Sugar gives bees a happy buzz, study finds

September 29, 2016

An unexpected sugary snack can give bees a little buzz and appears to lift their mood, even making them optimistic, according to research Thursday that suggests pollinators have feelings, too. 

Since emotions are subjective and difficult to measure—particularly in animals—researchers looked at how bees' behavior changed after they were given a sip of sucrose solution.

They found that bees learned to fly faster to a container with a sugary drink inside than to one with just water.

"Bees given a 60 percent sucrose reward to induce a positive affective state flew faster to the cylinder than non-rewarded bees," said the study in the journal Science, led by Clint Perry at the University of London. 

"Much like happy people are more likely to make optimistic judgments about ambiguous situations."

The sugar-buzzed bees also appeared to recover faster from a scare—when they were briefly caught and released, as if attacked by a predator spider—than bees that had not indulged in the sweet treat.

"Sweet food can increase positive emotions and improve negative mood in human adults, and reduce crying and grimacing of newborns in response to aversive stimuli," said the study.

"If drinking an unexpected sucrose solution caused a positive emotion–like state in bees, we predicted that, after consumption, bees' aversive reaction to the 'predator' would be attenuated," it added.

"Indeed, bees that consumed sucrose solution before the 'attack' took less time to reinitiate foraging."

Researchers said their study lends support to "the notion that invertebrates have states that fit the criteria defining emotion."

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Sugar Should Be Regulated As Toxin, Researchers Say

A spoonful of sugar might make the medicine go down. But it also makes blood pressure and cholesterol go up, along with your risk for liver failure, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The researchers propose regulations such as taxing all foods and drinks that include added sugar, banning sales in or near schools and placing age limits on purchases.

Although the commentary might seem straight out of the Journal of Ideas That Will Never Fly, the researchers cite numerous studies and statistics to make their case that added sugar — or, more specifically, sucrose, an even mix of glucose and fructose found in high-fructose corn syrup and in table sugar made from sugar cane and sugar beets — has been as detrimental to society as alcohol and tobacco.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/18244-sugar-toxic-regulations.html