In a new study, scientists explored links between three measures known to independently predict healthy aging: nutrient intake, brain structure, and cognitive function. Their analysis adds to the evidence that these factors jointly contribute to brain health in older adults.
reported in the Nutrition Magazine, the study found that blood markers for two saturated fatty acids, along with certain omega-6, -7 and -9 fatty acids, were correlated with better scores on memory tests and with larger brain structures in the frontal areas, temporal, parietal and insular. cortices Watch a video about the research.
While other studies have found one-to-one associations between individual nutrients or classes of nutrients and specific regions or functions of the brain, very little research looks comprehensively at brain health, cognition and general dietary patterns in general, said Aron Barbey. , a professor of psychology, bioengineering and neuroscience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who led the study with postdoctoral fellow Tanveer Talukdar and psychology research scientist Chris Zwilling. All three co-authors are affiliated with the U. of I Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
“Our findings reveal that we can use nutrient biomarkers, cognitive testing, and MRI measures of brain structure to account for much of the variation in healthy aging,” Barbey said. “This allows us to better understand how nutrition contributes to health, aging and disease.”
The researchers collected data from 111 healthy older adults with structural MRIs, blood biomarkers of 52 dietary nutrients, and cognitive performance on memory and intelligence tests. By combining these measures using a data fusion approach, the team found associations between dozens of features that appear to work together to promote brain and cognitive health in older adults.
Data fusion allows researchers to look at multiple data sets to map traits or characteristics that have common patterns of variability, said Talukdar, who adapted this method to incorporate nutrition, cognition and brain volumetric data.
“We’re looking at the relationships between all of these together,” he said. “This allows us to identify certain features that clump together.”
This overcomes some of the limitations of looking at individual factors, Barbey said.
“If we only look at nutrition in relation to brain structures and don’t study cognition, or if we look at nutrition in relation to cognition and don’t study the brain, then we’re actually missing some really important pieces.” of information.”
The most obvious features that came together in the new analysis involved the size of gray matter volumes in the frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices; performance on short- and long-term memory and auditory memory tests; and blood markers related to the consumption of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Study participants who scored higher on memory tests tended to have larger gray matter volumes and higher levels of omega-6, -7 and -9 fatty acid markers in their blood. Those who did worse on cognitive tests also had smaller volumes of gray matter in those brain regions and lower levels of those dietary markers, the analysis revealed.
While the study only reveals associations between these factors and does not prove that dietary habits directly promote brain health, it adds to the evidence that nutrition is a key factor in healthy aging, the researchers said.
“Our work encourages a more complete picture of healthy aging,” Zwilling said. This gives insight into the importance of diet and nutrition and the value of data fusion methods to study their contributions to adult development and the neuroscience of aging.”
This work was supported by a grant from Abbott Nutrition through the U. of I Center for Nutrition, Learning and Memory.
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