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Memory Games: Eating Well to Remember

posted by Fnord666 on Friday February 21 2020, @02:19PM   
from the what-if-I-want-to-forget? dept.

martyb writes in with the following story via IRC:

Memory games: Eating well to remember:

A healthy diet is essential to living well, but as we age, should we change what we eat?

UTS research fellow Dr Luna Xu has studied data from 139,000 older Australians and found strong links between certain food groups, memory loss and comorbid heart disease or diabetes.

Dr Xu found high consumption of fruit and vegetables was linked to lowered odds of memory loss and its comorbid heart disease. High consumption of protein-rich foods was associated with a better memory.

Dr Xu also found the link between food group and memory status may vary among different older age groups. People aged 80 years and over with a low consumption of cereals are at the highest risk of memory loss and its comorbid heart disease, her research showed.

"Our present study implies that the healthy eating suggestions of cereals consumption in the prevention of memory loss and comorbid heart disease for older people may differ compared to other age groups," said Dr Xu, who holds a Heart Foundation postdoctoral research fellowship.

Xiaoyue Xu, Mabel Ling, Sally C. Inglis, Louise Hickman, Deborah Parker. Eating and healthy ageing: a longitudinal study on the association between food consumption, memory loss and its comorbidities. International Journal of Public Health, 2020; DOI: 10.1007/s00038-020-01337-y

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Original Submission

• Anthropology Anthropology (Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 21 2020, @07:05PM (3 children)

  by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday February 21 2020, @07:05PM (#960791) Journal

  I seem to recall from an anthropology class many years ago that just as human teeth were adapting to eating meat our brains were increasing in size in concert.

  So the idea that lots of protein would be good for the brain seems reasonable to me.

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• Not meat Not meat (Score: 2) by bussdriver on Friday February 21 2020, @08:42PM (2 children)

  by bussdriver (6876) on Friday February 21 2020, @08:42PM (#960829)

  1) plenty of protein exists in veggies
      - where do you think all that meat gets the protein? cows make it? no. it comes out of their food; they make meat from that protein they eat.
  2) only 1 protein needed is missing in a vegan diet; it's found in some fungus and in lots of bacteria (if you live like a dirty ape you'll probably eat plenty of it)
  3) you only can digest about 15g per meal the rest goes out the bottom. it's likely spreading it out aids digestion since that is a complex process we don't understand and we know certain things in combination are processed and absorbed differently.

  4) i am a meat eater

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  • Re:Not meat Re:Not meat (Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Friday February 21 2020, @11:49PM (1 child)

    by ChrisMaple (6964) on Friday February 21 2020, @11:49PM (#960870)

    It is untrue that a vegan diet is missing an essential amino acid.

    IIRC, no single vegan food contains them all, but combining foods easily meets requirements.

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    • Re:Not meat (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:08AM (#961274)

      Vegan diets though are deficient in a key vitamin: B₁₂. B₁₂ deficiency can lead to pernicious anaemia and permanent neurological damage. B₁₂ is easily obtainable as a synthetic supplement, but most vegan pushers are also hard-core "all natural" freaks and would balk at getting an essential vitamin that way. Some of them claim that certain vegetables have B₁₂ in them "naturally", but it turns out that any such B₁₂ actually comes from faecal contamination [angry-chef.com]. Ewww.

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