Brain Food

When I was a child, I was not especially fond of seafood. This is a shame since, living as I did  on the south shore of Long Island, seafood was commonplace and plentiful. My mother would try to persuade me to eat it by claiming it was "brain food" and would make me smarter. I wasn't buying it.

It turns out that she may have been onto something.

Adherence to the MIND diet (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, if you were curious) can improve the memory and thinking skills of older adults, even in the presence of Alzheimer's disease pathology, new data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP) shows. The MIND diet features leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, berries, beans and, yes, fish.

"The MIND diet was associated with better cognitive functions independently of brain pathologies related to Alzheimer's disease, suggesting that diet may contribute to cognitive resilience, which ultimately indicates that it is never too late for dementia prevention," lead author Klodian Dhana, MD, with the Rush Institute of Healthy Aging at Rush University in Chicago. Read that again..... it is never too late to make a difference.

The study focused on 569 older adults who died while participating in the MAP study, which began in 1997. Participants in the study were mostly white and were without known dementia. All of the participants agreed to undergo annual clinical evaluations and to undero brain autopsy after death. Researchers found that the cognitive benefits of the diet applied even to those who's brains already showed signs of Alzheimer's disease.

"Diet changes can impact cognitive functioning and risk of dementia, for better or worse. There are fairly simple diet and lifestyle changes a person could make that may help to slow cognitive decline with aging and contribute to brain health," Dhana said in a news release.

As for the fish, MIND recommends having it "at least" once a week. Thanks for the effort, mom.