In 2015 evidence linked the Mediterranean diet to less brain shrinkage and healthier, larger brain volume. Size matters. Especially with your brain.
Many aging boomers fears these days are: will I outlive my wits or my money, but without my wits, what good is my money?
The good news is, we have some control over the health of our brain.
A large study on 31, 456 middle-aged and elderly subjects from 40 countries and 733 centers, was published on line in Neurology May 6, 2015.
During 5 years of follow-up, cognitive decline occurred in 16.8% of participants.
After adjusting for known confounding factors (systolic blood pressure, history of stroke, and diabetes) the highest quintile of what was called modified Alternative Healthy Eating Index (the healthiest diet) was associated with less cognitive decline compared to the least healthy diet.
Lead author Andrew Smyth, MMedSc, research fellow, Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, said: “The take-home message from this study is that high diet quality, which is consistent with current healthy eating guidelines, is associated with a reduced risk of cognitive decline and suggests that healthy eating may reduce the risk of cognitive decline in addition to the previously reported associations with cardiovascular disease.”
This means: what’s good for your heart, is good for your brain. Remember, both these organs came from the same clump of cells when you were a fetus creating organs.
Don’t just sit around and be worried about Alzheimer’s or Lewy Body Disease or even just poorer thinking because you are getting older or your mom died of Alzheimer’s or you have the at risk gene (APOE4 gene). Eat better. Now.
Eat more raw, more plants, fermented, not demented, sprouts, make tasty or learn to make tasty if you don’t know how.
Stop eating out so much. Size matters (this includes portions, NO, more of healthy food is not healthy).
We are the caretakers of our gray matter and yes we have some input into our epigenics and it starts with our supermarket carts and meals and then our digestion.
Hope – control – food – brain.
I am wanting you to get this so your brain gets it.
And there you have it.