French fries, mixed fried food, arancini and company: the pleasure of gluttony they produce could be much more than momentary, but could be the cause of anxiety and depression; A scientific study explains it to us.
What does the scientific study say?
Within the University of Zhejiang, in China, a scientific study was conducted in order to reveal the biological mechanism that occurs in our body by which fried foods, considered to be very tasty, can actually promote the development of mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. The study was conducted on more than 140,000 people and was published in the journal PNAS, linking to studies already carried out on the relationship between Western diets and mental health. Within the scientific study, we read how it “revealed that frequent consumption of fried foods, particularly fried potatoes, is strongly associated with a 12% and 7% higher risk of anxiety and depression, respectively. Male consumers and younger consumers are more at risk”.
Nutrition, anxiety and depression
“After the epidemiological study”, the authors continue, “the experts transferred their work to the laboratory, where they saw that chronic exposure to acrylamide, a by-product of the frying process (of which fried foods are therefore rich) already repeatedly called into question for its effects on health, it induces disorders of fat metabolism in the brain and neuroinflammation”. It is therefore advisable to decrease the consumption of this kind of food, which if frequent could cause an increase in the risk of developing anxiety and depression. With frequent consumption, as the nutritionist and psychiatrist Stefano Erzegovesi explains for the pages of the Corriere, we mean daily. “So it doesn’t mean you get sick from eating chips on a Saturday night. It’s okay to focus on what’s bad for you, but let’s also focus on what’s good for your brain.”
French fries: perhaps not the secret of happiness
“In general, frying, even if you eat vegetables, is not a food to be consumed every day, but it is even less to be consumed if you follow a Western diet, rich in refined foods and low in fiber and antioxidants”, concludes finally the doctor. The “problem” of this discovery is that it attacks us on an exposed nerve: the throat. Fried foods, in fact, notoriously fall into the category of the tastiest, fanciest and most classic of an evening of fun with friends or contentment, for example.Fries in particular appear to be quite harmful to our mental and long-term health; the food in question, out of 8,294 cases of anxiety and 12,735 cases of depression recognized at the end of the study, were linked to a 2% increase in the risk of depression.
