It’s hard to avoid eating ultraprocessed foods. They can be very delicious. Who can resist a candy bar, french fries, ice cream, or doughnuts? But, Sandy LaMotte reports for CNN on the latest research study in JAMA Neurology showing that ultraprocessed foods are bad for your brain and might be increasing your risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Adults typically consume about 2,000 calories a day. If at least 400 of those calories (20 percent) are from ultraprocessed foods, you could be at greater risk of losing basic cognitive functions, including your ability to process information and make decisions.
It’s easy to consume a lot of calories from ultraprocessed foods. If you’re a sucker for a McDonald’s cheeseburger sand small fries, for example, together they total 530 calories! As it turns out, ultraprocessed foods represent 58 percent of the typical American’s diet.
How serious is the cognitive decay from eating a lot of ultraprocessed foods? The JAMA observational study found that people who ate a lot of ultraprocessed foods lost the ability to process information 25 percent faster than those who ate the least amount of ultraprocessed foods. Overall, cognitive impairment for those who ate the most ultraprocessed food came 28 percent faster than for those who ate the least.
This all said, if you generally eat a healthy diet but combine healthy foods with ultraprocessed foods, you could be in luck when it comes to your mental health. The study found no cognitive decay associated with people who ate a lot of whole fruits and vegetables, healthy proteins and whole grains, along with ultraprocessed foods.
While it’s an observational study that cannot directly tie eating ultraprocessed foods with cognitive decay, the findings should be taken seriously. The study involved 10,000 participants for as long as ten years. Compelling evidence!
Participants’ average age was 51. The researchers defined ultraprocessed foods as “industrial formulations of food substances (oils, fats, sugars, starch, and protein isolates) that contain little or no whole foods and typically include flavorings, colorings, emulsifiers, and other cosmetic additives.” Ultraprocessed foods tend to have a lot of sugar, salt and fat, which cause inflammation in the body and jeopardize healthy aging.
Putting aside cognitive decay, ultraprocessed foods should be avoided for many reasons. Among others, they increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and death.
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