People who eat high amounts of ultra-processed foods, such as soft drinks, chips, and cookies, may have a higher risk of developing dementia than people who eat low amounts, according to a study recently published in Neurology. Replacing ultra-processed foods in a person’s diet with unprocessed or minimally processed foods was found to be associated with a lower risk. “Ultra-processed foods are meant to be convenient and tasty, but they diminish the quality of a person’s diet,” said Huiping Li, PhD, of Tianjin Medical University in China in a statement. “These foods may also contain food additives or molecules from packaging or produced during heating, all of which have been shown in other studies to have negative effects on thinking and memory skills. Our research not only found that ultra-processed foods are associated with an increased risk of dementia, it found replacing them with healthy options may decrease dementia risk.”

Researchers identified 72,083 people from the UK Biobank, a large database containing the health information of half a million people living in the United Kingdom, to be participants in the study. Participants were 55 years of age and older and did not have dementia at the start of the study. Researchers followed the patients for an average of 10 years. Participants filled out at least 2 questionnaires about what they ate and drank the previous day during the study. Researchers measured the amount of ultra-processed food participants ate by calculating the grams per day and comparing it to the grams per day of other foods to determine a percentage of their daily diet.

Participants were then divided into 4 equal groups from lowest to highest percentage consumption of ultra-processed foods. Ultra-processed foods were defined as those high in added sugar, fat, and salt, and low in protein and fiber. Such foods include soft drinks, salty and sugary snacks, ice cream, sausage, deep-fried chicken, yogurt, canned baked beans and tomatoes, ketchup, mayonnaise, packaged guacamole, packaged hummus, packaged breads, and flavored cereals.

The study found that eating high amounts of these ultra-processed foods was associated with a higher risk of developing dementia; however, the authors emphasize that this study shows an association, not a causal relationship.

Ultra-processed foods made up 9% of the daily diet of people in the lowest group, an average of 225 grams per day. For people in the highest group, ultra-processed foods made up 28% of their daily diet, an average of 814 grams per day. Beverages were the main food group contributing to high ultra-processed food intake, followed by sugary products and ultra-processed dairy. A total of 518 participants were diagnosed with dementia by the end of the study. Researchers found that in the lowest group, 105 of the 18,021 people developed dementia. For the highest group, 150 of 18,021 people developed dementia.

Source: IANS