Western-style diet can impair brain function

[Eldorado]

"Consuming a western diet for as little as one week can subtly impair brain function and encourage slim and otherwise healthy young people to overeat, scientists claim.

"Researchers found that after seven days on a high fat, high added sugar diet, volunteers in their 20s scored worse on memory tests and found junk food more desirable immediately after they had finished a meal."

Full monty at the UK Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/19/researchers-find-a-western-style-diet-can-impair-brain-function

"Hippocampal-dependent appetitive control is impaired by experimental exposure to a Western-style diet"

Full Study at Royal Society Publishing: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.191338

Edited February 19, 2020 by Eldorado

[HandsomeGorilla]

By design. 

High GI carbs coupled with high fat is a recipe for not getting any satiety from your food. No wonder Americans feel like they need to eat 19 times a day to not die of starvation. Then of course a diet like this impairs insulin sensitivity, often resulting in metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, anxiety disorders, depression, etc. Don't expect your doctor to tell you any of this. 

[Orphalesion]

Never liked Western food that much anyway.

[XenoFish]

It's fine. Everything's fine.

[rashore]

I have to wonder what countries are considered Western for that study. Just the U.S., or are they including South America and the EU in that. Many standards include Australia and NZ too in the Western culture cluster. Lot's of different diets in the West.....

[Orphalesion]

39 minutes ago, rashore said:

I have to wonder what countries are considered Western for that study. Just the U.S., or are they including South America and the EU in that. Many standards include Australia and NZ too in the Western culture cluster. Lot's of different diets in the West.....

That's a good question, I assumed it included European cuisines such as the German one (ew. Ewwww. Ew.)
 

But what about the more fish, grain and vegetable based one, such as Mediterranean?

[spud the mackem]

Who writes this crap , steak egg and chips is ok for me , as for Eastern food I couldn't have rice with everything , or curry .

[rashore]

1 minute ago, Orphalesion said:

That's a good question, I assumed it included European cuisines such as the German one (ew. Ewwww. Ew.)
 

But what about the more fish, grain and vegetable based one, such as Mediterranean?

That might be kind of split, heh. There's Western and Eastern Mediterranean.. So probably would depend on the country.

Even in the U.S., there's a few kinds of cuisine- stuff is different on different coasts, and that's different than inland cattle country or even Midwest. Canada gets some different stuff going on too.

[XenoFish]

They should change it from western diet to junk food diet. 

[hetrodoxly]

Beans and coffee, them cowboys look fine.

[+Desertrat56]

1 hour ago, Not Your Huckleberry said:

By design. 

High GI carbs coupled with high fat is a recipe for not getting any satiety from your food. No wonder Americans feel like they need to eat 19 times a day to not die of starvation. Then of course a diet like this impairs insulin sensitivity, often resulting in metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, anxiety disorders, depression, etc. Don't expect your doctor to tell you any of this. 

Not High Fat, you need fat for your brain to work correctly, it is the type of fat.  Don't vilify fat, vilify the chemicals added to make the useless, unhealthy fat more palatable.  Did you ever hear of Oleo or Oleo Margarine?  It was a product produced to replace butter during WW2.  Oleo was a by product of oil production, and margarine was chemicals mixed with different vegetable oils.  And margarine is still used in product like "I can't believe its not butter" and other unhealthy butter substitutes.

All things in moderation and as pure as possible, with no or little processing.  That is the opposite of an American diet.  Not fat or sugar or carbs, those are words to lump good stuff in with the bad, used mainly to sell products that cause more health issues, which if you research you will see why.  The companies that own Kraft and General Mills are owned by checmical companies that also own big pharma companies and pesticides etc., like Dow Chemicals.

Just a big money making machine and easy to sell their products to the lazy americans who crave convenience over health.

 

[XenoFish]

8 minutes ago, hetrodoxly said:

Beans and coffee, them cowboys look fine.

"Yer darn toot'in."

[HandsomeGorilla]

8 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

Not High Fat, you need fat for your brain to work correctly, it is the type of fat.  Don't vilify fat, vilify the chemicals added to make the useless, unhealthy fat more palatable.  Did you ever hear of Oleo or Oleo Margarine?  It was a product produced to replace butter during WW2.  Oleo was a by product of oil production, and margarine was chemicals mixed with different vegetable oils.  And margarine is still used in product like "I can't believe its not butter" and other unhealthy butter substitutes.

All things in moderation and as pure as possible, with no or little processing.  That is the opposite of an American diet.  Not fat or sugar or carbs, those are words to lump good stuff in with the bad, used mainly to sell products that cause more health issues, which if you research you will see why.  The companies that own Kraft and General Mills are owned by checmical companies that also own big pharma companies and pesticides etc., like Dow Chemicals.

