Ultraprocessed foods can hurt your ability to focus and raise your risk of dementia - even if your diet is healthy for the most part, a new study has found.
The findings have major implications for Americans since 60 percent of the U.S. diet is ultraprocessed.
The study, conducted by researchers in Australia and Brazil, found that eating a single bag of chips a day is enough to shorten attention span.
The average attention span for U.S. adults is now just eight seconds, according to separate research last year by Ohio State University.
“There are many different things that can lead to why we're having a hard time focusing or having trouble with attention,” Dr. Evita Singh, a psychiatrist with Ohio State’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, explained in a statement.
But while Americans’ deteriorating attention spans have shortened over decades, the new study found the effects of these foods take place in minutes.
Cognitive tests of more than 2,100 middle-aged adults, with a diet containing 41 percent ultraprocessed foods, revealed lower scores on mental processing speed and attention after eating a bag of chips.
“We saw a distinct and measurable drop in a person’s ability to focus,” lead researcher Dr. Barbara Cardoso, a biochemist at Australia’s Monash University, said in a press release.
These effects were regardless of a person’s overall food choices - even for people on a Mediterranean diet, which is considered to be one of the best for overall health.
While the researchers did not suggest why these effects occur, Cardoso said the results reinforce the idea that eating ultraprocessed foods is bad for the brain.
The study’s authors also observed that adults who ate more ultraprocessed foods had an increase in dementia risk factors.
That’s something past studies have also found. A Harvard Medical School study from 2022 showed a 25 percent increased risk for dementia in people who ate higher amounts of ultraprocessed foods.
Other studies conducted since then have found similar links to cognitive decline and dementia risk. Last year, Virginia Tech University researchers said consuming processed meats and sugary drinks were linked to poor memory and decreased cognitive performance in adults.
Although, smoked meats and sugary foods aren’t the only types of ultraprocessed foods. Many ultraprocessed products are considered to be relatively healthy, such as granola bars and plant-based meat.
That’s why some people might not know to check the nutritional facts for harmful artificial additives and chemicals. It’s the additives in ultraprocessed products that are likely the problem, Cardoso said.
“These additives suggest the link between diet and cognitive function extends beyond just missing out on foods known as healthy, pointing to mechanisms linked to the degree of food processing itself,” she added.
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