Trans fats can expand your waistline — they may also constrict your memory, according to new research out of UC San Diego.
For a study published Wednesday, UC San Diego professor of medicine Beatrice Golomb and her colleagues asked men under 45 to fill out a dietary survey before giving them a word recall test.
Golomb said consumption of trans fats predicted performance.
"We found that people who ate more trans fats, among younger adults in their key career-building years, performed worse on a memory test," Golomb said.
On average, participants forgot one word for every 1.3 grams of trans fats they ate, Golomb said. She thinks this happens because trans fats can have a damaging, pro-oxidant effect on brain cells.
On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration gave U.S. food companies a three-year deadline to phase trans fats out of their products. But Golomb said the FDA directive allowed for the possibility of obtaining a waiver, and she says her research has policy implications outside the United States.
"It is still relevant to people in the United States over the next three years, it's relevant past the next three years if there are any food products that retain trans fats, and it's relevant to people outside the United States who may be in countries that continue to use trans fats."
In previous studies, Golomb has established negative connections between trans fats and aggression and body mass index.
