A healthy lifestyle with regular exercise, lots of tasty fruit and vegetables and low negative stress keeps the body fit and vivacious – and thus, of course the mind, too.
Dr. Changzheng Yuan of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston confirms this statement with his extensive, long-term study (Changzheng Yuan et al., Neurology 11/2018). In this survey, he and his team interviewed nearly 28,000 men between 1986 and 2002 regarding their eating habits.
The men, who were on average 51 years old, were asked to specify how often they consumed 130 foods. In 2008 and 2012, they then asked the participants about their very subjectively perceived intellectual performance. Seven percent of the participants suffered from severe problems with their memory, and even two decades earlier they had lived much healthier lives than those without cognitive deficits. They had moved less, smoked more, had higher blood cholesterol and more often diabetes.
Taking age and total calorie intake into account, there was a correlation between fruit and vegetable consumption and memory performance:
Those with the highest fruit and vegetable consumption had a 38 percent reduced probability of severe impairment of mental functions. The figure for fruit consumption was 21 percent. Yuang and his team found tomatoes, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, sprouts, bell peppers, honeydew melons and strawberries to be particularly beneficial for maintaining healthy brain functions.
So if you eat a lot of greens in middle age, you are taking good care of your brain. According to the study, a high consumption of fruit juice also reduces memory loss by 35 percent. Above all, fruit juices and orange juice in particular still have a protective effect even if you drink them at an advanced age. Scientists assume that the carotenoids and antioxidants in the juices are good for the ageing brain.
However, it is not entirely clear whether the consumption of fruit and vegetables alone protects the brain, or whether a healthy lifestyle in general has a positive effect on cognitive performance.
Either way, eating healthy and tasty food with lots of fruit and vegetables and going for long walks or nice bike rides is also something wonderful! Let’s toast to that – with a freshly squeezed orange juice, of course.
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