But these foods are also altering your brain and your mental health – fueling depression, mental illness, and other issues.

According to a study published in the Public Health Journal, people who eat fast foods are 51% more likely to develop depression compared to those who eat little or no fast food. And this finding was for people who only consumed two servings of fast food a week.

Another study published in the Journal of Adolescence Health found that eating just one serving of French fries per week during adolescence increased women’s breast cancer risk later in life by 27%.

And a study published in Circulation found that eating fast food one time per week increased the risk of dying from coronary heart disease by 20% — a risk that grew to 50% for people eating fast food two or three times per week.

In contrast, those who follow a traditional Mediterranean diet are much less likely to develop depression because the fish, fruit, nuts and vegetables that diet involves help protect against Britain’s commonest mental health problem, the research suggests.

Published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, the findings have come from an analysis by researchers from Britain, Spain and Australia who examined 41 previous studies on the links between diet and depression.