Does Fast Food Make You Dumber?

 

It is already old news that fast food is probably best avoided. Now a study of 1,300 children between the ages of six and 11 by researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and published in Environmental Pollution has more good news for fast food fans. Eating it regularly lowers standard measures of intelligence in children.

Even after correcting for other factors such as air pollution, environmental chemicals and 84 other lifestyle factors, scores for fluid intelligence (ability to solve novel reasoning problems) and working memory (ability of the brain to retain new information while it is needed in the short term) were higher among those children who ate the most organic foods and lowest among those including the most fast food in their normal diet.

The explanation for this association may be that “healthy diets, including organic diets, are richer than fast food diets in nutrients necessary for the brain, such as fatty acids, vitamins and antioxidants, which together may enhance cognitive function in childhood,” commented lead author Jordi Júlvez. To date, there has been little research on the relationship between type of diet and cognitive function, but fast food intake has been associated with lower academic performance and some studies have also reported positive associations between organic diets and executive function scores. So maybe its "just a theory"?