What science says about ultraprocessed foods and the aging brain - EurekAlert!

Scientists comment on a study, published in JAMA Network Open, looking at ultraprocessed food intake and body fat and visceral adipose tissue, vascular brain injury, and cognition in middle-aged adults. “This study of thousands of Canadians shows an association between eating ultra processed food and the presence of small blood vessels disease in the brain.  The blood vessel disease was assessed by an expert radiologist visually inspecting the MRI brain scans and visually scoring micro bleeds and white matter disease – which is a widely used and reliable approach.  This association does not provide evidence of causality: it does not show that eating a large amount of ultra processed food is a risk factor for greater damage to blood vessels in the brain, as that would require a study design that follows individuals over time, rather than just comparing different individuals at one time point.  However, it does suggest further research is warranted into the impact of diet on brain blood vessel damage and the possible implications for brain health.”

(HealthDay News) — Eating more ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) is associated with higher risks for multiple chronic diseases and all-cause mortality, according to a study published online Sept. 22 in Family Medicine and Community Health. Xiao Liu, MD, PhD, from Duke-­NUS Medical School in Singapore, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature search to identify prospective studies evaluating consumption of UPFs and the impact on major chronic outcomes.

Mud from a fjord shows an Atlantic air pattern brought wetter, colder spells to southern Greenland, a clue to how its ice may fare. Greenland’s ice is shrinking as the planet warms. But in the island’s southwest, rainfall and snowfall have been influenced by the same North Atlantic air-pressure pattern for at least 5,000 years. When that pattern tipped one way, the region turned wetter and colder. The record comes from mud on the floor of a Greenland fjord, and it suggests snowfall, not only temperature, shaped how the area’s ice grew and shrank. It doesn’t yet show how glaciers there will respond to the warming ahead. Johan Faust, a researcher at MARUM, the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen in Germany, led the work with colleagues in Germany, Norway, Denmark and Canada. A seesaw in the airThe pattern is called the North Atlantic Oscillation. It’s the difference in air pressure between a low that sits near Iceland and a high near the Azores, and it’s strongest in winter. When that difference is large, the pattern is in its positive phase. Northwestern Europe and southwestern Greenland both get more rain and snow.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Isaiah Santistevan led the development of three-dimensional simulations exploring how a nuclear device could deflect or disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth. Credit: Blaise Douros/LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth.

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