According to a new study by health scientists at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, there is no evidence that the amount of ultra-processed food consumed is related to cognitive functioning or cognitive decline in Dutch elderly people.
There is plenty of focus on ultra-processed foods: industrial products that have undergone several processing steps and contain, for example, additives, flavour enhancers and emulsifiers. Think of soft drinks, snacks, ready-made meals or processed meat, but also some wholemeal breads and fortified breakfast cereals.
Ultra-processed food is associated with obesity and type-2 diabetes, among other things. However, little was known about the link between ultra-processed foods and cognitive health. Health scientists from VU Amsterdam and others therefore investigated whether there was a link between cognitive health and intake of ultra-processed food among Dutch adults aged 55 years and older.
Ten years
The researchers used data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam, a long-term study among older Dutch adults. They mapped their diet with a questionnaire and determined how much ultra-processed food they consumed. They then monitored their cognitive functioning through tests for 10 years. In the analyses, they took into account other factors that might influence their cognitive functioning, such as age, education, lifestyle and overall diet quality. This allowed them to look specifically at the role of ultra-processed foods.
The study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, found that there was no clear link between ultra-processed food intake and participants' cognitive decline over a 10-year period. An earlier study found that diet quality did link to cognitive functioning in the same group. People with a healthier diet - lots of vegetables, fruit, whole grain products and unsaturated fats - showed less cognitive decline.
Total diet more important
Health scientist Hanneke Wijnhoven, co-author of the study: "Our results nuance the image of ultra-processed food. For cognitive health, it seems more important to look at the quality of the total diet rather than the degree of processing. For practice, this means that dietary advice is likely to gain more from encouraging healthy choices, such as more plant-based products and fewer sugary drinks and processed meat, than from simply avoiding 'processed' foods."