Ultra-Processed Foods Linked to Higher Brain Injury Odds

A study of nearly 8,800 Canadian adults found that those who ate the most ultra-processed food were more likely than the lowest consumers to show MRI signs of small-vessel brain injury, including silent strokes and white-matter changes, and also had more body fat. The findings were not associated with worse memory or thinking scores. Researchers cautioned that the observational study captured diet and brain scans at one point in time, so it cannot establish that ultra-processed foods caused the changes; longer-term research is needed. The MRI markers can precede symptoms and have been linked in other research to higher risks of stroke and cognitive decline.