Western Diet Consumption During Development: Setting the Stage for Neurocognitive Dysfunction

Abstract

The dietary pattern in industrialized countries has changed substantially over the past century due to technological advances in agriculture, food processing, storage, marketing, and distribution practices. The availability of highly palatable, calorically dense foods that are shelf-stable has facilitated a food environment where overconsumption of foods that have a high percentage of calories derived from fat (particularly saturated fat) and sugar is extremely common in modern Westernized societies. In addition to being a predictor of obesity and metabolic dysfunction, consumption of a Western diet (WD) is related to poorer cognitive performance across the lifespan. In particular, WD consumption during critical early life stages of development has negative consequences on various cognitive abilities later in adulthood. This review highlights rodent model research identifying dietary, metabolic, and neurobiological mechanisms linking consumption of a WD during early life periods of development (gestation, lactation, juvenile and adolescence) with behavioral impairments in multiple cognitive domains, including anxiety-like behavior, learning and memory function, reward-motivated behavior, and social behavior. The literature supports a model in which early life WD consumption leads to long-lasting neurocognitive impairments that are largely dissociable from WD effects on obesity and metabolic dysfunction.

Early life Western diet-induced memory impairments and gut microbiome changes in female rats are long-lasting despite healthy dietary intervention

“…Given that increased anxiety-like behavior may develop following early life WD exposure in rodents (Tsan et al, 2021), we tested the rats in the Zero Maze test but found no effects of CAF exposure on anxiety-like behavior either before or after the dietary intervention. Similar to our CAF rats, an anxiety-like phenotype was not seen in the SUG cohorts, which is consistent with our previous findings in male rats using the Zero Maze test (Hsu et al, 2015b;Noble et al, 2019).…”

“…In addition to adverse metabolic outcomes, WD exposure during early life periods of development adversely impacts neurocognitive development (Francis and Stevenson, 2013;Noble and Kanoski, 2016;Reichelt, 2016;Tsan et al, 2021). For example, habitual added sugar consumption in children is associated with altered hippocampus (HPC) volume and HPC-cortical connectivity (Clark et al, 2020), whereas habitual saturated fatty acid intake is negatively associated with HPC-dependent relational memory (Baym et al, 2014).…”

Theories behind the effect of starch‑ and sucrose‑reduced diets on gastrointestinal symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome (Review)

“…During the last decades, the sugar intake has been markedly increased ( 40 ). The higher luminal sugar concentrations, the more upregulation of the enzymatic and absorptive systems, with higher glucose absorption consequently ( 28 ).…”

“…The dramatic increase of nutrients and beverages which are enriched with sucrose has led to higher amount of fructose in the food ( 40 ). In humans, the capacity of fructose absorption is much smaller than the glucose absorption ( 41 ).…”

Early life Western diet-induced memory impairments and gut microbiome changes in female rats are long-lasting despite healthy dietary intervention

“…In addition to adverse metabolic outcomes, WD exposure during early life periods of development adversely impacts neurocognitive development [8][9][10][11]. For example, habitual added sugar consumption in children is associated with altered hippocampus (HPC) volume and HPC-cortical connectivity [12], whereas habitual saturated fatty acid intake is negatively associated with HPC-dependent relational memory [13].…”