Brain Food: Eating Fish May Lower Your Risk of Alzheimer's

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Eating fish is good for the heart, and now new evidence suggests it may do the brain some good as well.

In a study of 260 healthy elderly participants, researchers led by Dr. Cyrus Raji, a resident at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's department of medicine, found that those regularly eating baked or broiled fish — but not fried — lowered their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Raji and his colleagues took brain scans of all of the volunteers at the start of the study, then again many years later, tracking these changes over an average 10 years. They compared the changes they found in the brain scans with food questionnaires that the participants answered. Compared with non-fish-eaters, those eating fish at least once a week showed less brain-cell loss in the hippocampus and frontal cortex regions of the brain, which are responsible for regulating memory. These people also showed stronger working, or short-term, memory, which allowed them to perform tasks more efficiently.

People who ate fish at least once a week — most of whom consumed fish one to four times a week — were significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment over the five years following their brain scans, compared with those who didn't eat fish.

But the association may have to do with lifestyle habits other than eating baked or broiled fish that could make people healthier overall. As Dr. Richard Lipton, a neurologist at the Albert Einstein Medical College of Medicine, told USA Today, "One has to wonder if there are other factors associated with fish consumption that they didn't measure that might be protective. Like maybe people who eat fish exercise more, or eat less total calories."

The fact that fish-eaters may experience brain benefits from seafood does make sense, however — other studies have suggested that the omega-3 fatty acids found in some fish such as salmon can lower the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's.

The new findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.

Alice Park is a writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @aliceparkny. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Can Eating Fruits and Veggies Outwit Bad Heart Genes?

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We know that eating lots of fruits and vegetables is good for the heart, but can a healthy diet really overcome the effect of genes that boost your risk for heart problems?

Yes, it can, according to researchers in Canada who studied data on more than 27,000 people to figure out which contributes more to the risk of heart disease: environment or genes. The researchers focused on a group of people with specific genetic variants that are known to increase the risk of heart disease. They found that people who had the variants but ate lots raw fruits and vegetable showed no increased heart risk, compared with those who had a less healthy diet, who were twice as likely to have a heart attack.

"We found that among those with the high-risk genotype, if they consumed a diet high in vegetables and fruits, their risk for heart attack did not increase despite their having the high-risk gene profile," says Dr. Sonia Anand, a professor of medicine at epidemiology at McMaster University and one of the co-authors of the study published in PLoS Medicine.

The scientists relied on two large sets of data, one that involved more than 8,100 people in 52 different countries, comparing those who had had heart attacks with similar people who had not, and another set from Finland including more than 19,000 participants who were surveyed every five years for heart-related deaths, heart attacks, angina, stroke or bypass and angioplasty procedures. Both groups also answered detailed questionnaires about what they ate.

The research team divided the enrollees in the first study into three diet groups based on their answers on 19 food-related questions. People were classified as eating primarily "western," "oriental," or "prudent" diets. Western diets included eggs, meats, fried and salty food, sugar and desserts; the oriental diet included more tofu, pickled foods, green leafy vegetables, soy sauce and less sugar. Finally, the prudent diet eaters followed what most of us would recognize as a heart-healthy menu: raw vegetables, fruits, nuts and some dairy products. Participants in the larger Finnish study were also placed in the prudent group, based on their intake of fruits, vegetables and berries.

MORE: To Help Erectile Dysfunction, Treat the Heart

The scientists further separated the participants within the various dietary groups by their genetic profiles. Specifically, the authors looked for four variants on a region of DNA on chromosome 9 that is known to boost heart attack risk by up to 20% in carriers, compared with those without the variants. People in the current study who had the high-risk genes — in this case, two versions of them, one from their mother and one from their father — were two times more likely to have a heart attack if their diet was lacking in fruits and veggies, compared with the "prudent" eaters.

That suggests that diet can make a real difference in heart disease risk, even when that risk is genetically based. "It means that perhaps our family history, or genetic risk, is modifiable," says Anand. "Despite not being able to change our genetics, if we are able to modify the effect or expression of our genes. That's exciting."

The scientists were encouraged to study this effect after animal studies showed that heart muscle in mice bred without the high-risk genes had different responses to different diets. That served as hint that perhaps what we eat could alter the way the heart functions. How that happens isn't clear yet, but it's possible that eating lots of fruits and vegetables somehow change the way the genes in this region make their proteins or enzymes, prompting them to produce factors that may counteract the effects of heart risk factors like atherosclerosis.

MORE: Environmental Toxins Linked to Atherosclerosis, Heart Risk

However it works, the fact that something within our control can combat the effects of disease-causing genes should be good news, especially for those of us who try valiantly to resist meats and processed foods and to stick with a more raw foods-focused diet. So, when it comes to heart health, it looks like Mother knew best: Eat your vegetables.

Alice Park is a writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @aliceparkny. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Eating solid foods early doesn't affect baby growth

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By Linda Thrasybule

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:18am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Infants raised on formula who are introduced to solid foods before four months of age tend to gain more weight within the first year than infants who start later, a recent study suggests.

But the age at which babies were given solid foods didn't seem to influence much of their longer-term growth.

"It's not about how fast they grow, but whether the children are likely to be overweight," said Dr. Berthold Koletzko, a study co-author who studies nutrition at the Dr. von Hauner Children's Hospital in Munich, Germany. "And they're not more likely to be overweight by two years if they receive solids earlier."

