Better Health & Living
Better Memory Diet
Your brain needs a healthy diet to stay strong, healthy, and to remember where you put your keys
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Yes, crossword puzzles and anagrams will help, but if you’re worried about losing your mental spark as you age, pay attention to your diet, too. What’s on your plate can help protect your gray matter, increase the size and memory ability of your aging brain, and (if you’re young) nudge your genes so your children inherit more mental power.
“Eating a well-balanced diet can change your brain capacity and improve your thinking,” says Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, PhD, professor in the division of neurosurgery and physiological science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Eat Less, Get Smarter
Studies have shown that significantly cutting calories can help you live longer. Many of those same studies suggest that mild calorie restriction (maybe just 200 fewer than your recommended calorie allowance) can improve your aging brain, too. Although for the moment the research is being done mainly on animals, there are some indications it works in humans, too.
For example, scientists have learned that food-restricted rats make more BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a protein that helps grow new neurons and synapses. At any age, rats with more BDNF are able to expand their brains, especially in areas important for learning, memory, and organizational thinking. Underfed rats also develop sturdier neurons and show better learning and memory ability on water-maze tests.
One reason lightening your calorie load may help: The more food you eat, the more oxidative stress occurs—the creation of wayward molecules called free radicals that can damage your DNA. Downing hefty portions means you need more antioxidants to prevent brain cells from dying. “Younger brains handle this chore pretty well, but aging brains struggle,” says Jim Joseph, PhD, the Tufts University neuroscientist who has studied the link between eating antioxidant-rich blueberries and better memory.
No one really knows how many calories you need to cut to get brain benefits, but Dr. Gomez-Pinilla cautions, “Don’t be extreme.” You need to eat enough to get all the nutrition you need to build a healthy body. For starters, go to www.mayoclinic.com/health/calorie-counter/, enter your personal data to find your daily calorie quota, and knock a couple of hundred calories off the answer. You’ll probably lose weight slowly while you gain brain.
Eat Better, Boost Your Brain
What you eat may be as important as how much you eat. Studies show that aging rats offered a junk-food diet high in saturated fat and sugar make less BDNF and do worse on memory and learning tests. Likewise, feeding an aging human brain sugary treats, burgers, and fries could magnify memory loss. Older brains benefit from less saturated fat and sugar plus bonus antioxidants delivered by fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Follow Your Heart
Like a well-tuned synapse, you’ve probably made the connection: What’s good for your heart is good for your brain. The same saturated fat that clogs your coronary arteries will dull your mind as well, while the healthy fat from fish prevents clots from stopping your heart or causing a memory-zapping stroke. In fact, a recent National Institutes of Health review of 96 top-quality studies found that of all the heart disease risk factors, high blood pressure was linked most strongly to declining brainpower.
To control your blood pressure, get to your ideal weight; exercise; cut down on sodium; and get more calcium, magnesium, and potassium by eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat or fat-free dairy products, fish, and beans. And don’t forget to take your medicine.
Uncontrolled diabetes, which heightens heart attack risk, also dims your memory, especially when you’re trying to recall facts and events. This decline actually begins sometime during the prediabetes stage, although exactly when is unknown. And the risk of dementia is almost doubled in adults with type 2 diabetes. “Getting blood sugar under control through weight control, regular exercise, and healthy eating—especially higher-fiber, close-to-natural [unprocessed] carbohydrates—is crucial,” says Carol E. Greenwood, PhD, professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto.
Spreading healthy carbs throughout the day makes blood sugar more manageable. “Like kids, older adults need breakfast for best mental function, but because they wake up earlier in the day, their ‘dip points’ occur later in the afternoon,” says Dr. Greenwood. Her yet-to-be-published research suggests that an afternoon snack of healthy carbs such as fruits, veggies, and whole grains can help older adults be more mentally alert late in the day.
Recipe for a Better Brain
What’s good for your heart is good for your brain and may help prevent mental decline, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease as you age.
Eat less: Total calories, saturated and trans fats (fatty meats, butter, ice cream, cheese), sugar, processed foods, and salt
Eat more (within calorie limits): Fish, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, olive and canola oil, nuts, beans, and low-fat and fat-free dairy foods
Other healthy habits: Exercise regularly, maintain a healthy weight, challenge your brain, and don’t smoke. If you drink alcohol, do it moderately (one drink a day for women, two drinks a day for men).
Can’t I Just Take a Supplement?
“Nothing makes less sense than taking supplements on top of a junk-food diet,” says Jim Joseph, PhD, who studies the effect of diet on brain function at Tufts University. There’s no individual nutrient that’s as powerful as all the synergy created when you eat lots of nutrients and beneficial phytochemicals in a balanced diet. Not only have past hopes for individual supplements such as beta-carotene, vitamin C, and vitamin E fallen flat, but sometimes the supplements have proven toxic. A great diet plus a multivitamin is OK. “But really,” says Dr. Joseph, “just eat the food!”
A Better Brain for Baby
Exciting new animal evidence suggests that exercise and healthy eating result in epigenesis, the ability of pregnant women to improve the brain quality of their unborn children. In one study, pregnant rats that spent time on treadmills produced pups with more of the brain-enhancing protein BDNF. Their pups did better on spatial learning tests than pups from sedentary moms. Since dietary changes also increase BDNF, it’s a small leap for scientists to think that human babies may also benefit from their mothers’ good health habits.
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