Mediterranean diet may lead to fewer senior moments

Researchers from Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago have been adding to the evidence which suggests that a Mediterranean diet can prevent cognitive decline in older people. The researchers studied 4,000 people aged 65 and over and gave their diets scores based on how closely they matched a traditional Mediterranean diet - high in wine, fruit, vegetables, legumes, olive oil and fish and low in saturated fat and red meat. The study found that those participants who adhered most closely to a Mediterranean diet had a slower cognitive decline even after taking into account the influence of other factors such as education.

Why your liver could affect your Alzheimer's risk

Low levels of a substance called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in people's brains have been associated with Alzheimer's disease but new research from the University of California Irvine suggests that the problem might lie in people's livers not their skulls. Previous studies have shown that most DHA in the brain is actually made in the liver and the university's post-mortem research suggests that the Alzheimer's patients' livers were unable to synthesize DHA from shorter molecules found in leafy plants and other foods. DHA occurs naturally in cold-water fatty fish (like salmon) and seaweed and is essential for the proper functioning of adult human brains and the development of the nervous system and vision during the first six months of life. Alzheimer's is a complicated disease with a huge number of risk factors but monitoring DHA levels in people's blood and dietary supplements for those in the early stages of the disease could prove helpful.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

Diet and Alzheimer's disease - more research backs healthy diet

There has already been a lot of research into the links between diet and Alzheimer's disease and a new study by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center in New York has added more weight to the evidence linking a healthy diet to a reduced risk of the condition. The researchers asked more than 2,100 New Yorkers aged 65 and over about their dietary habits and over the next four years 253 of them developed Alzheimer's. However, those whose diets included the most salad dressing, nuts, fish, tomatoes, poultry and dark-green leafy vegetables and the least red meat, high-fat dairy, offal and butter had a 38% lower risk of developing Alzheimer's than those whose diets included fewer fruits, vegetables and poultry and more red meat and high-fat dairy.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=news&id=127434&cn=231

Overweight and suicide in teenagers

Teenagers who are overweight, or who think they are overweight, may be more likely to make a suicide attempt. That's according to researchers from the College of Health and Human Sciences and Georgia State Universiy, both in the U.S., who studied the links beteen BMI, perceived overweight and sucide attempts in 14,000 teenagers. Both the children who were overweight and those who only thought they were were more likely to try and kill themselves.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090520064349.htm

Vitamin D and depression

Recent studies have suggested that there might be a link between people's levels of vitamin D, and depression and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Researchers from Warwick University studied 3,262 people aged between fifty and seventy from Beijing and Shanghai. They tested their levels of vitamin D and used questionnaires to measure their levels of depression. The study found that there was no clear association between vitamin D levels and depression symptoms.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090317142847.htm

Fish really is brain food

Fish is often thought to be good brain food and a Swedish study by researchers at Goteborg University has found that it could be linked to higher intelligence in teenage boys. 4,792 teenage boys filled out detailed questionnaires on diet and lifestyle when they were fifteen and took IQ tests when they were eighteen. On average those who ate fish more than once a week had higher IQs than those who ate fish less than once a week. The difference remained even when parents' education levels and the family's socioeconomic status was taken into account. Other studies have found that children whose mothers ate fish during their pregnancy tend to have higher intelligence scores and that older people who eat fish have a lower risk of cognitive impairment. But the fact that fish can help adolescent's brains is particularly significant as this is a crucial period in the brain's development and a time when exam results can determine children's futures.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE52F4XH20090316?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

Mediterranean diet prevents cognitive impairment

The Mediterranean diet is one high in vegetables, fruits and nuts, legumes, fish and cereals and low in dairy products, meat and fat, with moderate alcohol consumption. It has been proven to be good for the heart and new research suggests that it could also prevent cognitive impairment. Researchers from Columbia University Medical Centre, New York, studied 1,875 people; 1,393 of them had no cognitive difficulties at the start of the study and 482 of them had mild cognitive impairment. The participants were followed up four years after the start of the study. Those who ate the most Mediterranean diet had a 28% lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment. Of the participants who had mild cognitive impairment at the start of the study those with the most Mediterranean diet had a 48% smaller risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

You can find out more about this study at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE5187HL20090209?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

Diet and cognitive impairment

A U.K. study of 1,766 older adults has found that low levels of vitamin D are associated with cognitive impairment. The researchers took blood samples to measure people's vitamin D levels and gave them the Abbreviated Mental Test to assess attention, orientation in time and space and memory. Even taking into account co-existing illness older adults with the lowest levels of vitamin D were more than twice as likely to be impaired as those with the highest levels.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE5146AF20090205?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

Calories and memories

Eating fewer calories may improve older people's memories, according to research carried out by the University of Munster in Germany. The study had 50 participants who were either normal weight or overweight. They were divided into three groups: one cut their calories by 30%, another group increased their consumption of unsaturated fatty acids by up to 20% and a third group made no changes. After three months the group who restricted their calories showed, on average, a 20% increase in their verbal memory scores whereas the other group showed no significant changes in their memory performance. The memory improvements in the calorie-restricted groups were correlated with a decrease in their insulin levels and in substances associated with inflammation in the body.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE50Q7S220090127?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

