Vegetables May Preserve Brain from Age-Related Decay

A diet rich in green leafy vegetables may help in averting mental ageing in elderly people, reported U.S. researchers.

The study published in the October 24 issue of Neurology stated that it’s the consumption of green leafy vegetables rather than fruits that protects the brain against cognitive decline in old age.

Researchers suggested that a diet rich in foods that contain Vitamin E boost the memory and protect people against Alzheimer’s disease.

Vitamin E is an antioxidant that helps reduce the damage caused by free radicals and unstable oxygen molecules generated by normal metabolism.
Together these are known to damage neurons in the brain and contribute to dementia.

The study was conducted during 1993-2002 session at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Martha Clare Morris led the study.

The sample included 3,718 participants all aged above 65 years and were residents of South Chicago.

During the nine year study, a set of three food-frequency questionnaires and cognitive assessments were filled in by the participants, one at baseline, then one each at three and six years later.

The cognitive assessments included details of East Boston Tests of immediate memory and delayed recall, the Mini-Mental State Examination, and the Symbol Digit Modalities.

Morris’s team also colleted data about the foods the participants ate. Their diet was then enriched with a list of 28 vegetables and 14 fruits.

The participants were split into five groups based on their average daily vegetable servings, which ranged from less than one daily serving to four daily servings.

The results of the study revealed that two servings of vegetables a day forestalled mental ageing in people above 65 years by as much as five years.

Moreover, people who consumed two or more vegetables a day had a 35 to 40 percent decrease in the decline in thinking ability over six years.

The study also found that eating lots of fruits did not reap benefits similar to eating a vegetable-rich diet. This was so because vegetables stock a higher Vitamin E content than fruits.

Moreover, green leafy vegetables, rich source of Vitamin E, showed the strongest linear association with lower rates of cognitive decline.

Likewise, vegetables and not fruits are typically consumed with added fats. These fats further increase the absorption of vitamin E and other fat soluble antioxidant nutrients in the body.

However, Morris’s study specified that it's possible that some fruit may contain compounds that counteract antioxidants. He said too few people in the study ate berries daily to detetmine if they helped in preserving memory or other cognitive abilities.