Can eating improve …memory?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Every day, you use your memory without even realizing it. You wake up, check your phone. But wait, where is it? People with dementia experience symptoms like this daily. Dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease affect ten percent of senior citizens in America. Even worse, there’s no cure!
But can we slow down the symptoms?
Ondine van de Rest at Wageningen [vah-HEH-ninghen] University in the Netherlands wondered this. She studied older adults’ eating habits. Particularly, how often they ate foods that are said to be good for memory. She also assessed their memory of past events and attention spans.
Findings? Eating foods from the MIND diet is beneficial. MIND stands for Mediterranean Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay. This diet includes fish, whole grains, and, yes, moderate amounts of wine.
Literally food for thought! MIND foods slow cognitive decline and lower chances of Alzheimer’s to begin with! By eating MIND foods, your chance of improving your cognitive performance is also higher!
So, next time you’re meal prepping, consider the MIND diet. You just have to remember what’s in it. Fish, whole grains, and ooh… What’s that other one? Wine!