Healthy eating: Do you still recall what you had for lunch and breakfast the day before? Odds are it was processed or highly refined and came tucked inside a package. That’s because according to a study published in the British Medical Journal, ultra-processed foods make up 57.9% of Americans’ daily energy intake and contribute 89.7% of the energy intake from added sugars.
That breakdown describes what’s called the “Western Diet”, often known as the “Standard American Diet”. S.A.D. is a suitable acronym for our country’s usual eating habit because it reflects the poor status of Americans’ health. In accordance with data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), just 12% of Americans are considered to have healthy metabolisms. And what is unhealthy for the body is equally bad for the intellect.
The sad truth is that a number of recent studies recommend that the number one worst eating habit for memory loss is the Standard American Diet, which is characterized by large amounts of foods high in calories and fat and low in nutritional value. Many of these studies relate a poor diet and fatness to a higher chance of developing neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Cognitive decline is linked to inflammatory oils
Omega-3 fatty acids are brain building blocks, but there is an additional fatty acid that is not so good for your grey matter: omega-6s. Omega-6s are found in cooking oils such as soybean and sunflower oils, which is used in many packaged foods, as well as corn, soybeans, meats, and eggs and are prevalent in the SAD diet. It’s far too common. Many specialists think that the average Western diet contains 10 times more omega-6s than omega-3s, and that expanding the 6s to 3s ratio is bad for our brains. According to a meta-analysis of 14 studies published in the Journal of Nutrition in Gerontology and Geriatrics, a rise in the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids could atrophy the hippocampus and lead cognitive decline in old age.
Too much alcohol may cause brain atrophy
Even moderate amounts of alcohol can be harmful to your brain. One study published in the journal Stroke by researchers from Johns Hopkins University’s department of epidemiology discovered that drinking one drink per day can cause brain atrophy. Another study published in PLOS Medicine found that drinking more than seven drinks per week enhanced iron levels in the brain, which has been connected to cognitive issues.
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Processed-food diet can cause memory loss
A latest rodent experiment revealed what actually occurs to the brain when it is fed a diet filled with refined carbohydrates. Ohio State University researchers fed a group of elderly rats a diet consisting of the type of carbohydrates observed in packaged human foods such as potato chips. The researchers discovered that the ageing rats had signs of loss of memory in addition to signs of increased inflammation in the hippocampus and amygdala areas of their brains, each of which are crucial in memory, after four weeks.
“These findings indicate that consumption of a processed diet can produce significant and abrupt memory deficits—and in the aging population, rapid memory decline has a greater likelihood of progressing into neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease,” said Ruth Barrientos, the Ohio State researcher and co-author of the study.
Consume This! Instead: As part of the experiment, the rats’ diets were supplemented with fish oil, which improved memory loss and infection in the elderly rats. By just being aware of the consequences of packaged foods and the benefits of fish oil, “maybe we can limit processed foods in our diets and increase consumption of foods that are rich in the omega-3 fatty acid DHA to either prevent or slow that progression” of memory loss, according to Barrientos.
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High sugar intake can cause dementia, decreased brain volume, and memory issues
Saturated fat and added sugars are two more SAD hallmarks. According to a review published in the Neurobiology of Aging, saturated fats found in butter, cheeses, meats, full-fat dairy, trans fats found in fried foods and many packaged baked goods, have been associated with memory problems, lower brain volume, and dementia.
A study published in the journal Diabetologia followed the HbA1c levels of over 5,000 men and women for about 8 years. HbA1c, also known as haemoglobin A1C, is a blood test that measures your average sugar levels over the course of three months and is generally used to diagnose and treat prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. Researchers discovered that each incremental growth in HbA1c score was significantly associated with an increased decline in cognitive ability scores after analysing those blood tests.
If you have never had a HbA1c blood test yet, request one from your doctor. You may discover that you are among the 96 million Americans who have prediabetes, 80% of whom are unaware of it.
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