A study published in the American Journal of Neurology Neurologythere could be a direct relationship between the consumption of ultra-processed products and one mental disturbance that would interfere with people’s daily lives.
This would be the dementia, a type of loss of brain function that affects not only memory, but also wreaks havoc on thought, language, judgment, and behavior. The type most common is Alzheimer’swhich in 2019 affected about 800,000 people.
In this research, carried out by the Tianjin Medical University in Chinahave taken part 72.083 people from 55 years or more who did not show signs of dementia before starting the study. Through the use of NEW classification, which follows parameters similar to the well-known NutriScore, determined whether a food was considered ultra-processed or not. Later, the amount of processed food that each person had consumed was estimated, in order to know the later risk of dementia. A total of 518 patients developed some type of dementia, 287 Alzheimer’s disease and another 119 finished the study suffering from vascular dementia.
The conclusions of the work show how, when replace for minimally processed products 10% of ultra-processed foods in a diet, the risk of developing dementia is reduced by 19%. Therefore, these data show that neurodegenerative diseases can be directly related to the consumption of this type of food.
Why are ultra-processed products so bad?
There is a big difference between daily consumption food and ultra-processed foods. The latter are known for the enormous amount of derived substances, observable in the extensive list of ingredients that accompany its packaging. The processes through which components such as hydrogenated oils, refined flours and hydrolyzed proteins pass remove essential parts of their raw material, making them less healthy.
Most of them contain substances that, consumed excessively, have serious health consequences of consumers. These include sugar, unhealthy fats, additives and salt. These types of elements only provide empty fats that are harmful to us.
The Spanish Journal of Cardiology published in 2016 a Nutritional Study of the Spanish Population, in which alarming data were collected. At that time, the amount of population that suffered overweight ascended to 39,3%while a 21,6% suffered obesity. Currently, according to data from the Spanish Society for the Study of Obesity, this health problem would affect 8.4 million adults and 1.5 million children in our country. recent meta-analysis on the consumption of ultra-processed foods and body fat, such as that published in 2020 by the British Journal of Nutrition, show a Direct relation in the increase in cases of this type of disease in subjects with a diet high in ultra-processed foods.
In addition, they can also favor the appearance of one of the following problems of health.
Cardiovascular diseases
The weight gain caused by the consumption of ultra-processed foods increases the risk of suffering from conditions such as hypertension, myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accidents and atherosclerosis. Not only that, but the excess sodium that is often accompanied by this type of food can also cause cardiovascular diseases.
Type 2 diabetes mellitus
Ultra-processed foods usually contain a high amount of sugar, hidden behind names such as glucose, sucrose and dextrose among others. If this consumption is done regularly, insulin is constantly triggered, causing sugar to enter our cells and stop respond adequately to insulin. Resistance to this substance can later end up creating type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Cancer
There are many cases of cancer related to a bad nutrition. These are inversely proportional to the consumption of healthy raw materials, such as vegetables and fruits and vegetables. The better our diet, the lower the risk of suffering from this type of disease.
Studies such as the one Sorbonne-Paris Cité University the year 2018, show that people who increased the proportion of processed foods consumed by 10%, were most affected for cancer. Therefore, the increase in processed food would lead to an additional nine cancers per 10,000 people annually.
Why is ultra-processed food so addictive?
Food addiction is a problem suffered by a large number of people. Various specialists have pointed out that the greater the consumption processed, the more complicated it will be abandon them. This problem especially affects people youngerincluding children, since many of them carry the poor diet until their adulthood.
A study published by the American Society of Nutrition published in 2017, showed how there is a great relationship between the way we eat and a series of genetic variants. According to one of the main authors of the work to the online gastronomic page El Comidista, there are variants in the gene of the oxytocin receptor OXTR that are associated with a greater consumption of chocolate. There are also variants in CREB1, FTO, SLC6A2 and GABRA 2 that make our body weak against different substances, including sodium, potassium, magnesium and sugars.
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