Memories & Food, Fact or Fiction.
The aging brain requires specific nutrients for health that can be replenished and boost memory.
One of the great things that I get to do while traveling around this amazing universe when I lecture, is the ability to stay and listen to all the updates from all the other stunning experts.
I cherish a lot of Dr. Pam Smith’s stories. Dr. Smith related one time, that when you go to a store and are in a hurry to check out, and you see two checkout aisles, one with a younger person and one with an older person, you try to nudge into the first line. Not the second.
Why?
Most older folks move slower.
Talk slower.
When I traipse around the country lecturing, many are amazed at the “lubrication” of my speaking, memories, and mentation. It’s not typical of someone this shockingly old!
I’m always asked, “What do you do? We want to do it, too!”
One thing I do is consume lots of foods that contain lots of flavonoids and take flavonoid supplements.
Flavonoids are Memory Protective
These flavanols -- nutrients found in certain fruits and vegetables -- boost memory.
A low-flavanol diet drives age-related memory loss.
A large-scale study led by researchers at Columbia and Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard is the first to establish that a diet low in flavanols -- nutrients found in certain fruits and vegetables -- drives age-related memory loss.
I often post pictures of my colorful meals, many of them robust in flavonoids. (The picture on this post is of my breakfast a few days ago.)
The study found that flavanol intake among older adults tracks with scores on tests designed to detect memory loss due to normal aging.
The amazing news is that replenishing these bioactive dietary components in mildly flavanol-deficient adults over age 60 improves performance on these tests.
"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," says Adam Brickman, Ph.D., professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and co-leader of the study.
The finding also supports the emerging idea that the aging brain requires specific nutrients for optimal health, just as the developing brain requires specific nutrients for proper development.
Age-Related Memory Loss Linked to Changes in the Hippocampus
There are over 15 years of research linking age-related memory loss to changes in the dentate gyrus, a specific area within the brain's hippocampus -- a region that is vital for learning new memories -- and showing that flavanols improved function in this brain region.
Flavonoids boost the dentate gyrus.
Flavonoids boost new memories.
The active supplement contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80 mg of epicatechins, an amount that adults are advised to get from food.
People with mild flavanol deficiency benefited from flavanol supplement
Results strongly show that flavanol deficiency is a driver of age-related memory loss, the researchers say, because flavanol consumption correlated with memory scores and flavanol supplements improved memory in flavanol-deficient adults.
Flavanols do not affect people who don't have a flavanol deficiency.
Foods high in flavonoids:
Leafy vegetables, berries, parsley, kale, flaxseed, onions, apples, soybeans, and citrus fruits.
Onions, hot peppers, broccoli, rutabagas, and spinach.
Lettuce, tomatoes, celery, hot peppers, spring onions, beans, and green tea.
Supplements high in flavonoids:
Quercitin, Bioflavonoids and especially my new Biotics products give you daily boosts of mixtures of the best veggie flavonoids besides also having “controlled-growth signals” as well as anti-cancer stem cell signals.
Eat Well, Be Well!
Knowledge is Power.
Dr. B.
Reference:
Dietary flavanols restore hippocampal-dependent memory in older adults with lower diet quality and lower habitual flavanol consumption. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023; 120 (23) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2216932120
Flavonoid-rich foods (FRF): A promising nutraceutical approach against lifespan-shortening diseases. Iran J Basic Med Sci. 2020 Feb;23(2):140-153. doi: 10.22038/IJBMS.2019.35125.8353. PMID: 32405356; PMCID: PMC7211351.
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Great information. Thank you!