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How to Feed Your Mind« Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Next Page »
Featured Recipe: Mediterranean Roasted Broccoli & Tomatoes
A Golden Opportunity Point taken: eat fish for your brain and your heart. But what happens if you’re a vegetarian, have a seafood allergy or can’t afford to eat fish regularly? Or, like me, just don’t like fish? I’ve never quite gotten over my pregnancy-induced aversion to the stuff. Perhaps I could cover the taste with curry powder and benefit from a seasoning that’s been coming into focus as a potential anti-Alzheimer’s agent, at least in animals: turmeric. Greg Cole at UCLA and his colleagues have reported that curcumin, a phytochemical in turmeric (which gives curry powder its yellow color) not only helps prevent the buildup of toxic A-beta protein in the brain, but it also has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It has been used for thousands of years in traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine as a treatment for respiratory conditions (asthma, allergy), liver disorders, anorexia and cough, among other things, and throughout Asia it’s used to treat arthritis pain and other inflammatory conditions. Cole is in the middle of a clinical trial on curcumin, but an interesting observational study came out in 2006 from Singapore that found that healthy people aged 60 to 93 who ate curry “occasionally” (once a month) or “often or very often” scored better on cognitive tests than people who rarely ate it. It’s also quite interesting to note that Indian citizens in their seventies (whose diets are rich in curry) are four times less likely to have Alzheimer’s disease than American septuagenarians. Ancient Wisdom To really uncover the secret of a clear mind late in life, though, I turned to the people who walk the walk. Some of the longest-lived people in the U.S. are from Cache County in the far northeast corner of Utah, where a majority of folks are Mormon and their beliefs shape a lifestyle that’s relatively free of vices like caffeine, tobacco and alcohol. Many are open to taking nutritional supplements and have the support of a close-knit community—all factors that may pave the way to a long and healthy life. Scientists have been carefully following 90 percent of the elderly population here—around 5,000 people—for 13 years, to see which part of their lifestyle plays the largest role in their longevity. The researchers have documented foods the residents have eaten, the activities they’ve done, the jobs they’ve had. They drew blood and tested cognition, and revisited the subjects about every three years to see why they live such long, healthy lives. I asked Peter Zandi, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a researcher on the study, what he’s found out about nutritional influences on mind decline, and he put it in a single word: antioxidants. “People who took high-dose supplements of both vitamin E [from 400 to 1,000 IU daily] and vitamin C [500 to 1,000 mg or more] had on the order of 60 to 65 percent reduction of the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease,” Zandi says. “That’s huge. This led us to the notion that it’s really the synergistic effects of both that may afford protection.” (Currently, the Institute of Medicine’s daily recommendation for vitamin E is 22 IU [15 mg] and 75 to 90 mg for vitamin C.) Zandi thinks this vitamin partnership might work because vitamin E is a potent antioxidant that can slip inside cells and mop up the damaging free radicals, while vitamin C waits patiently outside and replenishes vitamin E when it comes back out so it can continue working. « Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Next Page »
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