Cutting out the carbs may help you lose weight - but it can also help you lose your memory.
A study has found that dieters who avoid starchy foods do worse in mental tests than those who are allowed some pasta, bread and potatoes.
Carbohydrates are such an important source of energy for the brain that mental performance drops after just a week on an Atkins-style diet, the scientists found.
Women who cut out carbohydrates 'could lose their memory.'
The new study, carried out by scientists at Tufts University in Boston, America, looked at the impact of low-carb diets on the brain power of 19 women aged 22 to 55. The volunteers were put on either a low-calorie balanced diet or a low-carb diet.
Within a week, the ten women taking the low-carbohydrate diet were far worse at mental tests than those on the conventional low-calorie diet.
The tests looked at attention, long-term and short-term memory, visual attention and spatial memory.
The low-carb dieters showed a gradual decline in memory tasks compared with the low-calorie dieters.