Eating healthy when young may help you stay mentally sharp later in life

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Eating a healthy diet as a youngster and in middle age helps people remain mentally sharp in later life, according to new research.

The study that used data collected from more than 3,000 British people followed for nearly seven decades reveals "strong" links between the quality of a person’s diet and their thinking ability over a lifetime.

The findings add to a growing body of evidence that a healthy diet could help ward off dementia and age-related cognitive decline.

While most previous research on the subject has concentrated on the eating habits of people in their 60s and 70s, the new study is the first to track diet and cognitive ability throughout life - from the age of four to 70 - and suggests the links may start much earlier than previously recognized.

Dr. Kelly Cara, of Tufts University , said: “These initial findings generally support current public health guidance that it is important to establish healthy dietary patterns early in life in order to support and maintain health throughout life.

“Our findings also provide new evidence suggesting that improvements to dietary patterns up to midlife may influence cognitive performance and help mitigate, or lessen, cognitive decline in later years.”

Cognitive performance, or thinking ability, can keep improving well into middle age but usually begins to decline after the age of 65.

More severe conditions such as Alzheimer's disease can also develop alongside age-related declines.

Researchers say that eating a healthy diet - in particular, a diet rich in plant-based foods that contain high levels of antioxidants and mono- and polyunsaturated fats - can support brain health by reducing oxidative stress and improving blood flow to the brain.

The study used data from 3,059 U.K. adults who were enrolled as children in a study called the National Survey of Health and Development .

The group, known as the 1946 British Birth Cohort, has provided data on dietary intakes, cognitive ability and other factors via questionnaires and tests over the course of more than 75 years.

The researchers analyzed the participants’ dietary intakes at different time points in relation to their cognitive ability.

They found that dietary quality was closely linked with trends in general - or 'global' thinking ability. For example, only about 8% of the participants with low-quality diets sustained high cognitive ability and only about 7% of those with high-quality diets sustained low cognitive ability over time compared with their peers.

Dr. Cara said cognitive ability can have important impacts on quality of life and independence as we age. For example, at age 68 to 70, participants in the highest cognitive group showed a much higher retention of working memory, processing speed and general cognitive performance compared to those in the lowest cognitive group.

And nearly one in four participants in the lowest cognitive group showed signs of dementia at the timepoint while none of those in the highest cognitive group showed signs of dementia.

While most people saw steady improvements in their dietary quality throughout adulthood, the researchers noted that slight differences in diet quality in childhood seemed to set the tone for later-life dietary patterns, for better or worse.

Dr. Cara said: “This suggests that early life dietary intakes may influence our dietary decisions later in life, and the cumulative effects of diet over time are linked with the progression of our global cognitive abilities."

She said the participants who sustained the highest cognitive abilities over time relative to their peers tended to eat more recommended foods such as fruit, vegetables and whole grains and less salt, added sugars and refined grains.

Dr. Cara said: “Dietary patterns that are high in whole or less processed plant-food groups including leafy green vegetables, beans, whole fruits and whole grains may be most protective."

She added: “Adjusting one’s dietary intake at any age to incorporate more of these foods and to align more closely with current dietary recommendations is likely to improve our health in many ways, including our cognitive health.”

Dr. Cara presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition in Chicago.

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