Haro on the fast foods, sweets and other ultra-processed foods that we give to adolescents! An American study links irreversible memory problems with a diet rich in fats and sugars adopted during adolescence.
Are you tired of your teenager not remembering what you say to them? The scientists' advice will seem absurd to you: avoid giving him… industrial biscuits, chips or fast food! Although you won't reap the effects right away, it's a lifestyle that will serve him well in adulthood, and we're not just talking about it on a nutritional level. Junk food in general, i.e. a diet high in fats and sugars, has repercussions on memory.
A relationship between our menus and the functioning of the brain
According to a study published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity by researchers from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California, there is a relationship between what we eat and how the brain functions, and more particularly of the hippocampus. Brain structure playing a central role in cognition as well as in memory or even learning, it is here that a chemical substance functions, acetylcholine, which is none other than a neurotransmitter involved in the ability to memory of events. Previous studies had already highlighted this functioning in the context of research on Alzheimer's disease. The problem with a diet too rich in fats and sugars is that it disrupts the signal of this neurotransmitter.
NO to diets, YES to WW!
A long impact on memory
To find out, the scientists carried out analyzes on two groups of rats, one of which was fed foods rich in fats and sugars and the other received healthy food. This diet was provided both at juvenile ages and at an age similar to adolescence. Following memory tests using objects, the experiment revealed that memory problems did not disappear even though the diet was improved, with the disappearance of junk food. In other words, a poor diet during adolescence has a long-term impact on memory without it being possible to envisage reversibility.
“Acetylcholine signaling is a mechanism that helps them (rats) encode and remember these events, analogous to episodic memory in humans, which allows us to remember events from our past“, reports Dr. Anna Hayes. “This signal does not appear to occur in animals that grew up on a fatty and sugary diet” she summarizes in a press release.
Beyond the problem of memory, for many years a number of studies have demonstrated how there is a deep link between the brain and the digestive system; the intestines being identified as the second brain. A truth popularized by Giulia Enders' bestseller, “The discreet charm of the intestine, all about an unloved organ”.
