Feeling forgetful? Your love for ultra-processed foods might be to blame! Discover the link between junk food and cognitive decline from an eye-opening new report.
Do you ever have to fish a food box out of the trash three times because you keep forgetting the instructions? We feel you, fam. It turns out that your eating habits may be partly to blame for memory issues. We like to poke fun at absent-mindedness, but memory loss can cause you quality-of-life issues every day at home and at work.
According to Neudrosciencenews.com, a recent study followed over 30,000 participants aged 45 and over for an average of 11 years to see if their diets had a significant impact on their memory retention, or even worse, their chances of having a stroke! The idea was to see if "ultra-processed foods" high in sugar, fat,salt, and low in nutritional content (aka junk food) were creating a kerfuffle in your brain. Some of the foods they focused on included packaged meats, burgers, ice cream, chips, mass-produced bread, breakfast cereals, canned goods, cookies, sugary drinks, fruit-flavored yogurts, instant soups, and some alcoholic beverages.
The study did, in fact, find an association between ultra-processed food consumption and cognitive decline. People who developed cognitive impairment consumed slightly more ultra-processed foods (25.8%) compared to those who did not (24.6%). That said, a 10% increase in ultra-processed food intake was linked to a 16% higher risk of brain scramble. To make matters worse, a higher intake of unhealthy eats was linked to an 8% increased risk of stroke. As you might imagine, a diet higher in unprocessed foods was associated with a 12% lower risk of forgetting to turn off the oven and a 9% decrease in stroke susceptibility. Now the study only showed associated, anecdotal connections - it was not a cause-and-effect scenario, but do we really, once again, have to tell anyone that a nutritious diet will benefit every part of your body, including your gray matter?
Look, there is no replacement for a good diet. Not vitamins, not weird cocktails, nor all the yoga in the world. But there are a few things you can do to help the old noggin hold on to its marbles. These include hydration, avoiding stress, having hobbies, an exercise routine, getting uninterrupted sleep, getting regular check-ups with your doctors, staying involved with friends and family socially, and, of course, avoiding the massive amounts of greasy, sweet, and salty snacks Americans have been trained to eat since we were toddlers. It's not brain surgery, folks (yes, I went there with that pun). You just need to take some common sense steps, especially as you get older, since cognitive decline is going to happen to some level to a great many of us, whether we like it or not. So again, we stress there is no magic bullet to amazing mental acuity, but that doesn't mean you can't take precautionary measures that will prevent you from misplacing your car keys every morning. Oh, and one last thing! It's very important to...uhm...it's smart if you...hmmm...keep in mind that... Actually, let me get back to you on that one...I seem to have forgotten what I was saying here while eaying this hotdog.