Munching on hamburgers, French fries and pizza has been widely criticized by doctors and researchers. There probably isn't anyone who hasn't heard about how harmful fast food is to our body and waistline.
Foods eaten on the go have also been blamed for diseases such as gastritis, ulcers and other stomach problems. They also have a negative influence on blood pressure, since the high content of salt in them contributes to the development of hypertension.
All that aside, scientists have found another downside to fast food. It turns out that it is also harmful to the brain, writes the Daily Mail newspaper.
602 people participated in an Australian study. Researchers noticed that 14-year-old teenagers who stuck to unhealthy eating did comparatively worse in solving cognitive problems.
It was not at all difficult for the experts to determine that those volunteers who preferred fast food, fries, red meat, sausages and soft drinks had negative associations, affecting their reaction time, visual attention, mental activity, memory and their learning process.
In contrast, those volunteers that had fruits and green leafy vegetables prevailing in their diet showed a better cognitive performance. Dr. Anette Niardi postulates that this could be due to the high content of micronutrients in the green leafy vegetables, which leads to an improved cognitive development.
At the same time, the presence of omega-6 fatty acids in French fries and red meat, alongside a bunch of other factors, most likely hinder cognitive abilities.
The excessive consumption of hamburgers, fries, fried chicken and pizza makes it more difficult to read, visually focus on objects and also hinders the recognition of faces.
Eventually, a blurring and hazing of one's vision can be observed, which of course makes a person's everyday life more difficult and lowers its quality, warn experts.
People need to be aware that the metabolic pathways function best with a moderate intake of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, but the Western diet can seriously disrupt this balance, add experts.
