Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:37am IST

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - Eating less may help older people improve their memory and prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, according to a German study published on Monday.

The findings suggest that simple lifestyle changes could help treat dementia and confirm benefits previously shown in animals, said Agnes Floel, a neurologist at the University of Munster in Germany, who led the study.

"This is the first study that has shown that caloric restriction might be beneficial for memory function in elderly humans," Floel said in a telephone interview.

An estimated 24 million people worldwide have the memory loss, problems with orientation and other symptoms that signal Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

Researchers believe the number of people with dementia may quadruple by 2040, straining national health services and raising the need for new treatments.

Floel and her team divided 50 people with an average age of 60 into three groups. One group worked with a dietitian to cut their daily calories by about 30 percent while another had no eating restrictions.

The third group ate more food containing unsaturated fatty acids found in olive oil and fish, but this appeared to make no difference in boosting memory, Floel said.

But the men and women in the group told to eat less showed a 10 to 20 percent improvement in a memory test given three months after they began their diet, the researchers said.

"Our study may help to generate novel prevention strategies to maintain cognitive functions into old age," the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team is now conducting a larger trial using brain imaging scans to better understand the mechanisms by which eating less may improve mental function, Floel said.

One possibility is that decreased levels of insulin and inflammation may boost brain cells and improve memory, she added in a telephone interview.

"We think that, similar to what has been found in animal studies, the changes of insulin levels and inflammation are good for neurons and bring about the improvement," Floel said.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/2...alories.memory/

Oh, "insulin levels..." Could cutting out carbs be just as effective? I mean, you just gotta go duh!

An article of the same "validity" to counter the first:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=389927

You know, tit for tat.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...9012601989.html

You know, tit for tat.

Bo

Mike,

Great video!

Thanks.

Bo

UF Study: Calorie Restriction Reduces Age-Related Brain Cell Death

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Trimming the waistline may not be the only reason to cut calories: Doing so also may protect the brain from aging.

In the first study to look specifically at the effects of life-long calorie-restricted diets on brain cells, University of Florida researchers determined certain proteins linked to cell death that naturally increase with age were significantly reduced in the brains of rats whose calories were limited.

More important, they found the levels of a beneficial protein known to provide potent protection against neuron death were twice as high in older rats whose calories were restricted by 40 percent.

The findings could have significant implications not only for alleviating the memory loss and other mental declines that accompany normal aging, but also for a host of disorders related to excessive loss of brain cells, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, which together afflict an estimated 4 million people in the United States.

Healthy women ranging in age from 50 to 80 who reduced their calorie intake for three months not only lost weight, but their scores on verbal memory tests also shot up by 20 percent, according to a study conducted by Dr. Agnes Floel and her colleagues from the University of Munster in Germany, who published the results in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/4/1255.abstract