Five ways junk food changes your brain

Five ways junk food changes your brain

We know junk is bad for us , but we eat it anyway . RMIT neuroscientist Dr Amy Reichelt explains why junk foods are refined to hit you right in the sweet ____________________ ? your brain .
An expert in the science of brain and behaviour at the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences , here she shares the five key ways that eating unhealthy food affects what happens inside your head .

1 . Junk food can get you high

The brain has a reward system that ____________________ us to want to ____________________ in behaviours that we find pleasurable ? like eating tasty foods .

When we eat junk foods the ____________________ circuits within our brains activate and ____________________ the chemical dopamine .

Our brains can become ____________________ by the pleasure from these rewarding foods and in ____________________ , the brain adapts and makes more receptors for dopamine .

This means a ____________________ amount of junk food is needed to get the same ? kick ? , making us eat more , in the same way that an addict ____________________ a tolerance to drugs .

So , our brains are hardwired to seek out and want rewarding foods , making us ____________________ and desire sweet and fatty foods . ?

2 . Junk food grabs our attention and make us impulsive

We rapidly learn that these fatty , sugary junk foods are delicious and our attention is ____________________ to them when we see them .

To resist the ____________________ we need the major control centre in the brain ? the prefrontal cortex .

This area doesn ? t mature until our early 20 ? s , which is a reason why teenagers can sometimes act ____________________ .

Recent research has also shown that consuming lots of sugary drinks when you are young could ____________________ brain development .

We got adolescent rats to consume sugar water and then tested them on decision making tasks as adults .

We found that the sugar consuming adolescents found it ____________________ to follow rules as adults .

____________________ this with the fact young brains are not yet functioning at an optimal level and it ? s not surprising more and more young people are developing obesity .

3 . Junk food can inflame your brain

Junk food is highly refined and contains very high levels of sugars and fats , more than many natural foods .

In the same way as eating food you are allergic to can ____________________ your mouth ; junk foods can cause a similar reaction in the brain .

This is called neuroinflammation , and it ____________________ off a self - perpetuating series of events leading to more ____________________ that can damage brain cells called neurons .

Australian researchers recently showed that as ____________________ as five days on a diet of sugary drinks , cakes and cookies caused increased ____________________ of inflammation in the hippocampus .

People with damage to the hippocampus ____________________ being hungry all the time .

The hippocampus has been found to be important in ____________________ fullness - signalling messages from the gut , so eating a junk food diet can create a vicious cycle of damage to the neurons in the hippocampus , and the damage causes people to eat more and more .

4 . Junk food shrinks the brain ? s learning capabilities

The hippocampus is the memory centre of the brain and researchers have found that people who eat lots of junk food don ? t ____________________ as well as those who eat healthy diets in simple memory tests .

Our experiences are stored as memories , which are formed in the brain through connections between neurons which are constantly being reorganized in response to the ____________________ environment we live within .

This process can be described by the term neuroplasticity ? or that ? neurons that fire together , wire together ? .

Junk food ____________________ diets have been shown to reduce neuroplasticity ? which is essential for us to form new memories and learn new things rapidly .

5 . Junk food reduces the generation of new neurons

The birth of new neurons , or neurogenesis , happens throughout life in the hippocampus .

These new neurons have high levels of neuroplasticity , meaning they are very easily ____________________ by environmental events and are essential for forming new memories .

Reductions in the population of young neurons have been ____________________ to mental health disorders including depression , which brings us back to the notion of self - ____________________ cycles ? junk food can make us feel pleasure when we are sad , so we eat more , which makes us sadder .

Bonus point ? it ? s not all bad news !

We can all take simple steps to modify our lifestyles to reduce the ____________________ of unhealthy diets on our brains .

Fresh fruits and veggies have inflammation fighting antioxidants including polyphenols and vitamin E .

Oily fish and avocados are great sources of omega - 3 fatty acid which boosts neurogenesis and aerobic exercise helps us lose weight and also boosts ____________________ in the brain .

So by taking steps to lead a more active and healthy lifestyle we are keeping both our body and brains in good shape .