Artificial sweeteners like Equal and Sweet’N Low might help consumers cut calories, but it might be at the cost of future brain power. These are the findings of a new study published on September 3 in the journal ‘Neurology’.

People who consume high amounts of low- and no-calorie sugar substitutes appear to experience faster declines in thinking and memory skills, the study found. Their decline is 62 per cent more rapid than among people consuming the least amounts – equal to about 1.6 years of additional brain ageing, results showed.

This link was even stronger in middle-aged folks and people with diabetes, researchers found. “Low- and no-calorie sweeteners are often seen as a healthy alternative to sugar,” senior researcher Dr. Claudia Kimie Suemoto, an associate professor of geriatrics at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, said in a news release.

“However, our findings suggest certain sweeteners may have negative effects on brain health over time.” For the study, researchers tracked the health of nearly 12,800 adults in Brazil. Their average age was 52, and they were followed for an average of eight years.

Participants completed diet questionnaires at the start of the study, allowing researchers to estimate their intake of aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), saccharin (Sweet’N Low), acesulfame-K, erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol and tagatose.