Friday, March 29

The consumption of ultra-processed foods increases the chances of suffering from Alzheimer’s


New research suggests that excessive intake of this type of food directly increases the risk of Alzheimer’s

Javier Sanchez Perona

JAVIER SANCHEZ PERONA Senior Scientist of the CSIC and Associate Professor of the Pablo de Olavide University, Fat Institute (IG – CSIC)

When we flip a coin, we know that there is a 50% chance that it will come up heads and a 50% chance that it will come up tails. That is the same feeling we have when faced with the threat of some diseases, including dementias such as Alzheimer’s. We don’t know if it will happen to us or not, and we estimate that there is as much probability that one thing will happen as the other.

For better or worse, that calculation isn’t really that simple when it comes to Alzheimer’s. Scientists still don’t fully understand what triggers the condition or why it develops. It is likely that, as with other disorders associated with metabolic disorders, the causes are many.

It is in our hands to prevent it

Factors that influence its development include age-related changes in the brain and genetic, environmental and lifestyle conditions. The importance of any of these conditions to increase or decrease the risk may differ from one person to another, but the more we accumulate, the greater the chances of suffering it.

The risk factors associated with Alzheimer’s are divided into two large groups: non-modifiable ones – including genetics and aging – and modifiable ones. Since (for the time being) we can’t do anything to change our age and our genetics, the latter are the most important for disease prevention. And among them, the diet.

A chain of misfortunes

In principle, the influence of what we eat is based on its effect on obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders, which are themselves risk factors for Alzheimer’s. In other words, poor nutrition increases the chances of suffering from these diseases, and having them –or their associated risk factors– increases the chances of getting dementia at the same time. For this reason, it has been suggested for many years that diet was closely related to the risk of Alzheimer’s.

Thus, various observational studies have shown that the consumption of saturated fats, trans fats and sugar is strongly associated with the probability of developing extended disease. On the contrary, foods that protect from intermediate factors also keep us away from this dementia.

Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory menu

Among them, we find vegetables and fruits, nuts and fish, mainly due to the presence of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory substances, such as vitamins C and E, polyphenols and omega-3 fatty acids.

Likewise, the consumption of virgin olive oil has been associated with improvements in visual memory and verbal fluency in patients with dementia. In this way, we can trick the coin so that it falls more times on the face of the protection than on the tail of the risk.

Saturated fats, sugar or salt are also common constituents of ultra-processed foods, so they would be candidates to contribute to the appearance of this disease. Moreover, there is beginning to be abundant scientific evidence showing that the consumption of this type of product would contribute to the development of diseases that are risk factors for Alzheimer’s.

First empirical evidence

However, until last July there were no studies that directly evaluated the relationship between this type of food and the appearance of the disease. We now have two observational works, which used the NOVA classification of ultra-processed foods, the most recognized worldwide by the scientific community.

The first of these, using data from 3,632 Americans over the age of 60, found that 53% of their total dietary energy intake came from ultra-processed foods. In addition, the researchers found that its consumption was associated with worse verbal fluency, although not with other cognitive tests.

The second included 72,083 participants, ages 55 and older, who did not have dementia at the start of the study. The researchers used data from the UK Biobank study in the United Kingdom. The main result shows that a 10% increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods increases the risk of all types of dementia by 25%, and Alzheimer’s by 14%.

Waiting for new (and better) studies

This discovery is striking and is supported by a very large sample. Despite this, the study has some weaknesses that deserve our attention. For example, to assess the consumption of ultra-processed foods, only a 24-hour recall questionnaire was used, which was administered on 4 occasions over 2 years. These questionnaires collect the foods that each individual has eaten the previous day.

Measuring dietary intake is difficult and there is no single instrument that is optimal for all settings. For this reason, the combination of several is usually recommended.

In particular, the aforementioned 24-hour recall, due to its dependence on the recent memory of the study subject, is not recommended for the elderly or subjects under 12 years of age. Thus, it is very striking that it has been used as the only instrument in research on dementia, bearing in mind that one of the key symptoms is, precisely, the difficulty in remembering recent events.

In any case, and despite their weaknesses, these first two studies on ultra-processed foods and Alzheimer’s point in the same direction: the consumption of these foods would be related to the worsening of cognitive functions and the development of the disease.

We will have to wait for more solid evidence, but, if the results are confirmed, we would have in our hands one more way to cheat the currency so that it falls on the side of protection. A way so simple, but at the same time so complicated, as it is to reduce the presence of ultra-processed foods in our diet.

This article has been published in ‘The Conversation‘.


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