An article earlier this 12 months within the European Journal of Diet reported that top consumption of ultra-processed meals is linked to worse-than-average efficiency on one explicit take a look at of cognitive operate in older US adults (60+ years-old) who didn’t have persistent illnesses corresponding to diabetes or heart problems. The actual take a look at was “Animal Fluency.” By no means heard of it? Me both. Preserve studying.
The research included 2,700 contributors, common age 69. Members have been requested to recall what they ate within the prior 24 hours. Meals have been “labeled in response to NOVA, a meals classification based mostly on the extent and goal of business meals processing, into 4 mutually unique teams: (1) unprocessed or minimally processed meals, (2) processed culinary components, (3) processed meals, and (4) UPFs [ultra-processed foods].”
Extremely-processed meals? “…most meals described as “Frozen meals” or “Lunchables”, in addition to some objects described as consumed in “Restaurant quick meals/pizza” or acquired at a “Merchandising machine” have been labeled as UPFs.” Moreover, the authors write within the introduction that “UPFs, in response to the NOVA classification system, are industrial formulations of processed meals substances (oils, fat, sugars, starch, and protein isolates) that comprise little or no complete meals and sometimes embody flavourings, colorings, emulsifiers, and different beauty components. UPFs have gotten dominant in diets globally and are changing conventional diets based mostly on unprocessed and minimally processed meals.
Of your entire research inhabitants at hand, UPFs have been about half of all energy consumed however ranged from 30 to 70%.
“Cognitive efficiency was assessed utilizing the Consortium to Set up a Registry for Alzheimer’s Illness (CERAD), Phrase Studying take a look at, Animal Fluency take a look at, and the Digit Image Substitution take a look at (DSST).”
The Animal Fluency take a look at “evaluates categorical verbal fluency (govt operate).” “For the Animal Fluency take a look at, the participant is requested to call as many animals as attainable inside a 60-s [60 seconds, I assume] time interval. Every animal corresponds to 1 level and the result’s offered as the entire sum of factors.”
The take a look at topics got two different assessments of cognitive operate however the investigators discovered no variations in efficiency based mostly on ultra-processed meals consumption. Listed below are these different two assessments:
The 2 components of the CERAD Phrase Studying take a look at include (1) three consecutive studying trials, the place the participant was requested to recall a listing of ten unrelated phrases instantly after their presentation. Every phrase corresponds to at least one level, and the result’s offered as a complete rating throughout the three trials (vary 0–30); and (2) a delayed phrase recall take a look at, carried out after the 2 different cognitive assessments. The outcome ranges from 0 to 10. … For the DSST, the participant is offered a single sheet of paper the place they’re requested to match a listing of 9 symbols to numbers in response to a key situated on the highest of the web page. The duty had 133 numbers and the participant had 2 min to finish it. The result’s proven as the entire variety of appropriate matches. For all of the assessments, larger scores characterize higher cognitive operate.
The authors conclude: “Consumption of UPF was related to worse efficiency in Animal Fluency, a cognitive take a look at that assesses language and govt operate in older adults with out pre-existing illnesses corresponding to CVD [cardiovascular disease] and diabetes, whereas no associations have been noticed for these with these circumstances. Whereas longitudinal research are required to supply stronger proof, these outcomes recommend that lowering UPF consumption could also be a method to mitigate age-associated cognitive decline and scale back the danger of dementia.”
I agree these outcomes aren’t very robust.
Steve Parker, MD
h/t Jan at The Low Carb Diabetic weblog
