Review links early life diet to intelligence and IQ in adolescence

A review of 73 studies has linked nutritional influences to teenage cognitive outcomes, finding that unhealthy diets in early life, especially infancy, could have lasting consequences for intelligence in adolescence. Adolescence is a key period of neuroplasticity, when the brain’s ability to adapt, create, and reorganize pathways related to learning, injury, or new experiences is marked by functional and structural changes driven by endocrine and hormonal shifts during puberty.