Just a big money making machine and easy to sell their products to the lazy americans who crave convenience over health.

 

Who vilified fat? I didn't vilify fat or carbs, I said that the combination is a sure fire way to cause people to overeat both. 

I'm quite aware of the subsidies for corn and the connections between the producers of these horrible foods and the pharmaceutical industries selling them the drugs. 

[+Desertrat56]

29 minutes ago, Not Your Huckleberry said:

Who vilified fat? I didn't vilify fat or carbs, I said that the combination is a sure fire way to cause people to overeat both. 

I'm quite aware of the subsidies for corn and the connections between the producers of these horrible foods and the pharmaceutical industries selling them the drugs. 

We need a combination of fat, protein and carbs with fiber to stay healthy.  It is the processing and over sugaring, over doing any one of those that causes an imbalance.  You did not distinguish between the types of fats and carbs.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Desertrat56

[+and-then]

1 hour ago, hetrodoxly said:

Beans and coffee, them cowboys look fine.

 

[Orphalesion]

53 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

We need a combination of fat, protein and carbs with fiber to stay healthy.  It is the processing and over sugaring, over doing any one of those that causes an imbalance.  You did not distinguish between the types of fats and carbs.

That is correct, as with everything in life, the right balance is the key.

[HandsomeGorilla]

1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

We need a combination of fat, protein and carbs with fiber to stay healthy.  It is the processing and over sugaring, over doing any one of those that causes an imbalance.  You did not distinguish between the types of fats and carbs.

Because the context from which I was speaking, it really doesn't matter. An overabundance of both, no matter the type, will lead to obesity and health issues. And the typical American diet is laden with both, far too many calories for most to process and come out unscathed. One of insulin's jobs within the body is nutrient transport. If one is already in a caloric surplus, and most are, the insulin spike is shuttling fat right into your fat cells. 

[XenoFish]

There is a surprisingly low amount of calories we need to maintain our ideal body weight.

My ideal weight is between 150 and 190.

I picked 188 and I need roughly between 1600 to 2200 calories per day. Doesn't take long for that to add up. You can even get that amount in one or two meals. But sugar (unless natural like from fruits) is never worth it.

[Orphalesion]

1 hour ago, Tuco's Gas said:

Except there's no such thing as "western food." Remember the West includes not only North America, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. A very diverse diet can therefore be found depending on where you go. Everything from paella in Spain to Texas BBQ to Alaskan fish.

That's why the OP was inaccurate. No such thing as Western Diet. Sure, too much sugar and fat is bad for anyone,  but not all food in the Western Hemisphere entails that.

Just my two cents. 

I still don't like Central/Northern European food ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Could be the healthiest food in the world and I'd still not like it.
You can't make me eat sausage!

[Crikey]

For the record I'm 71 years old and have eaten anything and everything all my life including truckloads of so-called junk food and it hasn't done me a bit of harm, I'm still in good health physically and mentally, and regularly whup people half my age in online wargaming tournaments..

PS- that reminds me, I've got a big bag o' chips in the fridge, I'll do myself a massive fry-up later..:)

[aztek]

absolutely it can and it does it to billions around the world, mcdonald, coka cola... all fast food, processed food....... that is why majority of people are sick, and most don't even know it yet.  and doctors don't even know how to fix them even if they wanted to. no doctor looks at body as a functioning mechanism where everything is connected.  brain function is chemical reactions, electrical impulses, and nutrients supplied by blood, affect any of these, and you get impaired brain function.

my aunt almost died due to doctors here, until she visited a natural healer that told her why she had issues and what to do to fix it, (it is amazing that such healers know human body better than doctors, they may not know a name of a certain bone, but they seem to know much better how body works, i'm not talking about charlatans of course,)  so  she did and now she is as healthy as she was in her 20.  what she did was totally different from what her doctor was telling her, she was treated for heart issues, but her real problem was the colon, once she fixed that, her heart was healthy again. she doesn't take any pills now, but doc told her she would have to take her a fib, bp pills for the rest of her life

it is not even the food itself, we are damaging our bodies even with good food, cuz we don't know how, when to eat\drink,. no one teaches us.  and no one will, doctors need us sick, they don't make money on healthy people,   if you want to be healthy forget about doctors in 99% of cases they won't help..

every food court , restaurant you go, you see people eat, and drink,  that is very bad for you. even when food is clean.  there are some combinations of foods that you should not eat, yet how many actually know it?

Edited February 20, 2020 by aztek

[moonman]

WTF is a "western style" diet according to them? Nothing but potato chips, candy and McDonalds? It takes a scientific study to tell that that nothing but junk isn't healthy? YOU DON'T SAY.

Edited February 20, 2020 by moonman