Trans Fats Increases the Risk for Alzheimer Disease

In Alzheimer disease, the early signs and symptoms of this disease appear by the patient starts forgetting about recent events, conversations and information. As the disease progresses, the memory impairment increases significantly affecting the patient’s ability to perform their daily tasks.

Alzheimer disease is the most common cause of dementia, a condition that includes a continuous decline in thinking, behavioral and social skills, which negatively affects a person, and their ability to function independently in their normal daily activities.

This disease can be expressed as: a progressive disorder which results from degenerative neuronal damage and death. This disease is more likely to occur in the elderly, and it is rare for those in their middle age to develop this disease.

New Studies show that food has a clear effect on the health of brain cells (neurons) which is what we will be talking about in our article.

How do you get Alzheimer's disease?

The American Journal of Neurology has published a new study stating that people with high levels of trans fats in their diet are 50 to 75% more likely to develop Alzheimer disease or dementia.

Speaking about this study, Dr. Neelum T. Aggarwal, a neurologist, said: “The study shows that there are negative effects of diets high in trans fats on the brain, in addition to the known negative effects on the heart and blood vessels which are associated with a diet that contains a high level of trans fats.

It is noteworthy that the study mentioned was conducted on more than 1,600 healthy Japanese men and women on a time period of 10 years. A blood test was taken at the beginning of the study to measure the levels of trans fats in their blood, their diets were also analyzed regularly.

Diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease

The researchers then studied other factors that could affect the risk to develop Alzheimer disease, such as: high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking.

The researchers found that people who consumed high levels of trans fats were 52 to 74% more likely to develop Alzheimer disease than others.

"The study used blood marker levels of trans fats, rather than more traditionally used dietary questionnaires, which increases the scientific validity of the results," said neurologist Dr. Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic in New York.

What Are Trans Fats?

Trans fats can occur naturally in small quantities in some types of meat and milk, but most of the trans fats that comes into the human body are from a man-made source. Synthetic trans fats are produced through an industrialized process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid, such as in margarine.

Trans fats are included in the foodstuffs industry because they are cheaper, long-lasting, and have a good taste. Trans fats are used mostly in fried foods, coffee creams, frozen pizza, cakes, some types of biscuits, and other foods.

The Japanese study indicated that pastries that contain quantities of sugar negatively contribute to high levels of trans fats, followed by candy, caramel, croissants, non-dairy creamers, ice cream and rice crackers.

why are trans fats bad for you?

It is noteworthy that in 2015 the US Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of trans fats in the food industry. That happened after the emergence of multiple research papers that revealed the relationship between trans fats and high cholesterol level.

Those published scientific papers warned against consuming large and small quantities of these fats because of their negative effects on cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, dementia (Alzheimer's) and other diseases

"In the United States, the small amounts still allowed in foods can really add up if people eat multiple servings of these foods, and trans fats are still allowed in many other countries," said the study author Dr. Toshiharu Ninomiya, a professor at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, in a statement.

We advise you in Ilajak Medical to check if a food contain trans fats or not by reading the labels posted on them and to try to avoid these foods, because they have a negative impact on your health in the long term, even on brain cells, and try to have foods that are not industrially modified.

Ilajak Medical | A Passion For Care

Source

arabic.cnn.com