Research on mice links fast food to Alzheimer'sThe Institutes's home page is here but I do not see any papers online. I wonder if there have been any epidemiological studies done on diet and brain function. Posted by DaveH at November 30, 2008 12:08 PM
Mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday.
The findings, which come from a series of published papers by a researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of dementia.
"On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain," Susanne Akterin, a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who led the study, said in a statement.
"We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors ... can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer's."
All fats are not equal. It is a high carb diet low in omega-3 fatty acids - unbalanced cholesterol in other words, too much omega-6 - that has a suspected link to Alzheimer's. Omega-3 proponents have been trumpeting this for some time. Fat is really complex stuff - lots of different things in the soup - so it pays to be specific.
Posted by: back40 at November 30, 2008 1:45 PM