Rats! Memory Impairment With Only Three Days of Cheeseburgers?

[SorellaLaBefana]

Rat study showed that old rats developed memory problems within three days of starting on a high-fat diet. This was thought caused by brain inflammation. Applicability to humans in general, and to old men who eat mostly McBurgers, seems probable, but remains to be established.

...Researchers [at Ohio State University] fed separate groups of young and old rats the high-fat diet for three days or for three months to compare how quickly changes happen in the brain versus the rest of the body when eating an unhealthy diet.

As expected based on previous diabetes and obesity research, eating fatty foods for three months led to metabolic problems, gut inflammation and dramatic shifts in gut bacteria in all rats compared to those that ate normal chow, while just three days of high fat caused no major metabolic or gut changes...

"Unhealthy diets and obesity are linked, but they are not inseparable. We're really looking for the effects of the diet directly on the brain. And we showed that within three days, long before obesity sets in, tremendous neuroinflammatory shifts are occurring,"...

Fat constitutes 60% of calories in the high-fat diet used in the study, which could equate to a range of common fast-food options: For example, nutrition data shows that fat makes up about 60% of calories in a McDonald's double smoky BLT quarter pounder with cheese or a Burger King double whopper with cheese.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250306153043.htm

This study adds to the steady accumulation of evidence that the high-fat, high-profit foods favoured by commercial producers and widely touted by their advertising is directly damaging to your health—even in the short term.

Fortunately, we may not have to read many more such distressing studies. Since this, and other thought provoking work, was funded by a grant from the NIH's National Institute on Aging and may well no longer find a place at the government's funding table