Eating too much fried food could promote anxiety and depressive disorders: this is revealed by a large study involving over 140,000 individuals and which was published in the journal PNAS. Conducted at Zhejiang University in China, the study also proposes a biological mechanism that explains how fried foods can promote mental disorders.
Several studies in the past have linked Western diets with mental health. However, the long-term effects of habitual fried food consumption on anxiety and depression and the underlying mechanisms remained unclear. Our study, based on a population of 140,728 people, revealed that frequent consumption of fried foods, especially hash browns, is strongly associated with a 12% and 7% higher risk of anxiety, respectively. and depression.
Male consumers and younger consumers are most at risk. After the epidemiological study, the experts transferred their work to the laboratory, where they saw that chronic exposure to acrylamide, a by-product of the frying process (of which fried foods are therefore rich) already repeatedly called into question for its effects on health, induces disorders of fat metabolism in the brain and neuroinflammation. In particular, chronic exposure to acrylamide dysregulates the metabolism of sphingolipids and phospholipids, which play an important role in the development of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, it has been shown that acrylamide promotes oxidative stress (with the formation of free radicals), which participate in the development of symptoms of anxiety and depression, causing brain neuroinflammation.
Together, these results, both from an epidemiological point of view and in terms of the underlying mechanisms involved, provide strong evidence of the mechanism of anxiety and depression triggered by acrylamide and underline the importance of reducing the consumption of fried for mental health, conclude the authors of the work.