A study published by the American Heart Association shows that eating fast food during adolescence causes irreversible damage to the brain, accelerates brain aging, and impairs memory and learning abilities.
Researchers from the University of Turku in Finland have been tracking the diet, lifestyle habits, and medical records of 3,596 people from childhood through adolescence to adulthood since 1980, for a period of 31 years.
Frequent consumption of fast food, which is high in saturated fat, salt, and calories, can easily lead to high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. For the study subjects who had high blood pressure during adolescence, their brains aged an average of 8.4 years faster than their peers with normal blood pressure; those with high cholesterol levels during adolescence showed an average acceleration of brain aging by 6.6 years.