High-fat diet can disrupt brain development, new research finds
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Junk food doesn’t just make you fat; a new study shows young children and adolescents who consume fatty and unhealthy foods over an extended period can damage the young brain as it matures, impairing cognitive functions in adulthood. Scientists at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich reached this conclusion after performing a study comparing the impact on the brains of juvenile and adult mice on being fed either an extremely high-fat diet (over 60 per cent of total calories) or normal food.
The fat-rich diet contained excessively high levels of saturated fats – most commonly found in fast foods, charcuterie products, butter and coconut oil. After just four weeks on a high-fat diet, the first signs of impairment in the cognitive functions of young mice were detected – even before they actually started to gain weight.
The prefrontal cortex, responsible for the executive functions of the human brain, is particularly vulnerable to negative environmental experiences such as a poorly balanced diet. The region looks after memory, planning, attention, impulse control and social behaviour.
The researchers failed to identify comparable changes in the behaviour of mature mice that had been fed a high-fat diet over an extended period. The results of this mice study, the researchers say, are readily translatable to humans.