Highly Processed Foods Increase Dementia Risk (heart, cancer, sleep, disease)

[saibot]

Originally Posted by Deserterer

Processed food is food you can't just whip up at home.

I agree that we need a better definition. I can take milk, butter, sugar and cocoa powder and whip up a pan of fudge that I'll bet is just as bad for you as a Hershey bar.

[Deserterer]

Originally Posted by saibot

I agree that we need a better definition. I can take milk, butter, sugar and cocoa powder and whip up a pan of fudge that I'll bet is just as bad for you as a Hershey bar.

But your fudge is not processed food. Take a look at the ingredients of packaged fudge and you might find a lot of things you don't have at home and some like tert-Butylhydroquinone that you wouldn't even even know where to get


I use hydroquinone in photographic developers, I wonder if I could develop in diluted processed brownies?

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto

Before anybody quits their lucrative job as a Wall St investment banker, sells the Manhattan condo and moves to a remote hippy commune so they can eat all organic food, consider this about this inane study --

It's based on a diet Questionaire, does not define how they measured "cognitive decline" and does not define "hghly processed food."

Surprise, surprise.

[Arktikos]

From the CNN article:

“While this is a study of association, not designed to prove cause and effect, there are a number or elements to fortify the proposition that some acceleration in cognitive decay may be attributed to ultraprocessed foods,” said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine and nutrition, who was not involved in the study.

“The sample size is substantial, and the follow-up extensive. While short of proof, this is robust enough that we should conclude ultraprocessed foods are probably bad for our brains.”

A clear definition of "ultraprocessed" that people are looking for is probably in the longer text of the JAMA article.

[Driver 47]

This doesn't bode well for those who enjoy SPAM.

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by Deserterer

Processed food is food you can't just whip up at home.

Well, no. Processed foods refer to any food that’s changed from its natural state. You buy blueberries, then freeze them. Now they've been processed.

https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-are-processed-foods

Just to give one example, when I was a child everyone had a meat grinder in their kitchen. I'm not sure why, but I'll bet my mother still has hers.

"Processed" has a pretty wide definition.

[Tall Traveler]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

This shouldn't come as a complete surprise - all these foods are already on the naughty list due to e.g. high carbohydrates but low fiber content, or bad fats - saturated/trans fats, or high salt, but it doesn't hurt to have a reminder that there are consequences of heavy consumption...

"If more than 20% of your daily calorie intake is ultraprocessed foods, however, you may be raising your risk for cognitive decline, a new study found... The part of the brain involved in executive functioning — the ability to process information and make decisions — is especially hard hit, according to the study published Monday in JAMA Neurology... Men and women in the study who ate the most ultraprocessed foods had a 25% faster rate of executive function decline and a 28% faster rate of overall cognitive impairment compared with those who ate the least amount of overly processed food."

CNN Article:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/05/healt...ess/index.html

Source JAMA Article:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...stract/2799140

I ate way too many processed foods for years and suffered the consequences. Today I eat exclusively plants, eggs, olive oil, and meat in its original form.

[karen_in_nh_2012]

Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto

Before anybody quits their lucrative job as a Wall St investment banker, sells the Manhattan condo and moves to a remote hippy commune so they can eat all organic food, consider this about this inane study--

It's based on a diet Questionaire, does not define how they measured "cognitive decline" and does not define "hghly processed food."

Number 1, how ELSE could they possibly measure what food people consumed regularly than by ASKING THEM in a questionnaire? (That's how it's spelled, incidentally.) Follow 10,000 people around for years writing down what they ate? Seriously, that's just a silly criticism.

And even the CNN article TELLS US how they measured cognitive decline AND tells us how they defined "highly processed food." The JAMA article, which I will have to order from my college, probably gives even more details.

Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto

What, after all, is processed food other than food that was cooked for you at a factory? If you had bought the ingredients fresh and made the meal from scratch, it would still be a "processed food' then unless you ate it all raw....Granted, a commericial food factory may add more salt or sugar than you would in your own kitchen, but that's the only difference...People have this vague feeling that "processed food" is something with unknown and sinister, black- magical content.

"That's the only difference"? Um, nope. When I am cooking fresh veggies, I don't add much to them, but if I look at highly processed foods' ingredient labels, there are typically a lot of things I've never even heard of.

Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto

Dietary "studies" using questionaires are notoriously inaccurate. People have bad memories. People under- or over- estimate what they eat. People lie about what they eat in order to save face or please the researchers. Ignore any study using a questionaire.

Um, yes, sure, let's totally ignore all survey research that has been done forever.

And of course I agree that some studies are done badly, but come on.

Originally Posted by Arktikos

From the CNN article:

“While this is a study of association, not designed to prove cause and effect, there are a number or elements to fortify the proposition that some acceleration in cognitive decay may be attributed to ultraprocessed foods,” said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine and nutrition, who was not involved in the study.

“The sample size is substantial, and the follow-up extensive. While short of proof, this is robust enough that we should conclude ultraprocessed foods are probably bad for our brains.”

A clear definition of "ultraprocessed" that people are looking for is probably in the longer text of the JAMA article.

And again, it's actually in the CNN article!

Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat

Well, no. Processed foods refer to any food that’s changed from its natural state. You buy blueberries, then freeze them. Now they've been processed.

That is NOT what the study was referring to, and if you'd even read the CNN article (never mind the JAMA article), you would have known that.

=====

Why on earth are people so quick to dismiss a study that followed 10,000 people over up to 10 years? That's a very long study even by academic standards.

[mila123]

My mom has dementia/alzheimers and her dad died from it. Complete opposite eating habits but neither really ate much processed foods. One drank and smoked while the other didn't. One exercised and the other didn't. It didn't matter. It's partially hereditary and genetic. Just live your life the best way you can and enjoy it, and hope the big pharma doesn't focus solely on COVID and erections and spends some of that time and money on things that are more likely to destroy lives.

[Deserterer]

Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat

Well, no. Processed foods refer to any food that’s changed from its natural state. You buy blueberries, then freeze them. Now they've been processed.

https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-are-processed-foods

Just to give one example, when I was a child everyone had a meat grinder in their kitchen. I'm not sure why, but I'll bet my mother still has hers.

"Processed" has a pretty wide definition.

I'd have to disagree with that loose of a definition in the context of this thread. Nobody is suggesting that people get dementia from frozen blueberries or vegetables. Freezing is a natural process, and frozen blueberries have certainly been eaten by humans for millennia, along with frozen meat, fish, etc etc.