Eating highly processed food increases risk of dementia

EATING ultra-processed food such as sausages, soft drinks and some yoghurts raises the chance of developing dementia, a study suggests.

But people can reduce their risk by carrying out daily chores and visiting friends and family, researchers found.

Two studies, based on more than 500,000 people in the UK Biobank, found those who ate most ultra-processed food (814g per day) had a 42 per cent increase in the risk of dementia compared to the least (225g per day).

Ultra-processed foods are high in added sugar, fat and salt, and low in protein and fibre.

“Ultra-processed foods are meant to be convenient and tasty, but they diminish the quality of a person’s diet,” said study author Dr Huiping Li, of Tianjin Medical University in China. “These foods may also contain food additives or molecules from packaging or heating, [shown] to have negative effects on thinking and memory skills.”

Separate research from Sichuan University using the same database found carrying out daily chores lowers risk of dementia by 21 per cent and visiting friends by 15 per cent. Frequent exercise lowered the risk by 35 per cent.

Dr Sara Imarisio, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “This adds to evidence that finding something you can stick to that keeps you physically and socially active is likely to have the greatest benefit to your health. The researchers found even people with a high genetic risk for Alzheimer’s could benefit from keeping physically active.”

Both studies were published in the journal Neurology.