UNITED STATES, December 5, 2022 (CNN): We all eat them \u2014 ultra-processed foods such as frozen pizza and ready-to-eat meals make our busy lives much easier. Besides, they are just darn tasty \u2014 who isn\u2019t susceptible to hot dogs, sausages, burgers, french fries, sodas, cookies, cakes, candy, doughnuts and ice cream, to name just a few? Ultra-processed foods now account for two-thirds of calories in the diets of children and teens. If more than 20% of your daily calorie intake is ultra-processed foods, however, you may be raising your risk for cognitive decline, a new study found. That amount would equal about 400 calories a day in a 2,000-calories-a-day diet. For comparison, a small order of fries and regular cheeseburger from McDonald\u2019s contains a total of 530 calories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFifty-eight percent of the calories consumed by United States citizens, 56.8% of the calories consumed by British citizens, and 48% of the calories consumed by Canadians come from ultraprocessed foods,\u201d the report said.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The part of the brain involved in executive functioning \u2014 the ability to process information and make decisions \u2014 is especially hard hit, according to the study published Monday in JAMA Neurology. Men and women in the study who ate the most ultra-processed foods had a 25% faster rate of executive function decline and a 28% faster rate of overall cognitive impairment compared with those who ate the least amount of overly processed food. There was an interesting twist, however. If the quality of the overall diet was high \u2014 meaning the person also ate a lot of unprocessed, whole fruits and veggies, whole grains and healthy sources of protein \u2014 the association between ultra-processed foods and cognitive decline disappeared, Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine and nutrition, who was not involved in the study, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n