Strawberries lower cholesterol

Glucose levels linked to cognitive decline in those with MCI

A study involving 264 older adults with mild cognitive impairment has found that those with normal glucose levels (167; 63%) had less cognitive decline over 2 years than those with impaired (high) glucose levels (97; 37%). They also showed less brain shrinkage and were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s. The fasting glucose levels were classified according to the American Diabetes criteria.

A small study involving 50 younger adults (18-35; average age 24) has found that those with a higher BMI performed significantly worse on a computerised memory test called the “Treasure Hunt Task”.

The task involved moving food items around complex scenes (e.g., a desert with palm trees), hiding them in various locations, and indicating afterward where and when they had hidden them. The test was designed to disentangle object, location, and temporal order memory, and the ability to integrate those separate bits of information.

Dietary choline linked to reduced dementia risk & better cognition

Data from a large, long-running Finnish study, involving some 2,500 men aged 42-60, has found that dietary intake of phosphatidylcholine was associated with a reduced risk of dementia (the risk was 28% lower in men with the highest intake compared to the lowest). Men with the highest intake of dietary phosphatidylcholine also excelled in tests measuring their memory and linguistic abilities.

The key sources of phosphatidylcholine in the study population's diet were eggs (39%) and meat (37%).

Data from 196,383 older adults (60+; mean age 64) in the UK Biobank found that a healthy lifestyle was associated with lower dementia risk regardless of genes.

Both an unhealthy lifestyle and high genetic risk were associated with higher dementia risk.

A study looking at how 51 women performed on a test of their attention after they ate either a meal high in saturated fat or the same meal made with sunflower oil (high in unsaturated fat), found their performance was worse after eating the high-saturated-fat meal than after they ate the meal containing a healthier fat.

This is particularly remarkable when you consider that both meals with high in fat, being designed to resemble fast-food meals that you might get at McDonald’s or Burger King. So this is showing that even this slight improvement can have a noticeable effect.