Junk Food and Memory: The Impact on Neurotransmitters

2024-04-18 02:08:29

Junk food lowers levels of neurotransmitters essential for memory

Entered 2024.04.18 11:05 Entered 2024.04.18 11:05 Modified 2024.04.18 10:45 Views 44

Eating foods high in fat and sugar has been shown to lower levels of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which is essential for memory. [사진= 게티이미지뱅크]Eating a lot of foods full of fat and sugar as a child can interfere with memory as much as alcohol as an adult.

A study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity found that eating foods high in fat and sugar resulted in lower levels of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which is essential for memory. People with Alzheimer’s disease tend to have low brain levels of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which is essential for functions such as memory, learning, attention, alertness, and involuntary muscle movements.

The researchers analyzed brain responses to specific tasks designed to test memory and compared acetylcholine levels in a group of rats eating fatty, sugary junk food and a group of rats not eating junk food. The researchers also examined whether there were any signs of destruction of acetylcholine levels in the rat brain after the rat died.

The memory test involved having the rats explore new objects in different locations. When the rats were placed in almost the same place they had been before, except with one new object added, the rats that had eaten the junk food showed signs of not being able to remember what objects they had seen before or where they had seen them. On the other hand, rats that did not eat junk food showed the same familiar movements in the new location as they had done in the previous location.

“Acetylcholine signaling is a mechanism that helps us remember past events,” the researchers said. “Such signaling does not seem to occur in animals raised on a diet high in fat and sugar.”

In another study, researchers investigated whether memory impairment in rats raised on junk food could be reversed with a drug that induces the release of acetylcholine. The results of the study showed that the memory ability of mice was restored through treatment that administered drugs directly to the hippocampus, a brain area that is disrupted by Alzheimer’s disease.