While not everyone has a gift for science (shout out to all my fellow humanities people!), the recent body of research showed that there are other factors that might be to blame for our limited brain capacity and decreased cognitive functions.

One such factor is quite surprising – it turns out that something as basic as an unhealthy diet which is high in fat and sugar can cause detrimental changes to the brain and lead to cognitive impairment. Recently, scientists ran two large-scale studies that revealed that eating ultra-processed foods may exacerbate age-related cognitive decline and increase the risk of developing dementia.

According to Sara N. Burke, an Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Associate Director of the Cognitive Aging and Memory Center (CAM), ultra-processed foods tend to be lower in nutrients and fiber and higher in sugar, fat, and salt compared to unprocessed or minimally processed foods.

“Some examples of ultra-processed foods include soda, packaged cookies, chips, frozen meals, flavored nuts, flavored yogurt, distilled alcoholic beverages, and fast foods. Even packaged breads, including those high in nutritious whole grains, qualify as ultra-processed in many cases because of the additives and preservatives they contain,” she explained in this article.

In a December 2022 study, researchers discovered that those participants of the study who ate a diet containing more ultra-processed foods at the start of the study showed more cognitive decline compared with those that ate little to no ultra-processed foods.

Professor Burke argues that for adults over the age of 55, a healthier diet could increase the likelihood of maintaining better brain function. “In particular, the Mediterranean diet and ketogenic diet are associated with better cognition in advanced age.”

These two diets, Burke argues, are capable of reversing some of these changes and improving cognitive function. Scientists suspect that this is possible because these diets reduce harmful inflammation.

When it comes to the current state of the world’s science field, it’s interesting to note that the number of science and technology research papers published has skyrocketed over the past few decades.

Despite that, the new data from millions of manuscripts show something interesting. Nature reports that compared with mid-twentieth-century research, that done in the 2000s was much more likely to push science forward incrementally than to veer off in a new direction and render previous work obsolete. Analysis of patents from 1976 to 2010 showed the same trend.

“The data suggest something is changing,” says Russell Funk, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and a co-author of the analysis. “You don’t have quite the same intensity of breakthrough discoveries you once had.”

What’s more, the authors also analyzed the most common verbs used in manuscripts. Their study published in Nature found that whereas research in the 1950s was more likely to use words evoking creation or discovery such as ‘produce’ or ‘determine’, that done in the 2010s was more likely to refer to incremental progress, using terms such as ‘improve’ or ‘enhance’.