135

Ultra-processed foods harm brain health, but access and affordability are issues. (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 8 months ago by Haus@kbin.social to c/news@lemmy.world

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Felice Jacka, a leading researcher of nutritional psychiatry, has found links between ultra-processed foods and the health of our brains. She explains that our gut microbiome affects various aspects of health, including metabolism, blood glucose, body weight, gene expression, serotonin levels, stress response, mitochondrial function, and immune system. Jacka's research has shown that a western junk food diet can impair cognitive functions and shrink the hippocampus, a brain region important for mental health, learning, and memory. The industrialized food system, which produces ultra-processed foods, is the leading cause of illness, early death, and biodiversity loss globally, costing around $20tn per year. Jacka suggests that reducing consumption of ultra-processed foods is crucial, but acknowledges that many people don't have the option due to their affordability and the lack of healthy choices available. She has also found a connection between ultra-processed foods, poor diet quality in mothers and children, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD. Jacka acknowledges that the term "ultra-processed food" may have some fuzzy borders and misclassifications, but warns against industry tactics to confuse people and muddy the waters, similar to what the tobacco industry did with smoking and lung cancer.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] girthero@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

I wish our school systems would take note. Our school offers free breakfast and lunch in the spirit of improving lower income student's performance, but the only breakfast items they offer are of the convenience food variety, or high sugar cereals.

this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023

135 points (97.2% liked)

News

21742 readers

3353 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

rjc@lemmy.world

Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world

gedaliyah@lemmy.world

Blackbeard@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

jeffw@lemmy.world