Two new complementary animal studies by researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) Center for Aging and Brain Repair (CABR) and James A. Haley Veterans Hospital have bolstered evidence that certain fruits and vegetables may protect the brain against aging.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Paula Bickford PhD, a professor at the CABR and lead author of both studies, which are published in the current edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, commented: “If these pre-clinical findings translate to humans, it suggests that eating a diet high in antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables may help reverse declines in learning and memory as you get older.”
Spinach findings
In the first study, co-authored by M. Claire Cartford PhD, older rats fed a diet rich in spinach for six weeks exhibited a reversal in the loss of learning that normally occurs with age.
By testing the time it took rats to learn to blink in anticipation of a puff of air given after sounding the tone of a bell, the study found that the rats eating food that contained 2% freeze-dried spinach learned to associate the sound with air faster than those fed regular food. Blinking is a conditioned response that slows with age in rodents and humans.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataFruit and vegetables
The second study, co-authored by Carmelina Gemma PhD, of USF and James A. Haley VA Hospital, found that the benefit of a diet high in fruits and vegetables depends on the levels of antioxidant nutrients in the fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants are believed to counteract the free radicals generated in the body during normal metabolism and exposure to environmental pollution. An excess of free radicals can damage cellular fats, protein and DNA.
The USF researchers compared three groups of older rats by supplementing their rat chow diets. One group ate spirulina, a blue-green algae high in antioxidants. Others ate a daily ration of apple, a food moderate in antioxidant activity, and the third group ate a cucumber-enriched diet, low in antioxidant activity.
After two weeks, aged rats fed either spirulina- or apple-enriched diets demonstrated improved neuron function, a suppression of inflammatory substances in the brain, and a decrease in malondialdehyde, a marker for oxidative damage. Spirulina reversed the impairment in adrenergic neural function, but the rats on a cucumber diet saw no improvement.
Not all foods equal
“Not all foods are created equal,” Bickford said. “Cucumbers taste good and have lots of fibre. But unlike spirulina and apples, they are not rich in phytochemicals that have antioxidant or anti-inflammatory effects in the brain.”
The research has hopeful implications for the prevention of neurodegenerative disorders in an increasingly aging population, but still must be tested in humans, Bickford concluded.
