A well-known proverb says that "you are what you eat" as recent studies have indicated that many of the foods we consume may be harmful to our brains.
According to a study conducted by scientists in California, consuming a standard Western diet from an early age may cause long-lasting memory issues, reported Express UK.
More precisely, consuming junk food that is heavy in fat and sugar can harm the brain, as per the studies done on rats.
They also claimed that our brains are more susceptible to the effects while we are young.
The scientists looked into how these foods affected the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh), which is crucial for memory, learning, arousal, and attention, as reported by Medical News Today.
Notably, the most prevalent kind of dementia in the UK, Alzheimer's disease, has been connected to low levels of ACh.
Speaking to Medical News Today, the study’s senior investigator Scott Kanoski, who is a professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California Dornsrife, explained: "The hippocampus is a brain region that is particularly susceptible to various environmental and biological insults."
"Our diet model produced acetylcholine disruption in the hippocampus in the rats analogous to disruptions observed in Alzheimer’s disease. However, more work is needed to understand how early life dietary and metabolic factors influence long-term risk for Alzheimer’s and other related dementias," he added.
The early consumption of an unhealthy Western diet was also shown to change the gut microbiome, which plays a prominent role in our overall health.
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