New Research Suggests That A Junk Food-Filled Diet During Adolescence May Lead To Long-Term Memory Impairment That Lasts Into Adulthood
When it comes to parents wanting to protect their kids, most try to shield their teens from things like drugs and alcohol. But, in light of new research, some may want to add junk food to their radar.
Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) recently conducted a study using rodents and demonstrated that rats fed a high-fat and high-sugar diet during their teen years exhibited long-term memory deficits that lasted into adulthood.
These findings suggest that a diet high in junk food could impair a teenager’s memory capabilities for an extended period of time.
“What we see not just in this paper, but in some of our other recent work, is that if these rats grew up on this junk food diet, then they have these memory impairments that don’t go away,” said Scott Kanoski, a biological sciences professor at USC.
“If you just simply put them on a healthy diet, these effects unfortunately last well into adulthood.”
Professor Kanoski and Anna Hayes, a postdoctoral research fellow, worked together while creating this study and considered previous findings that linked a poor diet to Alzheimer’s disease. Individuals with Alzheimer’s often have reduced levels of acetylcholine, a crucial neurotransmitter involved in memory, learning, attention, and involuntary muscle movements.
This prompted the team to question how a fat-rich and sugar-filled Western diet might affect younger individuals, particularly during the crucial brain development phase of adolescence.
So, the researchers monitored how this diet impacted acetylcholine levels in rodents and subjected the rats to memory tests. This yielded valuable insights into the association between diet and memory.
Afterward, they monitored acetylcholine levels in a group of rats on a fatty and sugary diet in addition to a control group on a standard diet. The team examined how the rats’ brains responded to tasks designed to assess their memory. Then, they conducted post-mortem analyses of the rats’ brains to check for any disturbances in acetylcholine levels.
beats_ – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
The study’s memory test let the rats explore new objects placed in various locations. A few days later, the researchers then presented an almost identical scene to the rats but added one new item.
The rats that had eaten a junk food diet appeared unable to recall which objects they’d seen before and their locations. On the flip side, rats in the control group exhibited greater familiarity.
According to Hayes, acetylcholine signaling assists in encoding and recalling events, similar to the “episodic memory” in humans that enables us to remember past events. This signaling seems to be absent in the rats raised on fatty, sugary diets.
When it comes to humans, Professor Kanoski drew a parallel – underscoring just how critical and sensitive the adolescent period is for brain development.
“I don’t know how to say this without sounding like… doom and gloom, but unfortunately, some things that may be more easily reversible during adulthood are less reversible when they are occurring during childhood,” he said.
However, the team suggests there might be some potential for inventions. In a different phase of the study, they explored whether memory impairment in rats fed a junk food diet could be reversed with drugs that stimulate acetylcholine release.
They employed two medications – PNU-282987 and carbachol – which were administered directly to the hippocampus. This is an area of the brain crucial for memory and often impacted by Alzheimer’s disease. With these treatments, the rats showed restored memory capabilities.
Nevertheless, Professor Kanoski underscored the need for further research to fully grasp whether the adverse effects on memory from junk food during adolescence can be reversed without special medical interventions.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in Brain Behavior and Immunity, visit the link here.
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