Thursday, April 15, 2010

Anti-Alzheimer’s Brain-Food Diet

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One of my biggest fears isn’t death.  I mean, everyone dies, why worry about it?  No, what I’m afraid of most is debilitation.  Specifically, diseases that rob me of one portion of my health or another, like diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.  Losing control of my mind is one of the scariest things I can imagine.  While there is a race on to find a cure or treatment for the disease, there’s nothing yet that will save you once it starts.  However, if you’d like to prevent Alzheimer’s, perhaps a change in diet can help.
Columbia University researchers, led by Yian Gu, have discovered that a diet rich in certain types of fats and proteins can actually help prevent or lessen Alzheimer’s disease in people over 65.   The key is to eat Mediterranean:  lots of fish, poultry, olive oil, nuts, cruciform vegetables like broccoli, dark leafy greens like spinach, and fruit.  These provide essentials like omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, vitamin E, vitamin B12, and folate, all of which protect the brain and nervous system.  Avoiding saturated fats, like the kind in btter and red meat, are also helpful.
While the change in diet wasn’t a magical preventative, people who did follow the eating pattern were 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than their peers.  Plus, it sounds delicious, doesn’t it?

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