THE MEDITERRANEAN DIET KEEPS YOUR BRAIN YOUNG, ACCORDING TO NEUROSCIENTISTS
Following this popular (and delicious) diet could give you the key nutrients to slow cognitive ageing as you grow older.
Some people seem to cope better with ageing than others – and a new study suggests this may come down to their diets. Published in the journal Nature Aging, the research suggests that people with slow cognitive ageing share the same combination of nutrients in their bodies.

So what should you eat to keep your brain young? The specific nutrients associated with slower ageing are those typically found in the Mediterranean diet. This diet includes plenty of seasonal plant foods (including fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes), olive oil, small but daily portions of dairy, weekly consumption of fish or poultry, and infrequent consumption of red meat.

“This is an important study further adding to the mounting evidence of the impact of nutrition on brain ageing,” David Vauzour, associate professor in molecular nutrition at University of East Anglia, who was not involved in the study, told BBC Science Focus.

To learn how specific nutrients can help your brain age more healthily, researchers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln combined neuroscience and nutritional science.
There were 100 study participants aged 65-75 who were asked to fast before the scientists collected their blood plasma. With this, the researchers analysed the participants’ nutrient biomarkers. The participants then completed cognitive assessments and had MRI scans.

After these tests, the scientists split the participants into two groups: people with accelerated brain ageing and people whose ageing was slower than expected. This second group – people whose brain age was younger than it should be – had a distinct nutrient profile in their blood.
The researchers found that the healthiest brains benefitted from a combination of fatty acids, antioxidants, carotenoids (the colourful molecules found in many fruits and vegetables), vitamin E and choline (a nutrient typically found in foods like egg yolks, meat, fish, and legumes).

“The combination of brain imaging and blood-based biomarkers provides an unbiased assessment of brain health,” said Vauzour. “Such findings may help design targeted nutritional interventions aiming at improving brain function as we get older.”

“The researchers think these results could be used to mimic the diet for use in ‘nutraceuticals’, which are therapies that could improve brain health as we age.”