Western-style diet may harm brain health: Researchers
Photo by Szabo Viktor
In the longer term, eating a western-style diet contributes to obesity and diabetes, both of which have been linked to declines in brain performance and the risk of developing dementia.
Scientists at Macquarie University in Sydney say that a Western-style diet for as little as one week can damage brain function and can induce hunger causing slim and healthy young people to overeating.
The study was published in Royal Society Open Science.
According to these scientists, a continuous seven-day diet on this unhealthy food that is high in saturated fat and added sugar can weaken memory thus causing damage to the brain. People eating such food are seen to have a craving for junk food immediately after they had finished a meal. Also, it was found that a Western diet leads to poor appetite and also cause disturbance in the hippo campus region of the brain.
“After a week on a western-style diet, palatable food such as snacks and chocolate becomes more desirable when you are full,” said Richard Stevenson, a professor of psychology at Macquarie University in Sydney. “This will make it harder to resist, leading you to eat more, which in turn generates more damage to the hippo campus and a vicious cycle of overeating.”
The hippo campus is a region of the brain that controls memory and appetite. Also, the hippo campus is known to block or weaken memory about food when one is full.
“When the hippo campus functions less efficiently, you do get this flood of memories, and so food is more appealing,” Stevenson said.
Stevenson believes that in time governments will come under pressure to impose restrictions on processed food, much as they did to deter smoking. “Demonstrating that processed foods can lead to subtle cognitive impairments that affect appetite and serve to promote overeating in otherwise healthy young people should be a worrying finding for everyone,” he said. The work was published in Royal Society Open Science.
In the longer term, eating a western-style diet contributes to obesity and diabetes, both of which have been linked to declines in brain performance and the risk of developing dementia.
“The new thinking here is the realization that a western-style diet may be generating initial and fairly subtle cognitive impairments, that undermine the control of appetite which gradually opens the way for all of these other effects down the track,” Stevenson said.
“Understanding the impact of a western diet on brain function is a matter of urgency given the current food climate,” said Rachel Batterham, professor of obesity, diabetes and endocrinology at University College London.
