Association of Ultraprocessed Food Consumption With Risk of Dementia

Abstract

BackgroundThere has been a growing body of evidence associating consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF) with adverse health outcomes including depression, cardiovascular disease, all-cause mortality. However, whether UPF are associated with dementia is unknown. The authors investigated the associations between UPF and dementia incidence in UK biobank.MethodsWe included 72,083 participants (55 years or older) who were free from dementia at baseline and provided at least two times 24-h dietary assessments from the UK Biobank study. Follow-up occurred through March 2021. UPF were defined according to the NOVA classification. Incident all-cause dementia comprising Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia was ascertained through electronic linkages to hospital and mortality records. Cox proportional hazards were used to estimate the association between the proportion (%) of UPF in the diet and the subsequent risk of dementia. In addition, substitution analysis was used to estimate the risk of dementia when substituting UPF with an equivalent proportion of unprocessed or minimally processed foods.ResultsDuring a total of 717,333 person-years of follow-up (median 10.0 years), 518 participants developed dementia, of which 287 developed Alzheimer’s disease and 119 developed vascular dementia. In the fully adjusted model, consumption of UPF was associated with higher risk of dementia (hazard ratio (HR) for 10% increase in UPF: 1.25; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.14, 1.37), Alzheimer’s disease (HR: 1.14; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.30) and vascular dementia (HR: 1.28; 95% CI: 1.06, 1.55), respectively. In addition, replacing 10% of UPF weight in diet with an equivalent proportion of unprocessed or minimally processed foods was estimated to be associated with a 19% lower risk of dementia (HR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.74, 0.89).ConclusionsIn this prospective cohort study, higher consumption of UPF was associated with higher risk of dementia, while substituting unpr2ocessed or minimally processed foods for UPF was associated lower risk of dementia.

Ultra-processed food consumption, cancer risk and cancer mortality: a large-scale prospective analysis within the UK Biobank

“… 27 No previous studies have assessed the link between UPF consumption and brain cancer, but human studies have demonstrated associations with potential harmful effects on brain functions. 28 , 29 …”

Association Between Consumption of Ultraprocessed Foods and Cognitive Decline

“…Consumption of UPF was associated with a higher risk of all-cause dementia, vascular dementia, and Alzheimer disease after 10 years of follow-up. 23 The association between UPF and cognitive decline found in our study, particularly the decline in executive function, could be secondary to cerebrovascular lesions resulting from UPF consumption, because these functions are particularly sensitive to microvascular lesions. 42,45 Neuroimaging studies 46,47 have found that high consumption of a Western dietary pattern was related to a reduction in the left hippocampus and gray matter volume in cognitively healthy individuals.…”

“…Consumption of UPFs has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and obesity . However, few studies have investigated the association between UPF and cognitive decline in samples from high-income countries . Therefore, we aimed to prospectively investigate the association between UPF consumption at baseline and cognitive decline in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil).…”

Towards early detection of neurodegenerative diseases: A gut feeling

“…For example, consuming ultra-processed food enhances the risk of developing AD ( Li et al, 2022 ), as high-fat diets are linked to the development of chronic metabolic and inflammatory diseases associated with neuroinflammation and reduced cognitive function ( Cai, 2013 ).…”