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posted by mrpg on Thursday January 05 2017, @01:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-are-what-you-eat dept.

Being overweight can raise your blood pressure, cholesterol and risk for developing diabetes. It could be bad for your brain, too.

A diet high in saturated fats and sugars, the so-called Western diet, actually affects the parts of the brain that are important to memory and make people more likely to crave the unhealthful food, says psychologist Terry Davidson, director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at American University in Washington, D.C.

He didn't start out studying what people ate. Instead, he was interested in learning more about the hippocampus, a part of the brain that's heavily involved in memory.

[...] In the process, Davidson noticed something strange. The rats with the hippocampal damage would go to pick up food more often than the other rats, but they would eat a little bit, then drop it.

[...] "It's surprising to me that people would question that obesity would have a negative effect on the brain, because it has a negative effect on so many other bodily systems," he says, adding, why would "the brain would be spared?"

Original URL: The Wrong Eating Habits Can Hurt Your Brain, Not Just Your Waistline


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @07:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @07:30PM (#449879)

    I've had good luck blowing right past such objections. As long as you aren't being an insensitive clod then you will be fine. If someone wants to get bent out of shape because you used the words "dummies" and "tubbies" then that is their problem and you should treat them like the marginally crazy person they are.

    That being said, there are quite a few people on this site who would benefit from such re-education :P