Foods that Fight Memory Loss
A daily serving of leafy greens might keep your mind sharp as you age. According to researchers from the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging in Chicago, adding a few servings of vegetables to your dinner plate can help your brain stay young and slow mental decline.
Age-related cognitive decline is considered by many experts to be a normal consequence of getting older – it is the subtle decline over time in memory and thinking processes that affects most people. (For some older adults, however, cognitive declines go beyond what is considered normal and can progress to mild cognitive impairment or dementia.) Risk factors for cognitive decline include hypertension, diabetes, cigarette smoking, and lack of exercise – both physical and mental.
In the Chicago Health and Aging Study researchers asked 3718 healthy men and women, age 65 years and older, about their diet and tested their short term and delayed memory three times over a 6 year period. Those who ate more than 2 servings of vegetables each day experienced a 40% decrease in cognitive declined compared with those who ate fewer than 1 serving per day – a result expected in people 5 years younger. The study found all types of vegetables protective, especially zucchini, eggplant, broccoli, lettuce, tossed salad, and leafy greens, such as kale and collards.
Scientists attribute the protective effect of vegetables to vitamin E, an antioxidant nutrient that is more abundant in vegetables – especially leafy greens – than in fruit. Vegetables are also often cooked or eaten with fats, such as salad dressing margarine, and vegetable oil, which help the body absorb vitamin E and other antioxidants, including beta carotene and flavonoids.
Vitamin E is thought to protect brain cells from damage caused by free radicals. The brain is especially vulnerable to free radical damage because of its hight demand for oxygen, its abundance of easily oxidized cell membranes, and its weak antioidant defences.
