People who eat diets that include 20% or more of ultraprocessed foods like hot dogs, “hamberders,” sausages, chocolate cake and soda have a far greater likelihood of experiencing cognitive decline as they age, according to a new study reported by CNN.
If you’re one of those silly people who believe scientists and medical professionals, such a diet has already had documented risks of things like hypertension, obesity, diabetes, cancer and the inability to acknowledge that you actually lost an election.
According to the study, people who ate the most ultraprocessed foods had a 28% faster rate of global cognitive decline and a 25% faster rate of executive function decline that might manifest in the inability to successfully manage a response to a pandemic or in the belief that three million undocumented migrants voted in California.
“Fifty-eight percent of the calories consumed by United States citizens, 56.8% of the calories consumed by British citizens, and 48% of the calories consumed by Canadians come from ultraprocessed foods,” one of the study’s coauthors, Dr. Claudia Suemoto, an assistant professor in the division of geriatrics at the University of São Paulo Medical School, said.
To disconnect yourself from hyperprocessed foods, some good rules of thumb would be to eat more raw foods like fruits, vegetables, and grains; stay away from foods you can obtain in styrofoam containers or through your car window; or if you see Donald Trump eating it, stay away.