Today, March 12, marks the beginning of Brain Awareness Week, a global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research into conditions such as Parkison’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, schizophrenia and epilepsy.
Now, I’m a total geek for research, as you probably realise if you’ve been reading my articles for a while, but the sad reality is that decades of research, millions of dollars and countless hours of human endeavour have failed to deliver a single drug that slows or stops Alzheimer’s disease; the same is true for Parkinson’s disease; and outcomes for schizophrenics who don’t take the medications that emerge from medical research are better than for those who do.
None of us can afford to wait around for research to deliver a ‘cure’ for degenerative brain disease. The urgent priority is to implement the findings of research that has already been done on how to prevent conditions such as dementia, which is now the second leading cause of death in Australia.
The Brain Foundation does mention the importance of a healthy lifestyle to reduce the risk of developing degenerative diseases of the brain, but the dietary advice they give is disturbingly vague – what does “a well-balanced, low cholesterol, low saturated (animal-fat) diet” actually mean?
A study published in the journal Neurology in December 2017 provides much more concrete guidance: to slow down brain aging, do what your Mama always told you – eat your greens.
The study followed 960 participants of the Memory and Aging Project, who were aged 58–99 years at baseline, for an average of nearly 5 years. Their diets were assessed, and they all underwent at least 2 cognitive assessments over the study period.
Eating green leafy vegetables was found to slow down the rate of cognitive decline as participants aged. By how much, you ask? The brains of those who ate the most greens were, in terms of memory and overall cognitive function, 11 years younger than those who ate the least, even after adjusting for factors known to affect brain health, such as age, sex, education, participation in cognitive activities, physical activities, smoking and alcohol consumption.
What was truly gob-smacking was how little greens it took to protect people’s brains – those eating the most greens were having just 1.3 servings per day, or a little over a cup of raw greens. My daily lunch-time salad has at least 4 cups of greens in it… and there’s always a large serving of a green leafy vegetable on the dinner plate too.
I’ve been telling clients for years to up their intake of green leafy vegetables, because they are the most nutrient-per-calorie rich foods on the planet, packed with vitamins, minerals, prebiotic fibres and phytochemicals.
In this study, the nutrients and bioactive compounds that were found to be most protective against dementia were phylloquinone (vitamin K1), nitrate, folate, α-tocopherol, and kaempferol, all of which are found in abundance in green leafy vegetables – especially the darkest ones, such as kale, rocket, mustard greens and silverbeet.
Of course, nit-pickers will argue that ‘correlation does not equal causation’ and that this one study does not prove that green leafy vegetable consumption prevents dementia, which is perfectly true. However, what’s the downside of eating more greens, while we wait for larger and longer-running studies to confirm the finding?
Higher intake of green leafy vegetables has also been found to be associated with a lower risk of stroke, certain types of cancer, cardiovascular disease and glaucoma, just to name a few diseases whose incidence increases as people age, so this finding on cognitive decline fits into a broader picture which strongly indicates that green leafy vegetables should be on your plate every day if want to stave off the negative health effects of aging.
Here are five simple suggestions for getting more greens into your grub:
- Always add greens when making a smoothie. Green smoothie ‘virgins’ can start with baby spinach, which has a mild flavour that completely disappears when blended with banana, mango, berries, kiwifruit and other smoothie favourites. For more adventurous palates, try baby bok choy, kale and coriander. And don’t forget that mint is a green leafy vegetable too – it pairs beautifully with pineapple and can also be used to turn your banana-cacao smoothie into a choc-mint taste bud sensation.
- Centre at least one meal per day on a large salad of leafy greens. Mix it up by using different varieties of lettuce, baby spinach, rocket, dandelion greens and other edible weeds, Asian greens such as bok choy, cabbage, watercress and kale.
- Add finely shredded green leafy vegetables to soups, stews and bean dishes. Frozen chopped spinach and kale make it easy to green your plate, with no prep time and no food waste.
- Make stir-fries part of your weekly meal rotation. Asian greens such as bok choy, choy sum and Chinese cabbage lend themselves beautifully to this mode of cooking.
- Don’t forget dessert – baby spinach can be blended into ‘nice cream’ and this heavenly chocolate pudding recipe.
For an in-depth primer on preventing age-related disease and maximising your lifespan and healthspan, see my Deep Dive Webinar “Healthy Aging” – just one of the dozens of webinars that members of my EmpowerEd health and nutrition education program have access to.
To formulate an anti-aging plan tailored to your unique history, current health situation and risk factors, apply for a Roadmap to Optimal Health Consultation today.
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