Oil Your Brain
Monday, Jun 18, 2012
With all the strawberries you are now consuming you can just feel the surge in brain power. Your cognitive function is running on all cylinders. If only you had eaten strawberries when cramming for your college finals instead of gulping coffee, you would have earned straight A's. Just think where you career could have taken you.
Now that a large portion of your food budget is going to Maine's berry farmers and our mental IQ is at a higher lever, how can you spread your money around and prevent age from shriveling your brain power?
New studies at UCLA's Easton Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research and Division of Geriatric Medicine have given us an answer. These studies took blood samples of the levels of omega-3 fish oil and compared them to performance on cognitive tests and MRI scans of the brain.
Participants with the lowest omega-3 levels scored significantly worse on test of visual memory, executive function, and abstract thinking than those with the higher levels. Lower blood levels of omega-3s were also associated with smaller brain volumes, equivalent to about two years of structural brain aging. The results were very promising in slowing normal age-related cognitive decline, and the risk of Alzheimer's disease dropped 60%.
There is not yet any universally accepted target for the ideal level of omega-3s in the blood, but the latest federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend consuming at least two servings of seafood a week. The seafood varieties with the highest amount of omega-3s are salmon, anchovies, herring, sardines, trout and mackerel.
Our concerns are now relieved. By eating berries every day your brain is functioning at a higher cognitive level than ever. By eating fish loaded with omega-3 you can maintain a bigger brain volume and slow the normal age-related loss of cognitive function. Besides financially supporting Maine's berry farmers, you will now boost the income of Maine's fishermen.
Life in Maine is good!