(CNN) Eating ultraprocessed foods for more than 20% of your daily caloric intake each day may be putting you toward cognitive decline, new research suggests.
We all know eating ultraprocessed foods that make our lives easier – such as packaged soups, sauces, frozen pizzas and ready-to-eat meals – is not good for our health. Or not gobbling up all the pleasure food that we love so much: hot dogs, sausages, burgers, French fries, sodas, cookies, cakes, candies, donuts and ice cream, to name just a few.
Research has found that they can increase the risk of obesity, heart and circulatory problems, diabetes and cancer. They can even shorten our lives.
Now, new research reveals eating more processed food can contribute to overall cognitive decline, including areas of the brain involved in executive function – the ability to process information and make decisions.
In fact, men and women who ate the most ultraprocessed foods had a 28% faster rate of global cognitive decline and a 25% faster rate of executive function decline compared to those who ate the least amount of ultraprocessed foods, the study found.
“Although further research and replication is needed, the new results encourage and emphasize the critical role of proper nutrition in maintaining and promoting brain health and reducing the risk of brain disease as we age,” said Rudy Tanzi, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the genetics and aging research unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was not involved in the study.
Tanzi, who has written about ultraprocessed foods in his book “The Healing Self: A Revolutionary New Plan to Supercharge Your Immunity and Stay Well for Life,” said the key problem with ultraprocessed foods is that “they are usually very high in sugar, salt, and fat, all which promotes systemic inflammation, perhaps the most important threat to healthy aging in the body and brain.
“At the same time, because they are easy to eat quickly, they also replace food that contains plant fiber that is important for maintaining the health and balance of the trillions of bacteria in your gut microbiome,” he added, “which is especially important for brain health and reducing the risk of disease age-related brain like Alzheimer’s disease.”
It’s not a lot of calories
The study, presented Monday at the 2022 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in San Diego, followed more than 10,000 Brazilians for up to 10 years. Just over half of the study participants were female, White or college educated, while the average age was 51.
Cognitive tests, which included immediate and delayed word recall, word recognition and verbal fluency were administered at the beginning and end of the study, and participants were asked about their diet. To see also : Average UK school meals are mostly made from ultra-processed foods.
“In Brazil, ultraprocessed foods make up 25% to 30% of the total calorie intake. We have McDonald’s, Burger King and we eat a lot of chocolate and white bread. This is not very different, unfortunately, from many other Western countries,” he said . coauthor Dr. Claudia Suemoto, assistant professor in the division of geriatrics at the University of São Paulo Medical School.
“Fifty-eight percent of the calories consumed by citizens of the United States, 56.8% of the calories consumed by citizens of the United Kingdom, and 48% of the calories consumed by Canadians come from ultraprocessed foods,” Suemoto said.
Ultraprocessed foods are defined as “industrial formulations of food substances (oil, fat, sugar, starch, and protein isolate) that contain little or no whole foods and typically include flavorings, colorings, emulsifiers, and other cosmetic additives,” according to the study. .
“People who consumed more than 20% of their daily calories from processed foods had a 28% faster decline in global cognition and a 25% faster decline in executive function compared to people who ate less than 20%,” said lead author Natalia Gonçalves, an author . researcher in the Department of Pathology at the University of São Paulo Medical School.
For someone eating 2,000 calories a day, 20% would equal 400 or more calories — for comparison, a small order of fries and a regular cheeseburger from McDonalds contains a total of 530 calories.
People in the study who ate the most processed foods were “more likely to be younger, female, White, have higher education and income, and were more likely to never smoke, and less likely to be current alcohol consumers,” the study found. .
“People should know that they should cook more and prepare their own food from scratch. I know. We say we don’t have time but we really don’t need that much time,” said Suemoto.
“And it’s worth it because you want to protect your heart and protect your brain from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease,” he added. “That’s the take-home message: Stop buying superprocessed stuff.”
