A recent study, published by researchers at the University of New South Wales, found a definite connection between junk food consumption andirreversible memory loss.
Researchers put rats on different diet regimens, including one that focused on high sugar and fat intake. The rats that were fed this “cafeteria diet” showed inflammation of the hippocampal region of the brain, an area associated with forming and storing memories. After only 6 days, the rats with the unhealthy diets showed signs of cognitive decline, performing less well than the other rats on spatial memory tasks. Even more startling, the study also found that damage did not reverse when the diets were cleaned up.
Scary? You bet. Now, would these results translate directly to humans as well? Researchers can’t say for sure, but I know for certain ~this is just one more reason to keep it clean.