Fried foods, particularly French fries, may trigger depression and anxiety, posing a greater health risk, according to a new study.
The analysis, created by a group of researchers from Zhejiang University in China, states that the results showed that frequent consumption of fried foods was related to a 12 percent higher risk of anxiety and a 7 percent higher risk of depression, with young men being the most affected.
The text, published in the scientific journal PNAS, it is known that Western dietary patterns have been unfavorably linked to mental health.
The evaluation recorded data from 140,728 people over 11 years.
According to the results, critical exposure to acrylamide, a representative contaminant of food processing in fried products, induces alterations in brain lipid metabolism and produces neuroinflammation.
It points out that critical exposure to acrylamide deregulates the metabolism of complex lides such as sphingolides and phospholides, which play an important role in the development of anxiety and depression symptoms.
These results, both from an epidemiological and mechanistic point of view, provide strong evidence to unravel the mechanism of anxiety and depression caused by acrylamide, and highlight the importance of reducing the consumption of fried foods for mental health, the study stresses.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - CDC, for its acronym in English?, overall, about 1 in 6 adults in the U.S. will have depression at some point.