The dangers of eating processed foods that are rich in fat are already known throughout the world. A new study has found that biscuits, cake, or ready-to-eat meals are also bad for your memory.
A US team of researchers have discovered that trans-fats in processed food are linked to common memory loss of men. The study concluded that eating large amounts of trans-fat leads to poorer memory in men aged 45 and under.
Dr. Beatrice Golomb, lead researcher from the University of California at San Diego, said that trans-fats are strongly linked to worse memory in men during their high productivity years.
"Trans-fat consumption has previously shown adverse associations to behavior and mood - other pillars of brain function. However, to our knowledge a relation to memory or cognition had not been shown," she added.
The research team analyzed data from a dietary survey which was given to 1,018 men and women, who had taken part of the word recall test. The results show that men at the specified age above were able to recall 86 words in the test, but for every additional gram of trans-fat to their body, their performance lowers by statistically 0.76 words.
The researchers explained that young men are able to recall around 12 fewer words if their fat consumption are the same as the highest levels in the study. They also said that this trend can only be seen significant for men, but this is because of a small number of women participants in the survey.
A spokeswoman from the Department of Health said that they have significantly reduced the levels of artificial trans-fats in foods by working with the industries.
"The latest data show that the daily intake of trans-fats in the UK was below 1% of food energy, in line with expert advice. Tackling obesity and improving people's health through good nutrition continues to be a major priority for this Government," she explained.
