Just three days of fatty food may damage aging brains
may be enough to trigger memory problems
(Web Desk) - A study finds that diet can cause brain inflammation even without any metabolic changes.
A new study in rats suggests that just a few days of consuming a diet high in saturated fat may be enough to trigger memory problems and brain inflammation in older adults.
Researchers fed groups of young and old rats a high-fat diet for either three days or three months to examine how quickly the brain responds to an unhealthy diet compared to the rest of the body.
As expected based on prior research on diabetes and obesity, rats that consumed the high-fat diet for three months developed metabolic issues, gut inflammation, and significant changes in gut bacteria. In contrast, rats on the high-fat diet for only three days showed no major metabolic or gastrointestinal changes.
However, when examining the brain, the researchers found that only the older rats, regardless of whether they were on the diet for three days or three months, performed poorly on memory tests and exhibited signs of brain inflammation.
The results dispel the idea that diet-related inflammation in the aging brain is driven by obesity, said senior study author Ruth Barrientos, an investigator in the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at The Ohio State University. Most research on the effects of fatty and processed foods on the brain has focused on obesity, yet the impact of unhealthy eating, independent of obesity, remains largely unexplored.
“Unhealthy diets and obesity are linked, but they are not inseparable. We’re really looking for the effects of the diet directly on the brain. And we showed that within three days, long before obesity sets in, tremendous neuroinflammatory shifts are occurring,” said Barrientos, also an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral health and neuroscience in Ohio State’s College of Medicine.
“Changes in the body in all animals are happening more slowly and aren’t actually necessary to cause the memory impairments and changes in the brain. We never would have known that brain inflammation is the primary cause of high-fat diet-induced memory impairments without comparing the two timelines.”
