Enhance Memory with the Right Foods - Scientific American

Found an interesting article over at Scientific American:

Your Brain on Blueberries: Enhance Memory with the Right Foods

Chemical compounds common to berries, tofu, tea and other foods can shore up memory and boost brainpower

Emerging research suggests that compounds in blueberries known as flavonoids may improve memory, learning and general cognitive function, including reasoning skills, decision making, verbal comprehension and numerical ability. In addition, studies comparing dietary habits with cognitive function in adults hint that consuming flavonoids may help slow the decline in mental facility that is often seen with aging and might even provide protection against disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Researchers once assumed that flavonoids worked in the brain as they do in the body—as antioxidants that protect cells from damage caused by ubiquitous unstable molecules known as free radicals. Now, however, new research demonstrates that the power of flavonoids to bolster cognition results mainly from interactions between flavonoids and proteins integral to brain-cell structure and function.

To date, scientists have identified more than 6,000 different flavonoids, which come in a variety of types. These compounds are widely distributed in fruits and vegetables, cereal grains, cocoa, soy foods, tea and wine. Thus, overdosing on blueberries alone is not necessary to keep your mind in good shape.

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Memorable Diets
As powerful antioxidants, flavonoids protect us from the cellular damage caused by free radicals, which are formed by our bodies during metabolism, and are also spawned by pollution, cigarette smoke and radiation. As a result, researchers have for decades investigated the potential of these compounds for boosting immunity, staving off cancer and reducing excess inflammation; flavonoids also appear to help regulate blood flow and blood pressure.

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Brain-Cell Snacks
How might flavonoids influence cognition? By examining brain tissue from rats that ingested flavonoid-containing foods, researchers have shown within the past decade that some classes of flavonoids cross into the brain from the blood. Once in the brain, the compounds could influence cognition by acting as antioxidants, but recently scientists have questioned this theory. Data suggest that flavonoids are present in the brain in much smaller quantities than other antioxidants, such as vitamin C. Thus, compounds other than flavonoids are likely to be doing the bulk of free-radical scavenging there. Instead scientists have found that flavonoids change the chemistry of neurons in other ways.

Joseph and his colleagues discovered early on that four-month-old juvenile mice fed blueberry-enriched chow for eight months displayed higher levels of enzymes called kinases in their brain cells than did those who ate the standard chow. ­Although scientists do not know how flavonoids might spur kinase production, many types of kinases are essential to learning and memory; thus the additional enzyme could help boost cognition.

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Soy isoflavones may improve memory by acting like weak estrogens, binding to and stimulating estrogen receptors on neurons. Exciting these receptors is known to trigger changes in both neuronal shape and chemistry in the hippocampus, a structure involved in memory and whose function most likely diminishes with age. These changes may facilitate communication between neurons and thereby improve memory. Some flavonoids may even spur the growth of new nerve cells in the hippocampus.

Flavonoids may even defend neurons from damage and death and so combat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Animal and cell culture data suggest that flavonoids may ameliorate the effects of neurotoxins such as glutamate—a neurotransmitter that at high concentrations damages neurons—by preventing these toxins from binding to their receptors on neurons. Flavonoids also may oppose the action of enzymes called secretases that are involved in the destruction of nerve cells and that may be elevated in neurodegenerative disorders.

The science does not yet reveal which flavonoid-containing foods have the greatest potential for enhancing learning and memory. But eating flavonoid-rich foods is probably better than taking supplements. Processing may destroy or reduce the actual flavonoid content of supplements, and intact fruits and vegetables are likely to contain the amounts and combinations of these compounds that are most beneficial to the brain. Following the current USDA dietary guidelines—which call for eating two cups of fruit and two and a half cups of vegetables every day—will ensure that you get a generous variety of these health-bestowing compounds. Indeed, taking such advice just might help you remember.

What does this mean? They give the bottom line:

* Compounds in blueberries known as flavonoids may improve memory, learning and general cognitive function—and could slow age-related decline in mental function.

* Scientists have identified more than 6,000 different flavonoids. These chemicals are widely distributed in fruits and vegetables, cereal grains, cocoa, soy foods, tea and wine.

* Researchers now believe flavonoids affect cognition by interacting with proteins that are integral to brain-cell structure and function.

Want to know what flavonoids are? Check out myhealthguardian.com