Category: Brain Health

Communication between areas of the brain starts to break down when people approach their 50s.

A ketogenic diet — one low in simple carbohydrates — may help to reverse brain aging, research finds.

Reducing the consumption of simple carbs can prevent or reverse age-related changes to the brain.

Simple carbs are contained in foods like soda, baked goods, cookies and some breakfast cereals.

Complex carbs are found in foods like vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and whole grains.

Even in people below the age of 50, in whom brain aging has not yet taken hold, switching to a low-carb or ketogenic diet increases brain activity, the researchers found.

Professor Lilianne R. Mujica-Parodi, the study’s first author, said:

“What we found with these experiments involves both bad and good news.

The bad news is that we see the first signs of brain aging much earlier than was previously thought.

However, the good news is that we may be able to prevent or reverse these effects with diet, mitigating the impact of encroaching hypometabolism by exchanging glucose for ketones as fuel for neurons.”

The scientists examined almost 1,000 brain scans of people aged 18 to 88.

The results showed that communication between areas of the brain starts to break down when people approach their 50s.

The most rapid deterioration of the brain happened around 60-years-old.

This destabilisation was linked to worse cognition and accelerating insulin resistance.

However, further experiments showed that changing to a ketogenic diet can retard or even reverse the process of brain aging.

Professor Mujica-Parodi said:

“We think that, as people get older, their brains start to lose the ability to metabolize glucose efficiently, causing neurons to slowly starve, and brain networks to destabilize.

Thus, we tested whether giving the brain a more efficient fuel source, in the form of ketones, either by following a low-carb diet or drinking ketone supplements, could provide the brain with greater energy.

Even in younger individuals, this added energy further stabilized brain networks.”

A low-carb, or ketogenic diet works by providing more energy to cells in the form of ketones than glucose.

Ketones provide more energy, said Professor Mujica-Parodi:

“This effect matters because brain aging, and especially dementia, are associated with “hypometabolism,” in which neurons gradually lose the ability to effectively use glucose as fuel.

Therefore, if we can increase the amount of energy available to the brain by using a different fuel, the hope is that we can restore the brain to more youthful functioning.”

The study was published in the journal PNAS (Mujica-Parodi et al., 2020).

Normally people’s brains shrink by about 5 percent every decade after the age of 40.

Eating fish can slow down the brain’s shrinkage with age, new research finds.

Normally people’s brains shrink by about 5 percent every decade after the age of 40.

One or two servings of baked or broiled fish per week, though, counteract the effects of air pollution, which is one factor that tends to shrink the brain faster.

Fish must be baked or broiled, though, as frying fish destroys the vital omega-3 fatty acids.

A previous study has found that people who eat baked or broiled fish have, on average, 4.3 percent larger brain volumes in the areas responsible for memory and 14 percent larger volumes in areas responsible for cognition.

Dr Ka He, the study’s first author, said:

“Fish are an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids and easy to add to the diet.

Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to fight inflammation and maintain brain structure in aging brains.

They have also been found to reduce brain damage caused by neurotoxins like lead and mercury.

So we explored if omega-3 fatty acids have a protective effect against another neurotoxin, the fine particulate matter found in air pollution.”

The study included 1,315 women who were asked about their diet, medical history and physical activity.

Brain scans showed that women with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids had higher brain volume.

In fact, the more fish they ate, the bigger were their brains.

An area of the brain critical for memory, the hippocampus, was also larger in those who ate more fish.

Dr He said:

“Our findings suggest that higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the blood from fish consumption may preserve brain volume as women age and possibly protect against the potential toxic effects of air pollution.

It’s important to note that our study only found an association between brain volume and eating fish.

It does not prove that eating fish preserves brain volume.

And since separate studies have found some species of fish may contain environmental toxins, it’s important to talk to a doctor about what types of fish to eat before adding more fish to your diet.”

The study was published in the journal Neurology (Chen et al., 2020).

The juice reduced blood pressure by an average of five points.

Drinking beetroot juice can help improve brain health and reduce blood pressure, new research finds.

Beetroot juice is rich in inorganic nitrate, like other foods including celery, spinach and lettuce.

Nitrate is turned into nitric oxide in the mouth, which helps regulate blood vessels and neurotransmitters.

With age, though, people tend to have a lower production of nitric oxide and this is linked to worse brain health and higher blood pressure.

For the study, researchers gave 26 people aged 70- to 80-years-old nitrate-rich beetroot juice to drink twice a day.

Compared with another period when they had a placebo drink, the beetroot juice reduced blood pressure by an average of five points.

Professor Anni Vanhatalo, the study’s first author, said:

“We are really excited about these findings, which have important implications for healthy aging.

Previous studies have compared the oral bacteria of young and older people, and healthy people compared to those with diseases, but ours is the first to test nitrate-rich diet in this way.

Our findings suggest that adding nitrate-rich foods to the diet—in this case via beetroot juice—for just ten days can substantially alter the oral microbiome (mix of bacteria) for the better.

Maintaining this healthy oral microbiome in the long term might slow down the negative vascular and cognitive changes associated with aging.”

The researchers looked at how the bacteria in the mouth changed after supplementation with beetroot juice.

The results showed that bacteria linked to lower inflammation increased after supplementation.

Now the researchers want to look at other age-groups, Professor Vanhatalo said:

“Our participants were healthy, active older people with generally good blood pressure.

Dietary nitrate reduced their blood pressure on average, and we are keen to find out whether the same would happen in other age groups and among people in poorer health.

We are working with colleagues in the University of Exeter Medical School to investigate interactions between the oral bacteria and cognition to better understand the how diet could be used to delay cognitive decline in older age.”

Foods high in nitrate

Apart from beetroot, celery, spinach and lettuce, other foods with very high levels of nitrate include rocket, chervil and cress.

Foods with high levels of nitrate include fennel, leek, parsley and celeriac.

Cabbages and turnips also have moderate levels of nitrate.

The study was published in the journal Redox Biology (Vanhatalo et al., 2021).