It’s a fact: By 2040, over 80 million people will have dementia.
Researchers from the Pittsburgh School of Medicine say there’s an easy way to reduce your risk, however, and it involves making a simple change to your diet.
According to their findings, those who ate broiled or baked fish once a week had larger brain volumes in areas of the brain commonly associated with cognition and memory.
So eat up: It could help your memory.
“Scientists estimate that more than 80 million people will have dementia by 2040, which could become a substantial burden to families and drive up health care costs,” says James T. Becker, Ph.D., senior investigator of the study. “Our study shows that people who ate a diet that included baked or broiled, but not fried, fish have larger brain volumes in regions associated with memory and cognition.”
Becker, who is a professor of psychiatry at the Pittsburgh School of Medicine, investigated people who had received MRI scans during the Cardiovascular Health Study, a study which identified heart disease risk factors for people over 65. The amount of brain volume varied from person to person, so Becker looked at their diets to see if their dietary habits had any role in these variations.
To do so, he had them fill out a questionnaire about their eating habits, including how much fish they ate and how they prepared it. By the end of the study, Becker, along with other researchers, found that those who ate baked or broiled fish once a week or more had greater brain volume in areas of the brain responsible for cognition and memory.
Oddly enough, however, eating more fish in omega-3 fatty acids, fatty acids often associated with reduced cognitive decline, did not appear to increase brain volume.
“We did not find a relationship between omega-3 levels and these brain changes, which surprised us a little,” says Becker. “It led us to conclude that we were tapping into a more general set of lifestyle factors that were affecting brain health of which diet is just one part. This suggests that lifestyle factors, in this case eating fish, rather than biological factors contribute to structural changes in the brain.”
Becker concludes the study by saying that a combination of lifestyle factors, and not just eating omega-3 fatty fish, are involved in making your brain healthy, so skipping your omega-3s isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That’s a good thing–especially if you don’t like eating omega-3 fatty fish, such as mackerel.
“A confluence of lifestyle factors likely are responsible for better brain health, and this reserve might prevent or delay cognitive problems that can develop later in life,” says Becker.
What You Should Do
To help reduce your risk of dementia, adding broiled or baked fish to your diet could help reduce the risk, but not entirely prevent, dementia in the future. Make sure to combine it with other healthy lifestyle measures shown to reduce the risk of dementia as well, such as keeping your blood sugar healthy and exercising regularly.
Readers: Is fish a part of your diet? Why or why not?
Sources:
Eating Broiled or Baked Fish Just Once Per Week May Reduce the Risk of Dementia – ScienceDaily.com
Fish Boosts Brain Health Regardless of Omega-3 Fatty Acid Content – UPMC.com
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