Saturated Fat: A reason for reduced mental ability?

Love to eat fatty foods and can’t live without them, well here comes another problem associate with saturated fatty food which might discourage you to continue such a diet.

The researchers from Ohio State University have performed an experiment to check whether high fatty food have any effect on the mental ability of a person. And well to their surprise, fatty food has an effect on short term mental ability of a person.

In research the researchers make a test to measure the concentration, sustain attention and reaction time of a person. First, they make them complete the test with a normal diet and note the results which act as a baseline for further evaluation.

Then the participants were made to eat high-fat food which was divided into two batches. One with high saturated fat and the other with low saturated fats (sunflower oil).

The participants were made to wait for 5 hours after which they again give the test. And their performance was noted down. The result indicates that all the people who eat fatty food performed worse than their earlier performance.

After a few days the subjects were made to exchange the food that they ate previously. This was done to check which out of two variety i.e. high Saturated and low saturated have more effect on mental ability. Well, the result showed that food with high saturated fat has more effect than the one with low saturated fat.

Both meals with high-fat content are potentially problematic but the one high saturated fats have a more adverse effect on the mental ability of the person.

The reason to why the fatty foods have much effect on the mental ability of a person is still not clear. There is a possibility that saturated fats are interacting with the brain directly but it’s still one of the many possible reasons researchers are working on.

But one thing is clear, what we eat influences our mind and the way we work. Some food helps in better, critical & sensible thinking and some deteriorate these functions. So this proves the fact that we are what we eat.

Thank you for giving it a read

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Journal Reference:

Janice K Kiecolt-Glaser, Michael T Bailey, William B Malarkey, Megan E Renna, M Rosie Shrout, Rebecca Andridge, Martha A Belury, Annelise A Madison. Afternoon distraction: a high-saturated-fat meal and endotoxemia impact postmeal attention in a randomized crossover trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2020; DOI: 10.1093/ajcn/nqaa085

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