Junk food causes nutrition deficiency: Soda and fast food cripple brain development, according to new study

A special issue of the journal Birth Defects Research: The Teenage Brain has concluded that the excessive consumption of junk food and energy drinks impairs the mental health of teenagers.

In the study, a team of researchers from the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australiareviewed the effects of caffeine and taurine found in energy drinks on the developing brains of young adults. They found in the review of animal studies that taurine, an additive used in energy drinks, can be harmful to developing brains. Christine Curran, lead author of the study, said that this raises concerns on teenage drinking because they are often combined with alcohol.

The researchers said that these products hamper the development of brains because of the intense rush of dopamine. This in turn causes a unique mental health risk to young people who consume energy drinks excessively. Curran explained that their findings in exposed adolescent and young adult mice to high taurine levels indicate that there can be detrimental effects on learning and memory and increased alcohol consumption in females. These mice were less sociable and exhibited worse performance in tests that measured their recognition of things.

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