Association of Sugar Intake from Different Sources with Incident Dementia in the Prospective Cohort of UK Biobank Participants

Overview

Journal Nutr J

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Nutritional Sciences

Date 2023 Sep 3

PMID 37661278

Authors

Sylva M Schaefer

Anna Kaiser

Gerrit Eichner

Mathias Fasshauer

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Dementia is a common disease with around 55 million cases worldwide. Therefore, dietary changes and lifestyle interventions are important approaches to delay the progress of a decline in cognitive function. The study aims to explore the association of various sources of free sugars (FS) and intrinsic sugars with dementia risk in the prospective population-based UK Biobank cohort.

Methods: Sugar consumption was assessed in 186,622 UK Biobank participants with at least one web-based dietary questionnaire (Oxford WebQ). Over a mean follow-up of 10.6 (standard deviation 1.1) years, 1498 incident dementia cases occurred. The hazard ratios (HR) for incident dementia were assessed with Cox proportional hazard regression models including sugar intake from different sources as penalized cubic splines to allow for non-linear predictor effects.

Results: The intake of FS and intrinsic sugar was significantly associated with dementia risk in a J-shaped fashion with the HR-nadir observed at 9% and 8% total energy (%E), respectively. FS in beverages were significantly associated with dementia risk in an ascending approximately linear way, whereas no significant association was found for FS in solids. Assessing beverage subtypes, FS in soda/fruit drinks, milk-based drinks and to a lesser extent in juice were significantly and positively related to dementia risk, whereas no association was found for FS in tea/coffee. The association between sugar subtype consumption and dementia risk remained consistent in most sensitivity analyses but changed from a J-shape to a more linear shape when the analysis was restricted to participants with at least two Oxford WebQs.

Conclusions: A linear-shaped association between sugar subtype intake and dementia risk is most consistently found for FS in beverages and more specifically for FS in soda/fruit drinks, as well as in milk-based drinks.

Citing Articles

Associations of sugar intake, high-sugar dietary pattern, and the risk of dementia: a prospective cohort study of 210,832 participants.

Zhang S, Xiao Y, Cheng Y, Ma Y, Liu J, Li C BMC Med. 2024; 22(1):298.

PMID: 39020335 PMC: 11256505. DOI: 10.1186/s12916-024-03525-6.

Association of sugar intake from different sources with cardiovascular disease incidence in the prospective cohort of UK Biobank participants.

Schaefer S, Kaiser A, Eichner G, Fasshauer M Nutr J. 2024; 23(1):22.

PMID: 38383449 PMC: 10882929. DOI: 10.1186/s12937-024-00926-4.

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