First, you should know that no really good study has been shown that any food or diet can prevent memory problems. That being said, there are some basic dietary principles that make sense.

One of the most basic principles of eating for brain fitness is to eat so that you can maintain a healthy weight. Studies have shown that excess fat can produce inflammatory substances that have been associated cognitive decline.

Sticking with a diet that helps you avoid excessive weight gain can also help you avoid developing something called the metabolic syndrome. That’s a combination of things that are associated with risk for diabetes and other diseases. One of the facets of metabolic syndrome is having high levels of blood sugar. Your brain needs sugar to work, but paradoxically if you have high levels of sugar in your body a lot of the time, you can have low levels of it in your brain.

Eating a diet that is high in fruits and vegetables, rich in whole grains, and low in saturated fats may help you keep your brain sharp. In particular, the Mediterranean diet has been related to lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease and slower decline in people who already have it.

If there are specific foods that are good for brain fitness, it’s not clear. Colorful berries, though, are high in substances called antioxidants and may help preserve your brain function. Other foods that may have an impact include leafy green vegetables (full of B vitamins that are key to maintaining your brain’s function) and other colorful foods.

Research doesn’t really support that idea that any one food is a magic bullet for keeping your brain functioning at its best, in spite of what you may read on the Web. The truth is probably a little more complicated.

Results of the overall study were negative – DHA at a dose of 2 grams a day didn’t slow how much patients’ cognitive abilities declined over 18 months.

One finding of the study has been largely ignored in media reports. In a planned subgroup analysis, though, patients treated with DHA and who did not have the ApoE 4 allele had slower cognitive decline. ApoE 4 is a gene that has been associated with greater risk for having Alzheimer’s disease. It may be related to how fatty substances in the body are used by the body.

Although the findings of the main trial are negative, one subgroup may have benefited from DHA treatment.

This study thus adds to a series of studies based on observations that people who take vitamins, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and fish oil supplements have lower risks for Alzheimer’s disease. The logic of the trials has been to evaluate things associated with lower risk as treatments, but none has turned out to be effective.

Click here to read the full article.

Reference:

Quinn JF et al (2010). Docosahexaenoic acid supplementation and cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease. JAMA, 304, 1903-1911.

The study published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine used data from more than 20,000 members of a health care organization. They completed surveys in the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The authors of the study looked at how many of them were later diagnosed with dementia.

Results showed that the risk of getting dementia (either Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia) increased steadily the more people reported smoking. For less than a pack a day, the increase was small and not statistically significant. But for larger amounts of smoking, the increased risk was significant, and for people smoking more than two packs per day, the risk was doubled.

This study once again shows that brain fitness is also cardiovascular fitness. The same things that cause clogged arteries around your heart may very well result in clogged arteries in your brain.

One good note: people who described themselves as former smokers had the same risk as those who never smoked. So quitting now may help reduce your risk later.

Reference:

Rusanen M et al (2010). Heavy smoking in midlife and long-term risk of Alzheimer disease and vascular dementia. Archives of Internal Medicine. Published online October 25, 2010. View the abstract here.

At the Cognitive Aging Summit (sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and featuring NIA-supported research), Martin Sliwinski reported data that show that the specific aspect of emotional distress that may be linked to problems in thinking and memory is something called unconstructive repetitive thought (URT).

Although the term reeks of jargon, it is helpful because it helps us understand the difference between various types of worry, ruminating, or obsessing. URT means that someone thinks a lot about something that is upsetting, but it doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s a little like pushing at a sore tooth in your mouth – you know that you shouldn’t, and that if you don’t leave it alone, you may make it worse. But still, it’s hard to stop.

It’s easy to guess that repeatedly thinking about upsetting things (your boss or spouse yelling at you, an especially bad ride home on the freeway that involved someone cutting in front of you) might cause repeated releases of stress-related neurohormones and immune factors.

Since we know that many of these substances have the capacity to be neurotoxic, it’s a simple (though unproven) link from URT to cognitive impairment.

How do you deal with URT?

• First, pay attention to thoughts that bother you and are upsetting. You may be engaging in URT without realizing it. Ask yourself, Is thinking about this making my heart race or making me feel jumpy and angry? Notice what you’re thinking about.
• Second, decide whether thinking is going to resolve anything. Sometimes, thinking about something over and over can help you figure out a solution to a problem. But worrying over and over about something in the past or future that you can’t control just makes you miserable. No matter how much you think about something, you can’t change the past or control the future.
• Third, make a commitment to deal with thoughts if you can’t deal with the problem. If you’re want to spend time going over something in your mind over and over, schedule a time (maybe 15 minutes) and do so. Don’t do the thinking any other time. Usually, people who learn to relax through meditation or breathing can learn to stop their URT. Regular mediation practice can also help you stop.

Frailty may make you think about someone who is quite old and infirm, but at least some people think of frailty as a physical equivalent to developing cognitive problems. Pre-frailty (having just a few of the characteristics of frailty) may be like mild cognitive impairment, a milder form of memory or other cognitive problems that may lead to dementia.

From this point of view, preventing frailty may be a route to preventing decline. Although frailty is defined by things like slow walking and muscle weakness, research shows that frailty is associated with memory problems and depression.

It might seem odd that muscle strength and walking speed go along with memory and depression. But besides the research that show they are related, there’s a good reason why they are linked. Frailty has been linked to higher levels of markers of inflammation such as the pro-inflammatory substances called cytokines. There are substances in your body that are increased when you are sick, but they also increase as you get older.

Evidence suggests that low grade but chronic inflammation may be a key factor in aging. Researchers are still studying the best ways to reduce the effects of inflammation, but it’s likely that exercise reduces levels of inflammatory substances. It is also possible (but not proven) that antioxidant supplements and some diets may help to reduce inflammation. These same things may help prevent frailty. Exercise may be an important defense against developing frailty as well as helping with cognitive decline.