A large study led by researchers at Columbia and Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard is the first to show that a diet low in flavanols (a nutrient found in some fruits and vegetables) may contribute to age-related memory loss.
The study found that flavanol intake among older adults correlates with scores on tests designed to detect memory loss due to normal aging, and that supplementing the diet with these bioactive components in adults over 60 with mild flavanol deficiency improves performance on these tests.
“The improvement among study participants on low-flavanol diets was substantial and raises the possibility of using flavanol-rich diets or supplements to improve cognitive function in older adults,” says Adam Brickman, PhD, professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians. and Surgeons and study co-leaders.
The findings also support the emerging idea that the aging brain requires specific nutrients for optimal health, just as the developing brain requires specific nutrients for proper development.
“The identification of nutrients critical to the proper development of the infant’s nervous system was the crowning achievement of nutritional science in the 20th century,” says lead study author Scott Small, MD, the Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology at Columbia University’s Vagelos College. doctors and surgeons.
“In this century, as we live longer, research is beginning to reveal that different nutrients are needed to support our aging minds. Our study, which relies on biomarkers of flavanol consumption, can be used by other researchers as a template to identify other essential nutrients.
Age-related memory loss associated with changes in the hippocampus
The current study builds on more than 15 years of research in Small’s lab that links age-related memory loss to changes in the dentate gyrus, a specific region in the brain’s hippocampus—an area vital to learning new memories—and shows that flavanols improved function. in this area of ​​the brain.
Further research in mice found that flavanols – particularly the bioactive substance in flavanols called epicatechin – improved memory by improving the growth of neurons and blood vessels and in the hippocampus.
Next, Small’s team tested flavanol supplements on humans. One small study confirmed that the dentate gyrus is related to cognitive aging. A second, larger study showed that flavanols improved memory by selectively acting on this area of ​​the brain and had the greatest impact on those starting out on a poor diet.
In the new study, the Columbia team collaborated with researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who studied the effects of flavanols and multivitamins in the COSMOS (Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study). The current COSMOS-Web study was designed to test the effect of flavanols on a much larger group and investigate whether flavanol deficiency drives cognitive aging in this area of ​​the brain.
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