Veggies Reported to Help Women's Brains
(AP, 7/19/04)

Jae Hee Kang of Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and team, correlated the dietary habits of 13,388 nurses over a ten-year period with the subjects’ performance on tests of memory, verbal ability and attention in two sessions when they were in their 70s. The researchers found that, although most of the women showed some decline in the two years between sessions, test scores fell less for those who had routinely eaten the most green leafy vegetables (like spinach and romaine lettuce) and cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli and cauliflower).

Other studies presented at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders support the contention that obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure raise the risk of developing Alzheimer's or other dementia and that positive mental, physical and social activities may reduce the risk. A study of 1,449 Finns by Dr. Miia Kivipelto of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, for instance, demonstrates that suffering from obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure in middle age increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's or other dementia in later life.