Your brain could be three years younger on this diet

Eating a healthy diet that includes plenty of vegetables, berries, nuts and fish can keep your brain young.

Healthy eaters have brains that are nearly three years younger than their chronological age.  They retain more grey matter that supports memory, learning, decision making, and information processing.

The Mind diet—a combination of the Mediterranean diet with anti-inflammatory foods, and the avoidance of sweet and processed products—has been tested on a group of 1,647 volunteers who had an average age of 60 at the start of the study.  They took cognitive tests every four to six years and their brains were scanned every two or so years.

Over the 12 years of the study, those who most closely followed the diet had brains with more grey matter and fewer brain ventricles, fluid filled spaces that tend to grow as brain tissue shrinks.

Some elements of the Mind diet worked better than others at supporting brain health, a BMJ Group study found.  Eating plenty of berries and poultry slowed ventricular volume, and cheese also slowed the decline in grey matter and hippocampal volume.

But eating whole grains affected the brain’s structure, including a faster loss of grey matter and hippocampal volume.

Those who ate sweets, fried foods and processed food saw the fastest deterioration of brain structures, including grey matter.

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