Cholesterol or Fat Rich Diets Accelerate Natural Age-Decline on Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis and Have an Impact in Memory and Like-Anxiety Behavior

Diet is an important health factor and it has been recently associated with neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive decline. Here it was investigated the effect of fatty acid or cholesterol rich diets with the possible acceleration of the biological decline in adult hippocampal neurogenesis associated with aging in middle-age rats, and its impact on anxiety and memory function. It was found that a diet of 10 weeks with saturated fatty acids and cholesterol has a detrimental effect on memory function, exerts like-anxiety behavior and diminishes the presence of new generated neurons in the hippocampus in six months old rats.