Are we underestimating the impact of this vitamin on neurological health?
The types of fruit that can reduce cognitive aging and lower the risk of Alzheimer’s in midlife.
The types of fruit that can reduce cognitive aging and lower the risk of Alzheimer’s in midlife.
Daily consumption of strawberries or blueberries may lower the odds of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in middle-aged men and women.
According to a study, both strawberries and blueberries contain effective antioxidants that help prevent the risk of late-life dementia.
Midlife adults can get the optimal health effect if consuming at least one cup of whole strawberries or blueberries per day.
A group of antioxidants called anthocyanins are responsible for the red, purple, or blue pigments of fruits and flowers.
Studies show that these antioxidants, due to their anti-inflammatory effect, can lower the risk of heart disease, type-2 diabetes and cancer.
Berries are rich in anthocyanins and several nutrients such as ellagic acid, that is known for its anti-aging effects, and improving memory and other cognitive skills.
Professor Robert Krikorian, the study’s first author, said:
“Both strawberries and blueberries contain antioxidants called anthocyanins, which have been implicated in a variety of berry health benefits such as metabolic and cognitive enhancements.
There is epidemiological data suggesting that people who consume strawberries or blueberries regularly have a slower rate of cognitive decline with aging.”
Around half of the American adult population with prediabetes are middle-aged.
This group are more vulnerable to memory loss and cognitive decline.
Past research has suggested that eating strawberries can boost cardiovascular health by improving insulin sensitivity and lowering blood glucose levels.
This study investigated whether strawberry consumption provides any health benefit in overweight middle-aged individuals with self-reported cognitive decline.
Professor Krikorian said:
“This study assessed whether strawberry consumption might improve cognitive performance and metabolic health in this population, and if so, whether there might be an association between cognitive enhancement and reduced metabolic disturbance.”
The participants in this study received every day a sachet of strawberry powder, equal to one cup of whole strawberries, for 3 months.
During the study period, the participants took various tests to measure their cognitive abilities such as long-term memory, as well as their emotional state such as mood, anxiety, and depressive symptoms.
The strawberry-treated group experienced a significant reduction in memory interference.
Professor Krikorian said:
“Reduced memory interference refers to less confusion of semantically related terms on a word-list learning test.
This phenomenon generally is thought to reflect better executive control in terms of resisting intrusion of non-target words during the memory testing.”
Furthermore, the strawberry-treated participants also experienced less depressive symptoms.
Professor Krikorian said the positive effects can be due to:
“…enhanced executive ability that would provide better emotional control and coping and perhaps better problem-solving.”
Other studies have found that higher consumption of strawberries improves metabolic measures such as lowering insulin levels.
Professor Krikorian pointed out:
“Those studies generally used higher dosages of strawberry powder than in our research, and this could have been a factor.”
It seems the improvement of cognitive function by eating strawberries could be due to decreased brain inflammation.
Professor Krikorian said:
“Executive abilities begin to decline in midlife and excess abdominal fat, as in insulin resistance and obesity, will tend to increase inflammation, including in the brain.
So, one might consider that our middle-aged, overweight, prediabetic sample had higher levels of inflammation that contributed to at least mild impairment of executive abilities.
Accordingly, the beneficial effects we observed might be related to moderation of inflammation in the strawberry group.”
The study was published in the journal of Nutrients (Krikorian et al., 2023).
It is thought that the vitamin helps clear the brain of the characteristic tangles of proteins that form in dementia.
It is thought that the vitamin helps clear the brain of the characteristic tangles of proteins that form in dementia.
Taking vitamin D supplement could decrease dementia risk, a large study suggests.
People who took vitamin D supplements lived for longer without developing dementia and overall had a 40 percent lower risk of developing the disease.
Adequate vitamin D levels have been repeatedly linked to lower dementia risk by research (1, 2, 3, 4).
One study has even suggested that adequate levels of vitamin D could prevent almost one-in-five cases of dementia (Navale et al., 2022).
However, the link remains somewhat controversial, with other studies finding no connection (also: Owusu et al., 2018).
Professor Zahinoor Ismail, the study’s first author, acknowledged the contradictory findings from past studies:
“We know that vitamin D has some effects in the brain that could have implications for reducing dementia, however so far, research has yielded conflicting results.
