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Category: Nutrition
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One Portion Of These Foods Boosts Mental Health
Just one portion has the same positive effect as going for a walk on 8 extra days a month.
Just one portion has the same positive effect as going for a walk on 8 extra days a month.
People who eat more fruit and vegetables have better mental health, research finds.
Indeed, the more fruit and vegetables people eat, the better their state of mind.
Eating just one extra portion of fruit and vegetables per day is enough to measurably improve mental well-being.
Just one portion has the same positive effect as going for a walk on 8 extra days a month.
Only around one-in-ten people in the US eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables.
The recommended amount in the US is 1½ to 2 cups per day of fruit and 2 to 3 cups per day of vegetables.
Dr Neel Ocean, the study’s first author, said:
“It’s well-established that eating fruit and vegetables can benefit physical health.
Recently, newer studies have suggested that it may also benefit psychological well-being.
Our research builds on previous work in Australia and New Zealand by verifying this relationship using a much bigger UK sample.
While further work is needed to demonstrate cause and effect, the results are clear: people who do eat more fruit and vegetables report a higher level of mental well-being and life satisfaction than those who eat less.”
The study followed many thousands of people across seven years.
The study controlled for other factors, like lifestyle, education, health status and other aspects of the diet.
Dr Peter Howley, study co-author, said:
“There appears to be accumulating evidence for the psychological benefits of fruits and vegetables.
Despite this, the data show that the vast majority of people in the UK still consume less than their five-a-day.
Encouraging better dietary habits may not just be beneficial to physical health in the long run but may also improve mental well-being in the shorter term.”
The study was published in the journal Social Science & Medicine (Ocean et al., 2019).
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A Mental Sign Of Vitamin B12 Deficiency
Around one-in-eight people are low in vitamin B12.
Around one-in-eight people are low in vitamin B12.
Difficulties with memory and thinking skills can be signs of vitamin B12 deficiency, research finds.
Finding it hard to recall memories or to concentrate have both been linked to a deficiency in this vital vitamin.
The reason may be that vitamin B12 deficiency can accelerate cognitive aging.
In general, as people get older, their brains work less well.
However, having sufficient levels of vitamin B12 can help protect against this degradation in function.
Vitamin B12 deficiency has been linked to brain shrinkage and even Alzheimer’s disease by some research.
However, eating a diet high in critical nutrients, including B12, may help keep the brain from shrinking, research finds.
People with higher levels of omega-3, vitamin C, D, E along with B vitamins, also have better scores on tests of mental function, one study has found.
The study included 104 older people who were given tests of memory and thinking, with almost half having brain scans as well.
The results showed that one-quarter were deficient in vitamin D, while 7 percent were deficient in vitamin B12.
Those who had higher levels of critical nutrients had less brain shrinkage and higher scores on the memory and thinking tests.
Dr Gene Bowman, the study’s first author, said:
“These results need to be confirmed, but obviously it is very exciting to think that people could potentially stop their brains from shrinking and keep them sharp by adjusting their diet.”
The good news is that vitamin B12 is easy to correct either with supplementation or a change in diet.
Foods high in vitamin B12 include dairy, beef, salmon, eggs and low-fat milk.
Fortified breakfast cereals also contain vitamin B12.
People who may have difficulty getting enough vitamin B12 include vegetarians, older people and those with some digestive disorders, such as Crohn’s disease.
The study was published in the journal Neurology (Bowman et al., 2011).
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The Mild Nutrient Deficiency Linked To Memory Loss
Supplementation reversed the effects of age-related memory loss.
Supplementation reversed the effects of age-related memory loss.
A diet low in flavanols is linked to age-related memory loss, a large study finds.
However, taking a daily flavanol supplement over three years reversed these losses.
Many people already get enough flavanols from a healthy diet, however those with a poorer diet will probably benefit.
Flavanols, which are a type of flavonoid, are found in nearly all fruits and vegetables, as well as in tea.
Participants in the study with a mild flavanol deficiency experienced boosts to their cognitive functioning of 16 percent over the three years of the study.
Professor Adam Brickman, the study’s first author, said:
“The improvement among study participants with low-flavanol diets was substantial and raises the possibility of using flavanol-rich diets or supplements to improve cognitive function in older adults.”
Neurons in the hippocampus
Professor Scott Small, study co-author, has been studying age-related memory loss for many years.
His lab has shown that changes in the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus, are central to memory decline.
Flavanols, though, enhance neuron and blood vessel growth in this region.
Professor Small said:
“The identification of nutrients critical for the proper development of an infant’s nervous system was a crowning achievement of 20th century nutrition science.
In this century, as we are living longer research is starting to reveal that different nutrients are needed to fortify our aging minds.”
The current study included over 3,500 healthy adults given either a flavanol supplement or a placebo over three years.
The supplement contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80 mg of epicatechins, a type of flavanol thought to be particularly effective.
The memories of those with mild flavanol deficiencies improved by 10.5 percent compared to placebo and by 16 percent compared to their scores at the start of the study.
Dramatic improvements
While the study provides strong evidence for the benefits of a healthy dietary flavanol intake, Professor Small is cautious:
“We cannot yet definitively conclude that low dietary intake of flavanols alone causes poor memory performance, because we did not conduct the opposite experiment: depleting flavanol in people who are not deficient.”
Next, Professor Small wants to look at the effects of rectifying a severe flavanol deficiency:
“Age-related memory decline is thought to occur sooner or later in nearly everyone, though there is a great amount of variability.
If some of this variance is partly due to differences in dietary consumption of flavanols, then we would see an even more dramatic improvement in memory in people who replenish dietary flavanols when they’re in their 40s and 50s.”
High-flavanol foods
Foods that containing high levels of flavanols include:
- pears,
- olive oil,
- wine,
- tomato sauce,
- kale,
- beans,
- tea,
- spinach,
- broccoli,
- apples,
- and oranges.
Related
- Cocoa flavanoids can reverse age-related memory loss in older adults.
- Fruits and vegetables that contain antioxidant flavonols appear to protect against cognitive decline.
- Flavanols can make you smarter.
- People who eat more foods that contain antioxidant flavanols have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Brickman et al., 2023).
The Surprising Psychological Treatments For Inflammatory Bowel Disorders (M)
Over three million Americans and 500,000 in the UK have been diagnosed with IBD, which includes ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
