High fried food impacts anxiety, depression due to lipid metabolism disturbance, neuroinflammation

 Anli Wang, Xuzhi Wan, Pan Zhuang, +13, and Yu Zhang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1025-906X y_zhang@zju.edu.cnAuthors Info & Affiliations

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.222109712

Significance

To address a crucial knowledge deficiency concerning the correlation between fried food consumption and the risk of anxiety and depression, here we revealed that frequent fried food consumption is strongly associated with a higher risk of anxiety and depression. Notably, acrylamide is a representative contaminant in fried foods, thereby further elucidating its toxicological mode of action. We demonstrated that long-term exposure to acrylamide induces anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors via oxidative stress-mediated neuroinflammation, and unravel the underlying mechanism that PPAR signaling pathway mediates acrylamide-induced lipid metabolism disorder in brain. These outcomes are expected to both epidemiologically and mechanistically open an avenue in the significance of reducing fried food consumption for mental health and provide evidence to understand acrylamide-triggered anxiety and depression.

Abstract

Western dietary patterns have been unfavorably linked with mental health. However, the long-term effects of habitual fried food consumption on anxiety and depression and underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Our population-based study with 140,728 people revealed that frequent fried food consumption, especially fried potato consumption, is strongly associated with 12% and 7% higher risk of anxiety and depression, respectively. The associations were more pronounced among male and younger consumers. Consistently, long-term exposure to acrylamide, a representative food processing contaminant in fried products, exacerbates scototaxis and thigmotaxis, and further impairs exploration ability and sociality of adult zebrafish, showing anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors. Moreover, treatment with acrylamide significantly down-regulates the gene expression of tjp2a related to the permeability of blood–brain barrier. Multiomics analysis showed that chronic exposure to acrylamide induces cerebral lipid metabolism disturbance and neuroinflammation. PPAR signaling pathway mediates acrylamide-induced lipid metabolism disorder in the brain of zebrafish. Especially, chronic exposure to acrylamide dysregulates sphingolipid and phospholipid metabolism, which plays important roles in the development of anxiety and depression symptoms. In addition, acrylamide promotes lipid peroxidation and oxidation stress, which participate in cerebral neuroinflammation. Acrylamide dramatically increases the markers of lipid peroxidation, including (±)5-HETE, 11(S)-HETE, 5-oxoETE, and up-regulates the expression of proinflammatory lipid mediators such as (±)12-HETE and 14(S)-HDHA, indicating elevated cerebral inflammatory status after chronic exposure to acrylamide. Together, these results both epidemiologically and mechanistically provide strong evidence to unravel the mechanism of acrylamide-triggered anxiety and depression, and highlight the significance of reducing fried food consumption for mental health.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221097120