EATING A HEALTHY DIET COULD HEP KEEP YOU MENTALLY SHARP IN LATER LIFE

Eating a healthy diet could hep keep you mentally sharp in later life

You probably already know that you should eat five servings of fruit and vegetables a day to stay healthy. It's widely known that eating a healthy diet is good for the heart and for life expectancy, but a new study also highlights its benefits for the brain.

Eating a high-quality diet in youth and middle age could help keep your brain functioning well in later life, researchers say.

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"A healthy diet helps to protect against malnutrition in all its forms, as well as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer," the World Health Organization (WHO) says in support of adiet that favors fruit, vegetables, legumes and wholegrain cereals, and cuts back on fats, salt and sugar.

A new study by US researchers, the findings of which were presented atNutrition 2024, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, studied the role played by diet in maintaining cognitive ability over the long term. The results show that adopting a healthy diet from an early age, and even in middle age, could contribute to healthy brain function well into old age. The scientists go even further, since a high-quality diet could, by extension, help combat dementia.

"These initial findings generally support current public health guidance that it is important to establish healthy dietary patterns early in life in order to support and maintain health throughout life," says study coauthor, Kelly Cara, of Tufts University, quoted ina news release. "Our findings also provide new evidence suggesting that improvements to dietary patterns up to midlife may influence cognitive performance and help mitigate, or lessen, cognitive decline in later years."

Fruit, vegetables, whole grains

To reach these conclusions, the scientists analyzed data from 3,059 UK adults who had participated in the National Survey of Health and Development during their childhood. Diet, cognitive tests and other data formed the basis of this research, which was based on questionnaires and tests carried out over a period of more than 75 years. After analyzing the data, the scientists observed an association between diet quality and changes in general or global cognitive ability.

In detail, the study reports that only 8% of participants with a low-quality diet maintained high cognitive ability over the long term. Conversely, only 7% of participants with a healthy diet saw their ability weaken over the years. Moreover, while it's always preferable to adopt a healthy diet from an early age to reap the full benefits, it is never too late to do so.

When it comes to defining a "healthy diet,"Kelly Cara says:"Dietary patterns that are high in whole or less processed plant-food groups including leafy green vegetables, beans, whole fruits and whole grains may be most protective. Adjusting one’s dietary intake at any age to incorporate more of these foods and to align more closely with current dietary recommendations is likely to improve our health in many ways, including our cognitive health."

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2024-07-02T14:36:45Z dg43tfdfdgfd