Just a week after researchers likened a high-protein diet to smoking 20 cigarettes a day, different researchers have said the diet is important for healthy brain functioning as we get older (and as we pointed out last week).
Older people eating a high-protein diet are 39 per cent less likely to suffer cognitive decline than those eating very little protein.
Only animal protein has a protective effect, say researchers from the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Japan, and they didn’t see similar benefits from plant protein.
The researchers had tracked for seven years the lifestyles and diets of 1,007 people aged from 67 and older. Their findings suggest that we are less able to process protein as we age and so need to eat more in order to compensate.
(Source: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2014; doi: 10.1111/jgs.12690)
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