Highly Processed Foods Increase Dementia Risk (prescription, men, diet, salt)

[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

[MadManofBethesda]

"There was an interesting twist, however. If the quality of the overall diet was high — meaning the person also ate a lot of unprocessed, whole fruits and veggies, whole grains and healthy sources of protein — the association between ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline disappeared...."

ibid

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by MadManofBethesda

"There was an interesting twist, however. If the quality of the overall diet was high — meaning the person also ate a lot of unprocessed, whole fruits and veggies, whole grains and healthy sources of protein — the association between ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline disappeared...."

ibid

Good point, and this too isn't shocking really. In Pharmacology, we have the general concept of dose/response relationships with the general finding in animals and people that if some is good/bad, then within limits, more is better/worse. In this context, the way that I normally think of it, is that it's okay to include some portions of bad foods in your diet, but they should be the exception, rather than the rule; or in dose/response terms, keep the dose of toxic foods low and the damage will be minimal.

[fluffythewondercat]

Just the other day, someone wrote an article to advise the world that nose-picking causes dementia.

I think your cite here is about equally valid.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat

Just the other day, someone wrote an article to advise the world that nose-picking causes dementia.

I think your cite here is about equally valid.

I am not sure what you're trying to say, but if you're trying to say that you don't believe this, what is the basis of your belief that it's false?

[luckyme609]

Processed and fast foods are not good for anyone. They should be consumed rarely if at all.

[Igor Blevin]

90 year old mother has onset dimentia and never ate processed foods to any extent. She was the one family member who was heavily into "eat your fruit and vegetables" and one of only two immediately family members who kept the weight off.

Big Medicine apparently has no clue yet as to the key to dimentia. Diet. Alcohol consumption. Sleep deprivation. Prescription drugs. Stress. Watching too much TV. Lack of challenging mental tasks in retirement.

PS - I think it has to do with growing old. But don't tell anybody my secret.

[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."

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.

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.

How do you measure cognitive function? You use things like the MMPI-- not terribley reproducble, and only quantitative to a course degree of accurracy. It's like a machinist using a foot ruler to measure thousanths of an inch.

If we did even a very good study showing that sleeping on an uncomfortable bed of nails in freezing temps for 55 yrs would add three days to your life, would you change your life style to do it?

[DanBev]

I am 89 and wife was 85 who recently passed from dementia,we ate a balanced meal each day and very little junk food.
Her brain could not connect with temporal brain and disconnected electric supply.her last words as she looked at me square in the eye's was I cannot breathe and death followed.She was reasonably healthy.

[Deserterer]

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."

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.

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.

How do you measure cognitive function? You use things like the MMPI-- not terribley reproducble, and only quantitative to a course degree of accurracy. It's like a machinist using a foot ruler to measure thousanths of an inch.

If we did even a very good study showing that sleeping on an uncomfortable bed of nails in freezing temps for 55 yrs would add three days to your life, would you change your life style to do it?

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