By Kevin Kolodziejski
Going to a time trial with the goal of placing first in my age group and then shocking the hell out of everyone — including myself — by clocking the fastest time overall. I wish I still could do that (boy, do I ever), but I know it’s a never-again occurrence.
I did that 18 years ago, however. And while probably no more than 50 riders contested the 10-mile TT, US Cycling sanctioned it, at least half of the riders were younger than I was, and I was 46 at the time.
Before you pass this off as nothing more than some old guy living in the past, let this be known. It was recently watching Remco Evenepoel shock the hell out of everyone — including Tadej Pogačar — by blasting past him on the final climb of the 2025 UCI Road World Championship course on his way to winning the gold medal that caused me to reminisce. And for that, the rider they call “The Little Cannibal” has my thanks.
That pleasant memory not only gave me extra juice on that day’s ride, but it also produced a feeling of gratitude that lasted throughout that day. As I was preparing my supper and feeling truly blessed to possess such memories, though, a dark thought emerged.
The Dark Thought
What if in my advancing years, I lost most of my cycling memories — and many of the thousands of others that are so enjoyable to recall? How tragic would that be?
So tragic that for years I’ve been making subtle changes to my eating and sleeping habits in an effort to prevent that from ever happening. Which is why I read “Sharp Rise in Memory and Thinking Problems Among U.S. Adults, Study Finds” from Newswise and the study it cites with such keen interest.
What Caused Such Keen Interest?
In that study, cognitive disability is defined as “serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions,” and in over 4.5 million telephone surveys from 2013 to 2023, U.S. adults were asked if they ever encounter it. When the researchers compared the responses from 2023 to those from 2013, they discovered “Yes” answers had increased 28.4 percent — even after they excluded any answers from participants who also self-reported depressive symptoms. While the paper published online this September in Neurology stresses “disproportionate growth in cognitive disability among younger adults seems to be the primary driver of the overall national trend,” a related study published in Neuron about the same time suggests a different driver. One that’s been studied and shown to be driving some brain cells in the hippocampus — the part of the brain that’s essential to forming and recalling memories — in the wrong direction.
That chauffeur, my friend, is a diet high in fat. And the trip he takes you on can do more than add a few pounds, harm your heart, or lead to diabetes. It can eat away at your memories and do all sorts of other unpleasantries called cognitive dysfunction.
How Mice Lose Memories
Just as “The Little Cannibal” deserves my thanks for reminding me of such a pleasant memory, the little mice used in the study performed at the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine deserve ours for sacrificing theirs. They were fed a high-fat diet, one a UNC press release calls “typical Western-style junk food rich in saturated fat,” and then they were hooked up to the sorts of brain-monitoring devices that reveal what’s happening in your head. What happened in theirs — in just a few days — is in all probability what happens in yours when you eat that diet too, and is certainly unsettling. The ingestion of the junk food caused a subclass of interneurons present in the hippocampus that go by the initials CCK to become “overly active,” so much so they disrupted the processing of memories.
About this occurrence, Juan Song, PhD, principal investigator for the study, says, “We knew that diet and metabolism could affect brain health, but we didn’t expect to find such a specific and vulnerable group of brain cells [be] directly disrupted by short-term high-fat diet exposure. . . What surprised us most was how quickly these cells changed their activity in response to reduced glucose availability [in the brain], and how this shift alone was enough to impair memory.”
While that quick shift certainly is bad news, the study also produced what certainly is good news, too. The researchers learned that if the mice’s brain glucose levels were restored to normal levels through dietary interventions, such as periods of intermittent fasting, the CCK overactivity ended. But that goods news doesn’t change another fact, one that those enamored with or addicted to “typical Western-style junk food rich in saturated fat” would rather forget.
The Fact Junk Food Lovers Would Rather Forget
That the disruption of the processing of memories that resulted from the ingestion of consuming typical Western-style junk food rich in saturated fat happened in just a few days. That’s the part of the study you really need to (please excuse the pun) fully consume. Because even though RBR readers are far from typical Western-style people, you are in all likelihood still living most of your life in the typical Western-style way.
And to keep pace with it occasionally buying god-knows-what at god-knows-where for some quick lunches and suppers.
But this study is just another in a fairly long line that show long-term health can be adversely affected by any bad eating in the short term. So if you’re the sort who eats healthfully most of the time but will loosen the reins during parties, holidays, and vacations, you may want to take a moment to recall a few pleasant memories from those festivities right now.
While you still have the ability to do so.
Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.
A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.
This makes sense and is not at all surprising to those who investigate feeding behavior and those who study memory consolidation, the first steps of creating memory. The hippocampus is involved in feeding behavior and has neurons that sense nutrients. It also is involved in the first steps of memory formation.
Bottom line: eat right meaning eliminating junk including artificial sweetners, exercise and include strength training, and get a good night’s sleep on a regular schedule.