Healthy Diet Helps Prevent Alzheimer's

July 20, 2004 -- Remember frowning at your spinach and broccoli as a kid at the dinner table? Maybe you still do it today. But eating these veggies may benefit your mental functioning in the long run.

New findings show that eating green leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts can preserve mental functioning in later years, possibly delaying the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

A study, presented at this week's Ninth International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, shows that women who ate green leafy and cruciferous vegetables during their middle ages maintained more of their mental capabilities as they entered their 70s than those who ate less of these vegetables.

Those who ate the highest amount functioned one to two years younger mentally in comparison to those who ate less.

The study's lead researcher, Jae Hee Kang, D.Sc., instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, says that by delaying the onset of Alzheimer's disease by just one year in the future could reduce the number of cases of the disease by 800,000. And by delaying the onset by two years further reduces the number of cases by 2 million.

Eating Your Fruits and Veggies

According to researchers, cognitive decline in memory, judgment, and awareness, such as forgetting where you put your keys or not being able to perform everyday tasks like making a meal, is considered a risk sign for Alzheimer's disease — a disease which affects around 4.5 million Americans.

Diets rich in fruits and vegetables have been known to play a role in decreasing the risk of heart disease, doctors say. Now they might play a role in decreasing the risk of Alzheimer's disease as well.

"There is ample data that fruits and vegetables are protective against various chronic conditions," says Kang. "And because of those things there is a very good chance that there is cause that it would be protective against Alzheimer's disease."