Coffee and dementia

A 20-year study of 1,400 Finnish people has found that those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day in middle age were two-thirds less likely than non-coffee drinkers to develop dementia. It was not clear from the study whether it was the coffee itself that lowered dementia risk or another factor common to coffee drinkers. Coffee drinking is believed to lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes which is in turn linked to Alzheimer's. Coffee also contains antioxidants such as chlorogenic acid that may prevent cell damage over time and caffeine blocks receptors for a chemical called adenosine which has depressant effects in the central nervous system.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE51244H20090203?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

Caffeine and hallucinations

People who drink large amounts of tea and coffee may be more prone to hallucinations, according to a study of 200 students, carried out by researchers at Durham University. High caffeine users, those people who consumed more than the equivalent of seven cups of coffee a day, were three times more likely to have heard a person's voice when there was nobody there than low caffeine users who drank less than a cup a day. This could be because caffeine stimulates the release of the stress hormone cortisol, or because those students who are more prone to hallucinations use caffeine to cope with their experiences.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090113203901.htm

Carbs, calories and cognition

People who cut out carbohydrates as part of a diet may be reducing their brainpower as well as their waistline according to a study by researchers at Tufts University in the U.S. The study compared nine women on a low-carbohydrate, Atkins-style diet and ten women following a low-calorie diet based on advice from the American Dietetic Association. The dieters completed five testing sessions which assessed attention, long-term memory, short-term memory, visual attention and spatial memory. The low-carb dieters showed a gradual decrease in performance on the memory-related tasks compared to the low-calorie dieters. Their reaction times were slower and their visual-spatial memory worse. However, the low-carb dieters did do better than the low-calorie ones on the attention task; perhaps because fat and protein, which tend to be consumed more on these kind of diets, can improve people's attention in the short term.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/12/12/low-carb-diets-can-affect-cognition/3498.html

Vitamin D deficiency in inpatients

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a number of different medical conditions and is known to cause bone problems such as rickets. Its main source is sunlight but it can also be found in fish, eggs, dairy products and fortified margarines and cereals. Researchers at St Bernard's Hospital, Middlesex looked at vitamin D levels in 17 male psychiatric inpatients. They found that 15 of them had vitamin D deficiency while the other two had borderline deficiency. The vitamin levels of the inpatients could be restored with the use of calcium and ergocalciferol tablets but the authors of the study recommended that all psychiatric inpatients should have adequate exposure to sunlight and healthy diets to ensure that they receive their recommended daily amounts of vitamins and minerals.

Tiangga, Eleanor, Gowda, Asha and Dent, John A. - Vitamin D deficiency in psychiatric in-patients and treatment with daily supplements of calcium and ergocalciferol Psychiatric Bulletin 2008, 32: 390-393

Vitamin B and Alzheimer's

A substance called homocysteine is known to be involved in neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's. Vitamin B is known to reduce levels of homocysteine in the body so some scientists wonder whether vitamin B supplements might help to stave off the condition. A study of 340 people by scientists from the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study compared those participants taking a high-dose vitamin B supplement and those taking a placebo. Unfortunately the study found no differences in cognitive performance between the two groups and those taking the vitamin supplement were more likely to show symptoms of depression.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/10/16/vitamin-b-does-not-help-alzheimers/3146.html

Fish - it really is brain food!

Silent brain infarcts are small lesions in the brain that, while they have no effect in themselves, can cause cognitive decline, strokes and dementia. A Finnish study of 2,313 people aged 65 or over gave them brain scans at five-year intervals and asked them about their fish consumption in the intervening time. Those people who ate broiled or baked tuna and other fish high in omega-3 fatty acids three or more times per week had a nearly 26% lower risk of having silent brain infarcts, while even eating one portion of this type of fish a week led to a 13% lower risk.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/08/06/fish-aids-memory-of-older-adults/2700.html

Diet and mental health

A review of previous studies has found that diet can have a major effect on our mental as well as our physical health. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in oily fish, walnuts and kiwi fruit, helped learning and memory and helped fight against mental-health problems such as depression and mood disorders, schizophrenia and dementia while deficiencies in omega-3 led to an increased risk of attention-deficit disorder, schizophrenia, dyslexia, dementia, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Children who were given increased amounts of omega-3 performed better in school, in reading and in spelling and had fewer behavioural problems. Folate deficiency was also found to lead to neurological disorders such as depression and cognitive impairment.

You can find more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/07/10/healthy-food-can-improve-mental-health/2587.html

Good and bad cholesterol and memory loss

Researchers from the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research and from University College, London have found that low levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDL or 'good' cholesterol) in middle age can increase the risk of memory loss and lead to dementia in later life. At 55 years old participants with low HDL cholesterol had a 27% higher risk of memory loss compared to those with high HDL. To raise HDL and lower low-density lipoproteins (LDL or 'bad' cholesterol) the American Heart Association recommends exercising regularly, eliminating hydrogenated fats from the diet, reducing saturated fats and eating more polyunsaturates.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/07/03/cholesterol-level-can-affect-memory/2549.html

Lifestyle and depression in older adults

A five-year study of 526 older men, between the ages of 70 and 89 in France, Italy and Holland looked into some of the links between diet and lifestyle factors and late-life depression. 11% of the men developed depression over the course of the study. The risk factors for depression at the five-year follow-up included already being depressed at the start of the study and a fall in cholesterol levels. Things that protected against later-life depression included physical activity and moderate alcohol intake

Bots, Sinnika ... [et al] - Lifestyle and diet-related factors in late-life depression: a five-year follow-up of elderly European men - the FINE study International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 2008, 23(5), 478-484