Cognitive Decline

DASH Diet + Aerobic Exercise = 30% Improvement in Brain Function

According to a news release by the American Heart Association, a diet developed to improve blood pressure combined with aerobic exercise over a four month period appears to improve the mental functioning of older overweight adults.   Researchers claim mental functioning improved by 30%. Quoting the news release:

“Researchers assessed mental functioning with a battery of neuropsychological tests, including Executive Function-Memory-Learning and Psychomotor Speed. These tests measure cognitive skills involving manipulation of ideas and concepts and planning ahead. The tests were given before and after the four-month treatment program.”

The diet plan is called DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) and involves:

1. Eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, poultry, nuts and foods rich in magnesium, potassium, and calcium
2. Cutting back on red meats high total-fat foods and sweets

If you want to give it a try there are specific guidelines, recommendations and even food plans on The Dash Diet Plan Eating site.

The aerobic exercises were basic but supervised and took place for 30 minutes three times per week.

It is important to note that you have to do both the diet and exercise to get the improvement in mental functioning. Control groups that did one or the other, or nothing showed no improvement in mental functioning.  These type of combination effects (doing two or more interventions to get a boost in cognitive performance) are common and will be frequently covered on the Next Brain Blog.

Source:  Exercise and Diet Image

Vitamins for Cognitive Performance

I am often asked if there are specific vitamins that are proven to enhance brain and cognitive function. The answer is yes but the level of improvement is not always clear.  Vitamins that are generally called out for their brain boosting effects include:

1. B vitamins – memory and brain development
2. Antioxidants or vitamins E, C and A (beta carotene) –  overall functioning
3. Multivitamins – overall functioning

Of course it is not just vitamins that help our brain function well but other supplements (e.g. minerals and fatty acids) and the foods we eat.   Diet and supplements will be a frequent topic on the Next Brain Blog.

For a comprehensive overview of how supplements and diet impact brain function I suggest you read (or listen to) Jean Carper’s book, Your Miracle Brain: Dramatic New Scientific Evidence Reveals How You Can Use Food and Supplements To: Maximize Brain Power, Boost Your Memory, Lift Your Mood, Improve IQ and Creativity, Prevent and Reverse Mental Aging.

If you take supplements or have customized your diet to improve cognitive performance please leave a comment and share your results.

How Your Mind Improves With Age

We have been taught that our minds decline with age. We become more forgetful, find it harder to learn, cannot focus as intensely, loose our creative powers and cannot master new technical specialties.  Our brain cells die off, new connections don’t form and our brains shrink. A dark picture of increasing cognitive decline.

Fortunately, a growing number of studies show that some of these ideas are false and that we actually improve in certain aspects of cognitive performance as we age.   We keep most of our brain cells and can form major new connections through something called neuroplasticity much later into life than previously thought.    We develop greater abilities in drawing conclusions from examples, making judgement, seeing the meaning of situations and many other aspects of mental functioning.

In a recent blog post, Barbara Strauch, deputy science editor and health and medical science editor at The New York Times writes:

“Over the past few years, neuroscientists have begun to zero in on the brain’s changes in middle age, and what they’ve found is encouraging. Results of long-term studies show that — contrary to stereotypes — we actually grow smarter in key areas in middle age which, with longer life spans, now stretches from our mid 40s to our mid to late 60s.”

She expands on this point in her fourth coming book, The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind.

The importance of this type of research for improving our minds and brains is  significant.  Why?

The assumptions we  make about our own cognitive abilities strongly determines how well we perform.

For example, assuming you are forgetful, less creative, unable to master a second language or that math is impossible to learn all lower cognitive performance.  Changing self-limiting assumptions about our own minds and the social stereotypes about aging brains mentioned above will take a long time. But it is a powerful means for improving cognitive performance and will be a frequent topic on the Next Brain Blog.

Source:  Image of  Older Adult

Resistance Training Once per Week Improves Mental Functioning by 10+%

In the Next Brain Blog we track down and report on a full-range of ways to improve the function and longevity of your brain and mind.  There are many studies that prove physical exercise is good for your brain fitness and mental health.

But what type should you do,  what specifically does it improve and how long do the effects last? A new piece of research reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine on Resistance Training and Executive Function gives some specific answers.

They found that for older female adults resistance training (dumbbells and weight machines) one or twice a week for a year improved their abilities to plan, make decisions, focus and resolve conflicts by more that 10%.  These mental tasks all belong to what is called your executive function.

This is an impressive finding because it gives specifics on the type of exercise and the impact it will have. More to the point:

You can get a big boost in mental performance from a modest weekly investment in resistance training.

You don’t need to go to the gym or use fancy weight machines – low cost home exercise equipment will do the trick.

By the way, you can measure the efficiency of your executive function using the Stroop Test.  I will blog on that later in the month.

Source: Image