If you try to eat healthily but keep munching on burgers and fries often, your half-hearted attempts do little difference to the mind’s cognitive decline, a recent study uncovered.

Burgers and fries hurt people trying to eat healthily

Mediterranean diet, which is a ration containing lots of fresh vegetables, fruit, legumes, olive oil, fish, potatoes and unrefined cereals, has been found to significantly slow cognitive decline in aging adults.

However, in countries like the USA or Australia people tend to eat a lot of food that is a regular part of a so called “western diet” such as burgers, fries, sweetened drinks, red and processed meats, white bread, cookies, pizza, sweets, and refined grains.

Researchers from the Rush University Medical Centre decided to check how it affects the body when people who try to eat healthily often snack on foods typical of the western diet.

The researchers analysed data of over 5000 seniors over 65 from an American observational health study, which included records of both cognitive abilities and their usual ration. People answered questions how often they consumed 144 various food items.

Mediterranean diet, which is a ration containing lots of fresh vegetables, fruit, legumes, olive oil, fish, potatoes and unrefined cereals, has been found to significantly slow cognitive decline in aging adults.

There was a score assigned to the level of compliance to Mediterranean diet for each participant by the researchers. Then the scientists looked at how the compliance score was linked to the level of cognitive decline in participants.

What they found was that people adhering the closest to Mediterranean diet had the least level of cognitive decline, while people who mostly consumed foods associated with the western diet were 5.8 years older on the scale of their cognitive abilities.

People who had scores in between, in other words, the ones who were often snacking on burgers, fries, and sweets, showed about the same amount of cognitive decline as the ones who were fully on the western diet.

So, if you want to stay healthy and live longer, it’s best to avoid fried and processed foods altogether. Half-hearted attempts may not do you much good.

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