Brain Health and Nutrition

An April 2024 study by the Gerontological Society of America said,

• “Broaching the topic of diet and nutrition can be challenging. I start by asking patients what their goals are,”

• “These goals could include physical goals such as maintaining muscle mass, cognitive goals such as preserving memory, as well as functional goals such as being able to travel or play with grandchildren. Linking information about nutrition to helping adults achieve their goals is an effective strategy for stimulating motivation to implement healthy changes.”

• “I would love for everybody to get all of their micronutrients from food … Unfortunately, for most older adults, it’s really challenging to do that due to physiological changes that occur with aging and certain disease states that affect absorption, so we often recommend a multivitamin.”

Age-appropriate aerobic exercise for cognitive function in older adults

An October 2023 study by the University of East Finland said that, “These findings underscore the value of age-appropriate aerobic exercise, such as golf, Nordic walking and regular walking, in maintaining and enhancing cognitive function among older adults. Previous research has shown that exercise also holds promise as a potential strategy for those experiencing cognitive decline,”

Television and brain health

A May 2021 study by School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham said,

• “While studies have shown the benefits of exercise to support brain health, less is known about the potential consequences of prolonged sedentary behavior such as television viewing on brain structure and function. This is important to look at because other studies have shown that physical activity and sedentary behaviors may have different effects on health and disease,”

• “There are currently no medications available to cure or stop dementia. However, a recent report showed that nearly 40% of worldwide dementia diagnoses may be prevented or delayed by modifying twelve risk factors including exercise,” 

• “Our findings suggest that the amount of television viewing, a type of sedentary behavior, may be related to cognitive decline and imaging markers of brain health. Therefore, reducing sedentary behaviors, such as television viewing, may be an important lifestyle modification target to support optimal brain health,”

• “In the context of cognitive and brain health, not all sedentary behaviors are equal; non-stimulating sedentary activities such as television viewing are linked to greater risk of developing cognitive impairment, whereas cognitively stimulating sedentary activities (e.g., reading, computer and board games) are associated with maintained cognition and reduced likelihood of dementia,” 

• “Considering the contextual differences in varying sedentary behaviors is critical when investigating cognitive and brain health.”

• “In our findings, television viewing remained associated with cognitive function and gray matter volume after accounting for physical activity, suggesting that this sedentary behavior may impart a unique risk with respect to brain and cognitive health,” Dougherty said. “This is an important finding since it is now well accepted that the neurobiology of dementia including brain atrophy begins during midlife. That’s a period were modifiable behaviors such as excessive television viewing can be targeted and reduced to promote healthy brain aging.”

• “These are interesting correlations among television viewing, cognitive decline and brain structure. Television viewing is just one type of sedentary behavior yet it’s very easy to modify and could make a big difference in maintaining and improving brain health.”

Exercise and brain function

A June 2021 study by the Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine and Brain Institute and Ozioma Okonkwo, Ph.D., Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and their collaborators, said,

• "Our findings position CTSB, BDNF, and klotho as exercise biomarkers for evaluating the effect of lifestyle interventions on brain function," 

• "Human studies often utilize expensive and low throughput brain imaging analyses that are not practical for large population-wide studies. Systemic biomarkers that can measure the effect of exercise interventions on Alzheimer's-related outcomes quickly and at low-cost could be used to inform disease progression and to develop novel therapeutic targets."

• "The positive association between CTSB and cognition, and the substantial modulation of lipid metabolites implicated in dementia, support the beneficial effects of exercise training on brain function and brain health in asymptomatic individuals at risk for Alzheimer's disease,"

Eating soft foods and the Brain

A June 2021 study by Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) said

• "In the developing brain, changes in sensory information can greatly affect the brain's structure," 

• "We fed 2-week-old rats either a soft diet or a regular diet, and then investigated a range of different neuromuscular outcomes in response to stimulation of the anterior CMA."

• "Our findings suggest that the anterior CMA strongly influences the regulation of chewing, and is affected by sensory inputs during development. As such, reduced chewing function during growth should be corrected as soon as possible to avoid any potential adverse effects on jaw muscle development and chewing ability," 

Household chores and brain health

An April 2021 study by Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute said, 

"Scientists already know that exercise has a positive impact on the brain, but our study is the first to show that the same may be true for household chores," 

"Understanding how different forms of physical activity contribute to brain health is crucial for developing strategies to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia in older adults."

"Besides helping to guide physical activity recommendations for older adults, these findings may also motivate them to be more active, since household chores are a natural and often necessary aspect of many people's daily lives, and therefore appear more attainable,"