Our findings give key insights into groups who might be specifically targeted for vitamin D supplementation.
Overall, we found evidence to suggest that earlier supplementation might be particularly beneficial, before the onset of cognitive decline.”
For this study, data from over 12,000 participants in the US National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center was analysed.
Just over one-third were taking vitamin D supplements.
The results showed that vitamin D supplementation was associated with a reduced dementia risk in all groups.
However, the connection was stronger in women and people who had no pre-existing cognitive deficits, such as mild cognitive impairment.
Similarly, carriers of the APOEe4 gene appeared to benefit more from vitamin D supplementation.
The APOEe4 gene significantly increases the risk of developing dementia.
It is thought that vitamin D helps to clear the brain of the characteristic tangles of proteins that form, known as amyloid and tau.
Dr Byron Creese, study co-author, said:
“Preventing dementia or even delaying its onset is vitally important given the growing numbers of people affected.
The link with vitamin D in this study suggests that taking vitamin D supplements may be beneficial in preventing or delaying dementia, but we now need clinical trials to confirm whether this is really the case.
The ongoing VitaMIND study at the University of Exeter is exploring this issue further by randomly assigning participants to either take vitamin D or placebo and examining changes in memory and thinking tests over time.”
Despite these findings, it is not recommended to take high levels of vitamin D as a preventative measure.
Recommended doses are 600 IU per day for people under 70 and 800 IU for those over 70.
The study was published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring (Ghahremani et al., 2023).
This activity isn’t just fun — it’s a scientifically proven brain booster.
The trait has already been linked with worse physical health, but what is it doing to the brain?
The trait has already been linked with worse physical health, but what is it doing to the brain?
People with high levels of cynicism are more likely to develop dementia.
It’s already been found that those who believe others are mainly motivated by selfish concerns — the definition of cynical distrust — have worse physical health; for example, cynicism has been linked to heart disease.
Now you can add dementia to the list.
In the study, conducted in Finland, 1,449 people were given tests of their cynicism that included questions like:
The more people endorsed these statements, the stronger their cynical distrust was deemed to be.
They were also given tests of dementia and other factors that might affect their risk of developing dementia later on, like smoking and high cholesterol levels.
Eight years later, people were tested again to see if they had developed any symptoms of dementia.
Forty-six people had, and in that group, people who were high on cynical distrust were three times more likely to develop dementia than those low on that measure.
One of the study’s authors, Dr Anna-Maija Tolppanen, said:
“These results add to the evidence that people’s view on life and personality may have an impact on their health.
Understanding how a personality trait like cynicism affects risk for dementia might provide us with important insights on how to reduce risks for dementia.”
The study was published in the journal Neurology (Neuvonen et al., 2014).
While the drink used to be thought safe for brain health, the latest research finds otherwise.
While the drink used to be thought safe for brain health, the latest research finds otherwise.
Drinking as little as three glasses of wine or three cans of beer per week is linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, research finds.
People who drank more than this amount of any alcohol, the study found, had elevated levels of iron in their brains.
Iron accumulation has been found in both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease and may help to explain cognitive decline.
The research included over 20,000 people included in the UK Biobank study.
All had reported their alcohol consumption and had their brains scanned, while 7,000 had had MRIs of their livers to assess iron levels.
Average alcohol intake was around 18 UK units, which is equivalent to over 7 cans of beer or 6 large glasses of wine.
The results showed that anything above 7 units per week was linked to high levels of iron in the basal ganglia, a group of neurons involved in a whide range of cognitive functions, such as learning, movement and the emotions.
Dr Anya Topiwala, the study’s first author, said:
“In the largest study to date, we found drinking greater than 7 units of alcohol weekly associated with iron accumulation in the brain.
Higher brain iron in turn linked to poorer cognitive performance.
Iron accumulation could underlie alcohol-related cognitive decline.”
In the US, 7 units is about 4 standard drinks, which are 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine or 1.5 oz of a distilled spirit.
While moderate drinking used to be thought safe for brain health, the latest research finds otherwise.
Lower and lower amounts of alcohol have been linked to cognitive decline and neurodegeneration.
