An inadequate diet, with nutritional deficiencies, weakens our immune system and is one of the main preventable causes of chronic non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and hepatic steatosis, also known as fatty liver. Less well known is the fact that diet can also influence the risk of dementia.

However, new and alarming research has revealed that foods cooked in reused oil can cause brain degeneration. French fries and fried chicken are two examples given by scientists.

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According to the study, recently presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, scientists revealed that they detected higher levels of neurodegeneration in rats that consumed reused cooking oils, compared to other rodents that followed a healthier diet. The same problems were detected in the offspring of the rats.

The researchers found that the increased neurodegeneration appears to be related to the effects of the oil on the bidirectional communication network between the liver, the intestine and the brain, essential for regulating various physiological functions. More: failures in these networks are associated with neurological disorders.

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One of the researchers, Kathiresan Shanmugam, a professor at Tamil Nadu Central University in India, explained that frying food at high temperatures "has been associated with several metabolic disorders". However, "as far as we know, we are the first to report that long-term use of frying oil increases neurodegeneration in first-generation offspring".

It should be noted that dementia is a generic term used to designate a set of diseases that are characterized by cognitive changes that may be associated with memory loss, language changes and disorientation in time or space. There is no treatment for most of them. However, it has been proven that about 40% of dementias, such as Alzheimer's (the most common form of dementia), can be prevented or delayed.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are 47.5 million people with dementia worldwide, a number that could reach 75.6 million by 2030 and almost triple by 2050, to 135.5 million.

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