Forget Me Not: How Flavanols Fight Age-related Memory Loss — A study by researchers fro |
A large-scale study led by researchers at Columbia and Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard is the first to establish that a diet low in flavanols—nutrients found in certain fruits and vegetables—drives age-related memory loss.
“The identification of nutrients critical for the proper development of an infant’s nervous system was a crowning achievement of 20th-century nutrition science,” says the study’s senior author, Scott A. Small, MD, the Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Additional research, in mice, found that flavanols—particularly a bioactive substance in flavanols called epicatechin—improved memory by enhancing the growth of neurons and blood vessels in the hippocampus. At the beginning of the study, all participants completed a survey that assessed the quality of their diet, including foods known to be high in flavanols. Participants then performed a series of web-based activities in their own homes, designed and validated by Brickman, to assess the types of short-term memory governed by the hippocampus. The tests were repeated after years one, two, and three. Most of the participants identified themselves as non-Hispanic and white.
The results strongly suggest that flavanol deficiency is a driver of age-related memory loss, the researchers say, because flavanol consumption correlated with memory scores and flavanol supplements improved memory in flavanol-deficient adults. It’s also possible that the memory tests used in the previous study did not assess memory processes in the area of the hippocampus affected by flavanols. In the new study, flavanols only improved memory processes governed by the hippocampus and did not improve memory mediated by other areas of the brain.
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