For example, as little as one alcoholic drink per day has been linked to brain shrinkage.
People who have as little as a glass of wine or pint of beer each day show greater signs of brain shrinkage with age.
Averaging four drinks a day was linked by this study to the equivalent of 10 years of brain aging.
The more people drink, therefore, the stronger the association gets between alcohol and brain shrinkage.
And alcohol continues to cause brain damage even six weeks after giving it up.
The study was published in the journal PLOS Medicine (Topiwala et al., 2022).
Memory problems are one of the key symptoms of dementia.
Memory problems are one of the key symptoms of dementia.
A folate deficiency is linked to a tripling in the chance of developing dementia in older people, research finds.
Folates include vitamin B9, folacin and folic acid.
Healthy adults should get around 400mcg per day to prevent a deficiency.
Foods that are high in folates include leafy greens, beets, citrus fruits, broccoli, eggs and asparagus.
Folates are also usually contained in multivitamin supplements.
Low levels of vitamin B12 and folate have both been linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease by multiple studies.
This link has been observed by researchers for more than three decades.
A deficiency in B12 or folate can cause higher levels of the amino acid homocysteine in the body.
Homocysteine has a neurotoxic effect and could lead to neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer’s.
For the current study, 518 people over the age of 65 were tracked for two years.
They were given blood tests for levels of folate, vitamin B12 and the protein homosysteine, along with cognitive tests.
The results showed that 45 people had developed dementia by the end of the study.
People who were deficient in folates were 3.5 times more likely to develop dementia, the researchers found.
Dementia was also more likely in people whose folate levels dropped over the two years of the study.
The study’s authors write:
“In this prospective study of a community population, lower
folate concentrations predicted incident dementia and AD over
a 2.4 year follow-up period…Over the follow-up period, dementia occurred more commonly in those with a relative decline in folate and vitamin B12 concentrations or a relative increase in homocysteine concentrations.”
A good diet is repeatedly linked by research to a reduced risk of dementia.
One study has found that people who eat more nuts, fish, poultry and certain fruits and vegetables have a lower risk of Alzheimer’s, research finds.
Set against this, those who eat more red meats, organ meats, butter and high-fat dairy products have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s.
The study was published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (Kim et al., 2019).
Scientists studied 250 people with mild cognitive impairment: a condition that can progress to dementia.
Scientists studied 250 people with mild cognitive impairment: a condition that can progress to dementia.
B vitamins combined with omega-3 can help slow mental decline in older people with memory problems.
Dr Celeste de Jager, one of the study’s authors, said:
“We previously found that B vitamins are able to slow or prevent the atrophy of the brain and memory decline in people with MCI.
This was most effective in those who had above average blood levels of homocysteine, a factor related to B vitamin status that may be toxic to the brain.
Scientists in our team initially found that there was a link between Omega-3 levels, homocysteine, and brain atrophy rates.
We wanted to find out whether Omega-3 and B vitamins might interact to prevent cognitive decline.”
The scientists studied 250 people with mild cognitive impairment.
This condition can progress to dementia.
The study’s first author, Dr Abderrahim Oulhaj explained the results:
“We found that for people with low levels of Omega-3, the vitamin supplements had little to no effect.
But for those with high baseline Omega-3 levels, the B vitamins were very effective in preventing cognitive decline compared to the placebo.
This result complements our previous finding that B vitamins slow the rate of brain atrophy in MCI only in those with a good Omega-3 level to start with.”
Dr Doug Brown, Director of Research and Development at Alzheimer’s Society said:
“These results help us to tease apart who could benefit from taking B vitamins, suggesting that they might only improve cognition in people who have high levels of Omega-3 oils in their blood.
Encouragingly, these findings suggest that for some older people a combination of fish oil supplements and B vitamins may help to improve thinking and memory.
As this study shows, the relationship between nutrition and brain health is complex and we need to see increased research efforts to help us understand the role that diet and nutrition can play in reducing a person’s risk of dementia.”
The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Oulhaj et al., 2016).
This common food has been linked to years of cognitive aging. Are you consuming too much?
From puzzles to probiotics, discover the everyday activities that protect your brain.
Join the free PsyBlog mailing list. No spam, ever.
