning.

Though the rodents were killed too soon for the researchers to fully confirm other potential symptoms that could have resulted from their cola-based diet, in humans, frontal cortex damage has previously been linked to personality changes and over-impulsivity, while injury to the hippocampus is thought to play a significant role in illnesses like anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and more.

Of course, it should be noted that this specific study was rooted in long-term exposure, suggesting that, had the rats been fed Coca-Cola or Pepsi only once every now and then during those 67 days, they probably wouldn’t have been affected at all—a theory that can be supported by the fact that the oldest rats, whose brains were most fully-formed, were least affected by soda rations.

Then again, it would be stupid to completely ignore just how addictive sugar (and therefore soda) is:

@kalistadwyer

Reply to @raychill00 miss it everyday tho 😭 #coke #cola #soda #coffee #coffeeaddict

♬ original sound - kalista dwyer

While we highly doubt we’ll see the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) update its preventions on sugary drinks any time soon, we won’t be surprised—and hopefully, neither will you—when soda cans come with warning labels similar to the ones shown on packs of cigarettes.

Keep On Reading

By Abby Amoakuh

Fans claim viral video of Drake fighting off drone in Sydney penthouse actually an ad for gambling site Stake

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Who is Noor Alfallah, the woman with geriatric rizz dating Hollywood’s most famous grandpas?

By Charlie Sawyer

Mason Disick starts trending on X after rumours circulate that he has a secret child named Piper

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Could you go an entire year without spending money? Unpacking TikTok’s No Buy 2025 movement

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

P&O Cruises under fire after staff caught on film wearing KKK-like costumes at Christmas party

By Abby Amoakuh

One Day actor Leo Woodall speaks about feeling objectified ahead of new Bridget Jones movie

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

James Toback hit with landmark $1.68 billion jury award after 40 women accused director of sexual abuse

By Charlie Sawyer

Impractical Jokers star Joe Gatto accused of sexual assault in viral TikTok

By Charlie Sawyer

President Trump and JD Vance angry over the DNC setting up a taco truck outside RNC headquarters

By Charlie Sawyer

The #MeToo movement is at risk. How the Harvey Weinstein retrial risks doing unimaginable damage 

By Abby Amoakuh

Unpacking the many controversies of Disney’s live action Snow White and its lead Rachel Zegler

By Charlie Sawyer

Yung Filly’s legal troubles mount as the rapper faces two new sexual assault charges in Australia

By Charlie Sawyer

Can Drake actually sue Kendrick Lamar for his Super Bowl performance diss?

By Abby Amoakuh

Harry Potter reboot hit with racist backlash for casting Black actor Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape

By Charlie Sawyer

Donald trump to accept $400M luxury plane from Qatar royal family

By Charlie Sawyer

This Oscar-winning actor is the top pick to play Voldemort in HBO Max Harry Potter reboot

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

How celebrities like Mark Wahlberg and Gwen Stefani are monetising spirituality through the Hallow app

By Abby Amoakuh

Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow gives up restrictive diet to be strong instead of thin following backlash

By Charlie Sawyer

Lawmakers pressure Trump to provide evidence that Venezuelan asylum seeker Andry Hernández Romero is still alive

By Matilda Ferraris

From Ballerina Cappuccina to Trallalero Trallalà, we unpack the darker undertones of Italian brainrot