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It’s no secret that eating fruit is beneficial to your health, but a new study shows that it may actually help keep women’s minds sharp as they age.
BWH researchers found that a high intake of flavonoid-rich berries, such as strawberries and blueberries, may delay memory decline in older women by up to two and a half years.
“What makes our study unique is the amount of data we analyzed over such a long period of time. No other berry study has been conducted on such a large scale,” said study lead author Elizabeth Devore, ScD, of the Channing Laboratory. “Among women who consumed two or more servings of strawberries and blueberries each week, we saw a modest reduction in memory decline. This effect appears to be attainable with relatively simple dietary modifications.”
The research team used data from the Nurses’ Health Study—a cohort of 121,700 female registered nurses between the ages of 30 and 55—who have completed health and lifestyle questionnaires since 1976. Beginning in 1980, participants were surveyed every four years regarding their frequency of food consumption. Between 1995 and 2001, researchers measured memory in 16,010 subjects over the age of 70, at two-year intervals.
“We provide the first epidemiologic evidence that berries appear to slow progression of memory decline in elderly women,” said Devore. “Our findings have significant public health implications as increasing berry intake is a fairly simple dietary modification to reduce memory decline in older adults.”
Published in the Annals of Neurology, the study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the California Strawberry Commission. The study was independently controlled by the investigators who performed the data analysis.