We all forget names, lose our keys, and misplace our cell phones. Occasional brain fog it’s so common and has so many potential triggers (lack of sleep, stress, medication or depression, etc.) that it’s very hard to tell if your brain is aging faster than you might expect or if your forgetfulness is just a temporary symptom of living crazy modern life
One thing you’ll definitely want to remember to help you stay mentally sharp is that your eating habits over time can accelerate memory decline and other markers of declining cognitive function that are associated with brain aging.
We are still learning about the various forms and causes of dementia and the mechanics of the abnormalities that characterize Alzheimer diseasebut more and more research suggests that our diets play a fundamental role.
“What we eat affects more than our body; it also affects our brain,” he says. a naidooDoctor in medicinenutritional psychiatrist, trained chef, and director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Eating an order of fries is not going to fry your brain. It’s the regular consumption of these unhealthy foods over time that can compromise your brainpower just as it can increase your likelihood of experiencing other disorders associated with aging, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.
Let’s review the types of foods that negatively affect our health and the research behind their dangers.
One of the ways that food affects cognitive function is through the gut-brain connection. Science suggests an unbalanced mix of healthy and unhealthy bacteria in our microbiome can influence our brain chemistry, specifically neurochemicals like norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine, which affect learning and memory.
A study published in european journal of the heart found that excessive consumption of red meat can raise levels of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a byproduct of metabolism by gut bacteria. High levels of TMAO may be linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
An unhealthy microbiome is also linked to chronic inflammation, including brain swelling, which can affect blood flow to the brain. “Furthermore, changes in gut bacteria can increase amyloid deposits, thus contributing to Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Naidoo writes in her book This is your brain on food.
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Fructose is healthy fruit sugar, but it’s also found in cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the inexpensive liquid sweetener that food manufacturers add to processed foods. to improve the flavor and make us continue consuming them. Cane sugar and HFCS are so prevalent in our food supply (soft drinks, candies, condiments, salad dressings, canned soups, baked goods, breads, and other processed foods) that they can be a significant danger to the brain for years to come. excessive consumption.
The US Department of Agriculture says that the average American eats 47 pounds of cane sugar and 35 pounds of HFCS over the course of a year. That is too sweet. Rodent studies suggest that getting a large dose of fructose could impair the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other and cause memory loss and disrupt learning. The results suggest that “eating a high-fructose diet over the long term impairs the brain’s ability to learn and remember information,” a UCLA researcher Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, PhDsaying daily science.
Keep track of how often you open a box or can throughout the day. It could be a revelation. A recent study linked getting more than 20% of your daily calories from ultra-processed foods with faster cognitive decline, memory, and executive functions like juggling multiple tasks at once.
The investigation found that men and women who ate the most ultra-processed foods declined 28% faster in memory, attention, verbal fluency, and visual/spatial ability and 25% faster in executive function in compared to people who ate the fewest highly processed foods. Highly processed foods include pre-prepared frozen foods, chips and pretzels, ice cream, store-bought bread, cookies, cake mixes, cereals, packaged snacks and more.
Fried foods — French fries, fried chicken, fried jalapenos, fried Oreo cookies in batter, fried okra, and others — are among the most ultra-processed foods on the planet. They’re also among the most inflammatory foods you can possibly eat, suggesting a possible reason for the results of a large study of more than 18,000 people from a southeastern region known as the “stroke belt,” where “fried southern” cuisine is predominant.
The connection between fried foods and blood vessel inflammation is well established from other studies. This one, published in Journal of Nutritional Scienceshowed that participants whose diets included the most fried foods had the lowest scores on tests of memory and cognition.
jeff csatari
Jeff Csatari, a contributing writer for Eat This, Not That!, is responsible for editing books and magazines for Galvanized Media and advising journalism students through the Zinczenko Center for New Media at Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. read more
