How just one week at fast food can change the brain

Healthy eatingHealthy diet / World Health Organization includes limiting sugar and saturated fat, avoiding junk food, sweets, and food junk like chips and soda. But this does not prevent people from having breakfast with waffles, drinking tea with sweets, eager to buy hot dogs and at the same time consider their diet to be quite healthy. As it turns out, this is not the best approach.

In 2020, a group of scientists from universities in Australia and the United States discoveredR. J. Stevenson, H. M. Francis, T. Attuquayefio, D. Gupta, M. R. Yeomans, M. J. Oaten, T. Davidson. Hippocampal ‑ dependent appetitive control is impaired by experimental exposure to a Western ‑ style diet / The Royal Society Publishingthat a week is enough for such a diet to break appetite control and not in the best way affect memory.

How the effect of diet on the brain was tested

Scientists selected 110 young healthy people without excess weight and divided them into two groups. In one, the participants did not change their usual diet, in the other, they received 806–985 kcal sweet and fatty foods once a day, such as a sandwich and a milkshake or Belgian waffles.

Before and after the experiment, all subjects passed the Hopkins Learning Test, with which scientists assessed their verbal memory. In addition, the students were given an appetite control test. They offered a choice of several delicious products and asked how much they liked the dishes and how much they wanted to try them.

First, this test was carried out on hungry stomachand then repeated after breakfast. Before the start of the experiment, satiety reduced the love for food and the desire to eat it in both groups approximately equally. But then this picture changed.

How eating junk food changed participants

According to the results of tests, scientists concluded that just one week with sugary and fatty foods in the diet significantly weakened appetite control.

On an empty stomach, the participants loved and wanted the treats offered as much as they had before the experiment. After breakfast, the attractiveness of the dishes naturally dropped, but the desire to try them did not decrease so much.

Moreover, after such a diet, students' cognitive abilities deteriorated. Moreover, the worse appetite control was, the less they could remember.

Based on these data, scientists suggested that such diet hit the state of the hippocampus - the brain structure responsible for both appetite control and memory.

How the impact of fast food on the hippocampus affects health

The hippocampus plays a large role in appetite control and dietary choices. It is associated with the nucleus accumbens, the part of the reward system responsible for feelings of pleasure, and the prefrontal cortex, where conscious decisions and self-control are born.

At the same time, this structure is very sensitive to external factors, and constant inflammation, high blood glucose levels and increasing oxidative stress from unhealthy diets can harm it.

Scientists have hypothesized that if the hippocampus is suppressed by harmful foods, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for avoiding tasty foods in favor of healthy foods. This is often an unequal fight.

It turns out a vicious circle. More fast food means worse hippocampal health, less self-control, more fast food. Moreover, the memory is worse.

How to break out of the vicious circle

First of all, you need to exclude sugar, sweets and fatty meat from the diet. If you are very fond of these products, even the thought of completely and unconditionally refusing can seem dreadful. So don't promise yourself to get rid of them permanently - just cut back on the amount.

For example, try the rules Mediterranean diet: no more than 80 g of sweets, 120-200 g of red and 50 g of processed meat per week. If in the process you realize that you do not need these products that much, refuse altogether. You will not lose anything.

In addition, in the discussion, scientists noted that not only diet, but also other factors, including stress and insomnia, can suppress the work of the hippocampus. Therefore, establish a sleep routine and learn to relax and relieve stress. And staying away from fast food and sweets will be much easier.

Iya Zorina