A wise man once said that the human brain is like a muscle – you need to constantly train it. You can do that very easily by playing logic games regularly, such as chess, sudoku, scrabble, and many more.
But what we eat also plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of our minds. In fact, it could be that some people even neglect this aspect too much.
Improving neural functioning can be possible by simply eating cranberries
According to The Jerusalem Post, a new peer review study followed the effects of eating one cup of cranberries every day for 12 weeks by 60 individuals aged 50 to 80 years old. The researchers found that eating cranberries can have amazing benefits for mental health, as they’ve improved the blood flow to the brain, the neural functioning, as well as the visual episodic memory of the participants.
Unsurprisingly, scientists are now hopeful that consuming cranberries could even play a role in overcoming dementia and improving memory.
Dr. David Vauzour from the Norwich Medical School of UEA, explained as The Jerusalem Post quotes:
The findings of this study are very encouraging, especially considering that a relatively short 12-week cranberry intervention was able to produce significant improvements in memory and neural function.
Experts knew for quite a while that cranberries have medicinal properties. For instance, we know from other sources that consuming such food can flush bacteria out of the urinary tract. Also, cranberries are rich in antioxidants, and the examples could continue.
The new study was led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) while teaming up with researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, the Quadram Institute in the UK, and the University of Parma in Italy.
The new research was published in Frontiers in Nutrition.