Don’t go ‘fruity’ or ‘nutty’ just yet
Older adults who eat diets high in antioxidants may not have a lower risk of dementia or stroke, according to a Dutch study – despite some evidence that specific vitamins have a protective effect on the brain.
Older adults who eat diets high in antioxidants may not have a lower risk of dementia or stroke, according to a Dutch study – despite some evidence that specific vitamins have a protective effect on the brain.
The study, published in Neurology, found people who consumed the most antioxidants – appearing in large quantities in foods such as beans, berries and nuts – were just as likely to end up having either dementia or a stroke.
“There is the thought that overall antioxidants might be helpful, but it’s also true that if you actually look at the individual antioxidants, there’s not necessarily a reason to think that one would behave exactly the same way in the body as the next,” study leader Elizabeth Devore, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said.
The Netherlandsbased study included 5,395 people aged 55 years and older, who reported their usual consumption of 170 different foods in 1990.
Ms Devore and her colleagues then tracked those participants over the next 14 years. During that time, 599 were diagnosed with dementia and 601 had a first stroke.
There was also no link between total dietary antioxidants and white or grey matter volume in the brain, according to scans on the participants.
