According to recent study from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, switching to a green Mediterranean diet has a good impact on brain function.
The study discovered that participants’ brain aging was slowed down by weight loss related to this diet. Every 1 percent decrease in body weight resulted in a nearly 9 month reduction in the participants’ brain ages.
These results highlight the important role that diet plays in maintaining brain health.
A total of 102 people who met the criteria for obesity participated in this smaller study, which was part of the larger DIRECT-PLUS trial.
The study emphasized a green Mediterranean diet low in red/processed meat and high in dietary polyphenols as a healthy way of life.
The trial substudy found that losing weight slowed the aging of the brain.
DIRECT PLUS was a large-scale, prolonged clinical experiment with 300 participants that lasted 18 months.
Dr. Gidon Levakov and Prof. Galia Avidan were the ones who carried out the sub-study, the results of which were released on eLife.
Prof. Iris Shai and Dr. Alon Kaplan, were the leading researchers of the larger study conducted along with a team of other scientists.
Obesity is associated with the brain aging more quickly than one may anticipate.
Researchers may measure a person’s “brain age,” or how old their brain appears on in-depth scans, independent of chronological age, to better understand this process.
This method aids in examining the relatively short-term effects of many variables, such as lifestyle, on brain aging.
Researchers Levakov, Kaplan, Shai, and Avidan looked at 102 people who had obesity. At the start and conclusion of the program, participants underwent brain scans.
Additional examinations and measures were also carried out during these periods to track other biological systems impacted by obesity, such as liver function.
They looked at how the lifestyle modification affected the course of aging using brain scans done at the beginning and conclusion of the trial.
The findings showed that participants’ brain ages were over 9 months younger than predicted after 18 months with a 1 percent drop in body weight.
Changes in other biological parameters, such as lower liver fat and liver enzymes, were linked to this slowed aging.
Prior studies have demonstrated a detrimental impact on brain health in Alzheimer’s disease patients’ liver fat levels and the generation of certain liver enzymes.
Dr. Levakov says that “Our study highlights the importance of a healthy lifestyle, including lower consumption of processed food, sweets, and beverages, in maintaining brain health.”
Furthermore, Prof. Avidan says that “We were encouraged to find that even a weight loss of 1% was sufficient to affect brain health and lead to a 9-month reduction in brain age.”
The results demonstrate that weight loss-related lifestyle changes can have a positive effect on the brain’s aging pathway.
The next stages include determining if delaying obesity-caused brain aging improves clinical outcomes for the patients.
The study also demonstrates a possible method for assessing the impact of lifestyle modifications on brain health.
Finding therapies that improve brain health might have significant clinical, educational, and societal effects given the growing incidence of obesity worldwide.
The green Mediterranean, high polyphenol diet was initially proposed by the DIRECT-PLUS trial study team.
Because it contains fewer red and processed meats and more dietary polyphenols, this modified Mediterranean diet differs from the standard one.
Over a period of 18 months, the green-Mediterranean dieters ingested 28 grams of walnuts every day in addition to 3 to 4 cups of green tea and 1 cup of green shake of duckweed every day.
The aquatic plant Mankai is a healthy meat alternative since it is abundant in bioavailable iron, B12, 200 different types of polyphenols, and protein.
