2023-06-22 11:43:24
People who do not get enough flavanols through their diet – from all kinds of fruit and vegetables – benefit from taking dietary supplements that contain these substances. According to American researchers, this causes a reduction in age-related memory loss in this group.
The risk of memory loss is greater in people who have passed their sixtieth birthday. Previous research has shown that your diet can have an effect on this age-related memory loss. Researchers at Columbia and Harvard Universities in the United States have now taken a closer look at the role of a group of substances called flavanols. Flavanols are found in various fruits and vegetables, cocoa, black tea and wine, among other things.
Their study showed that taking flavanols in the form of a pill improved the memory of people over the age of 60 by 16 percent. This specifically concerned people over sixty who received too few flavanols through their diet. Compared to the people who received a placebo pill, the difference was 10.5 percent. For people who already received enough flavanols through their diet, this extra intake made little difference. According to the researchers, the results suggest that flavanol deficiency may be a driver of age-related memory loss.
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The researchers obtained these results after following 3,500 people over the age of sixty for three years who took either a placebo pill or a pill containing the recommended daily amount of flavanols every day. At the start of the study, the researchers measured the quality of their diet and the state of their short-term memory. They repeated this every year. They also used urine samples from part of the participants to gain even better insight into their flavanol levels. The improvement in memory was noticeable after just one year and remained the same throughout the rest of the study.
Effect on the hippocampus
The researchers built on previous studies. For example, it has previously been shown that a region in the hippocampus – the brain region that is important for acquiring new memories – is responsible for age-related memory loss. Another old study found that flavanols improve memory in mice by increasing the growth of neurons and blood vessels in the hippocampus.
The current study therefore looked specifically at the improvement of short-term memory linked to the hippocampus using special methods. They did this, for example, with a test in which the participants were briefly shown a list of words and then had to reproduce it.
Although there seems to be a connection between memory loss and flavanols, the results of this study say nothing about whether a lack of flavanols actually causes memory loss. To determine this, a lack of flavanols would have to be created in people who do not yet have it. But that is of course not entirely ethical.
The researchers do, however, propose to determine whether increasing the intake of flavanols in their forties and fifties has an effect on their memory loss. If the memory loss actually depends partly on the amount of flavanols that someone ingests, then the memory loss of this group should decrease significantly.
Noticeable and measurable
‘There are many aspects that make this a strong study,’ says epidemiologist Arfan Ikram of Erasmus MC. ‘Studies that focus on dietary interventions are very difficult to carry out. These researchers have done a good job of urging the participants to adhere to the dietary intervention for a long time.’ Linking the results to flavanol levels in the urine of the participants is also valuable. ‘The added value of this research is that it shows that diet has a measurable effect on the brain, specifically this group of substances.’
Ikram does wonder how big the impact of this study will be on the average citizen, because there was only an effect in people who already had an unhealthy diet. ‘It is logical that if you live an unhealthy lifestyle and you lack certain nutrients, supplementing those substances will have a noticeable effect. If you eat unhealthy, it is more advisable to improve your general diet than to take such a pill, “says Ikram.
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