THE ARISING · Longevity & Healthspan
Higher Ultra-Processed Food Intake Linked to Silent Brain Damage on MRI
Middle-aged adults who ate the most ultra-processed food were more likely to show small, symptom-free signs of blood vessel injury in the brain on MRI, according to a study in JAMA Network Open, yet they did not score worse on two common thinking tests.
This is an observational, cross-sectional study. It included 8,783 Canadian adults aged 35 to 69 with no cardiovascular disease. Their average age was 57.7 years, and 4,917 (56.6%) were women. Because diet and health were looked at together, the study can show an association. It cannot show that the food caused the brain changes.
Participants came from two Canadian research projects, the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Healthy Minds and the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiology-MIND study. Intake of ultra-processed food was measured with food frequency questionnaires that have been validated before. Results were expressed as servings per 2,000 calories a day. The researchers compared the highest quarter of eaters with the lowest quarter.
The brain finding is the headline. The study defined vascular brain injury as either covert brain infarcts or high white matter hyperintensities. Covert infarcts are small areas of damage from interrupted blood flow that cause no obvious symptoms. White matter hyperintensities are bright spots on MRI in the brain's wiring. The highest quarter of ultra-processed food intake had higher odds of this injury than the lowest quarter (adjusted odds ratio 1.40; 95% confidence interval 1.10 to 1.77; P for trend = .009). An odds ratio is not the same as a 40% higher chance of damage, but it points in the same direction.
The highest-intake group also carried more body fat. Body fat percentage was 1.7 percentage points higher, and visceral fat volume, the fat deep in the abdomen, was 5.7 mL greater. Liver fat did not differ significantly.
Thinking performance did not follow the same pattern. The study found no significant associations between ultra-processed food intake and scores on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment or the Digital Symbol Substitution Test. The authors also say the link with brain injury was sensitive to how ultra-processed food was defined. That suggests the result depends on the measuring method and should be read with some caution.
Many readers will want to know what this means for women. The study did include more women than men.
The result adds to, but is not the same as, our October 11 report on a randomized trial in Nature Metabolism. That trial looked at how single meals affect the body. This study looks at usual eating habits and brain scans in thousands of people. Together they point to ultra-processed food as worth watching, but neither shows that cutting it back protects the brain. That has not been tested here.
What to watch next
The authors say longitudinal studies, which follow people over time, are needed to establish whether the diet comes before the brain changes.
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