THE EFFECT OF SUGAR ON BEHAVIOR OR COGNITION IN CHILDREN - A METAANALYSIS

Objective.-To examine the effects of sugar on the behavior or cognitio n of children by using meta-analytic techniques on reported studies. D ata Sources.-Studies were identified through a literature search of th e MEDLINE and PsychINFO databases and the authors' files using sugar, sucrose, and attention deficit disorder as the search terms. Study Sel ection.-Studies were required to (1) intervene by having the subjects consume a known quantity of sugar; (2) use a placebo (artificial sweet ener) condition; (3) blind the subjects, parents, and research staff t o the conditions; and (4) report statistics that could be used to comp ute the dependent measures effect sizes. Data Extraction.-Variables in cluded publication year, study setting, subject type and number, gende r, age, sugar and placebo,type and dose, prior dietary condition, meas urement construct, means and SDs for the sugar and placebo conditions, and direction of effect. Data Synthesis.-Sixteen reports met the incl usion criteria for a total of 23 within-subject design studies. The we ighted mean effect size and related statistics for each of the 14 meas urement constructs revealed that although the range for these means wa s from -0.14 for direct observations and up to +0.30 for academic test s, the 95% confidence interval for all 14 mean effect sizes included 0 . Conclusion.-The meta-analytic synthesis of the studies to date found that sugar does not affect the behavior or cognitive performance of c hildren. The strong belief of parents may be due to expectancy and com mon association. However, a small effect of sugar or effects on subset s of children cannot be ruled out.