The average person eats many more calories than they did 50 years ago — equivalent to an extra fast-food burger meal every day — which is causing brain health to decline much faster, a study has found.
The research, published in Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology,reports about 30 per cent of the world’s adult population is either overweightor obese, and more than 10 per cent of all adults will suffer from type 2diabetes by 2030. “People areeating away at their brain with a really bad fast-food diet and little-to-noexercise,” said Nicolas Cherbuin, a professor at Australian NationalUniversity.
“We’ve found strong evidence that people’s unhealthyeating habits and lack of exercise for sustained periods of time puts them atserious risk of developing type 2 diabetes and significant declines in brainfunction, such as dementia and brain shrinkage,” said Cherbuin. “Thelink between type 2 diabetes and the rapid deterioration of brain function isalready well established,” he said.
“But our work shows that neurodegeneration, or the lossand function of neurons, sets in much, much earlier — we’ve found a clearassociation between this brain deterioration and unhealthy lifestylechoices,” he added.
“The damage done is pretty much irreversible once aperson reaches midlife, so we urge everyone to eat healthy and get in shape asearly as possible — preferably in childhood but certainly by earlyadulthood,” he said. A standard fast-food meal of a burger, fries andsoft drink is about 650 kilocalories — roughly the extra amount that peopleworldwide, on average, are consuming everyday compared to what they were eatingin the 1970s.