Researchers tracked nearly 700 European infants for two years. Infants between six and seven pounds raised on formula received solid foods starting a little over three months, between three and four months, between four and five months, or six months or later.

Babies who started solid foods at three months weighed less but caught up in growth within six months compared to those who started solid foods at six months and grew slowly within three months.

By two years, there were no differences between groups in weight or length.

Infants eating solid foods also consumed more calories during the first eight months.

Among children born at lower weights, "researchers found an association between lower birth weight and introducing solid foods earlier," said Dr. Lindsey Sjaarda, a researcher at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, who was not part of the study.

"It's something that needs to be explored. Recent research seems to indicate that catch-up growth isn't always a good thing," she told Reuters Health.

The study applies to populations in industrialized countries, where "a large fraction of children" have "already been introduced to solid foods before four months of age," according to the authors, not developing countries.

Previous studies have shown conflicting results on whether infants who start eating solid foods earlier are more likely to become obese.

Childhood obesity has tripled over the past three decades, with about 12.5 million American children and adolescents obese, according to a 2007-2008 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Though Koletzko agreed that children who grow faster will demand more food, and possibly gain more weight, he didn't think they will likely become obese.

He recommended introducing solid foods when a baby shows interest by sitting up and reaching for food or opening their mouths when they see their parents eating. But he cautioned that some infants may need more calories than others.

"At this age, communication happens between infants and parents," he told Reuters Health. "They give a lot of signals to parents. But if the baby is not signaling, don't force it, just wait."

SOURCE: bit.ly/qZMqeA American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online September 14, 2011.

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Pregnancy: Eating Well Cuts the Risk of Birth Defects

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Need more of a reason to eat a healthy diet? Pregnant women who load up on fruits, veggies and whole grains have a reduced risk of having babies with neural tube defects, such as spina bifida or cleft lip, according to one of the first studies to look at the connection between diet and birth defects.

What that means for expectant mothers is that it's not enough just to take folic acid, which doctors recommend as a way to prevent up to 40% of neural tube defects (NTDs). As word has spread among pregnant women about the importance of a folic-acid supplementation, the number of babies born with NTDs has declined — but it hasn't dropped to zero. "We need to keep searching for answers," says Suzan Carmichael, lead author of the study published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. 

Carmichael, an associate professor in the pediatrics department at Stanford University, decided to look at the importance of overall nutrition rather than focusing on a single nutrient such as folic acid.

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Researchers studied 6,147 moms of babies without birth defects and 3,411 moms of babies born with NTDs and oral-facial clefts, all of whom were due between 1997 and 2005. They analyzed how closely each woman's diet hewed to two measures of diet quality: the Mediterranean diet and the U.S. Department of Agriculture food pyramid. Both diets emphasize healthy eating from various food groups, but the food pyramid stresses the importance of also including specific nutrients.

"One thing we know is nutrition is much more complex than a single nutrient," says Carmichael.

She found that women who ate the best-quality diets were up to 50% less likely to have a baby with anencephaly, a serious birth defect in which the brain doesn't fully form, than women who ate low-quality diets. They were up to 20% less likely to have a baby with spina bifida and up to 30% less likely to give birth to an infant with cleft lip or cleft palate. The highest-quality diets involved lots of fruits, vegetables and grains and fewer saturated fats and sweets.

MORE: Do We Need Vitamin-Supplemented Birth Control Pills?

The findings held true regardless of whether a woman took prenatal vitamins containing folic acid. "It's not to say that's not important, but we found the quality of diet matters," says Carmichael.

Bottom line: folic acid is important, but so is healthy eating.

Bonnie Rochman is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @brochman. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Can eating fish lower the risk of strokes?

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n">(Reuters) - People who eat fish a few times each week are slightly less likely to suffer a stroke than those who only eat a little or none at all, according to an international analysis.

The omega-3 fatty acids in fish may lower stroke risk through their positive effects on blood pressure and cholesterol, wrote Susanna Larsson and Nicola Orsini of Sweden's Karolinska Institute in the journal Stroke.

Their analysis was based on 15 studies conducted in the United States, Europe, Japan and China, each of which asked people how frequently they ate fish, then followed them for between four and 30 years to see who suffered a stroke.

"I think overall, fish does provide a beneficial package of nutrients, in particular the omega-3s, that could explain this lower risk," said Dariush Mozaffarian, a Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist whose research was included in the analysis.

"A lot of the evidence comes together suggesting that about two to three servings per week is enough to get the benefit."

Vitamin D, selenium, and certain types of proteins in fish may also have stroke-related benefits, he added.

Data for the analysis came from close to 400,000 people aged 30 to 103.

Over anywhere from a few years to a few decades, about 9,400 people had a stroke. Eating three extra servings of fish each week was linked to a six-percent drop in stroke risk, which translates to one fewer stroke among a hundred people eating extra fish over a lifetime.

The people in each study who ate the most fish were 12 percent less likely to have a stroke than those that ate the least.

Mozaffarian's report separated the effects of different kinds of fish and found that people who ate more fried fish and fish sandwiches, not surprisingly, didn't get any stroke benefit.

But the research can't prove that adding more non-fried fish to your diet will keep you from having a stroke, Mozaffarian told Reuters Health.

People "could have healthier diets in other ways, people could exercise more, people could have better education that could lead them to see their doctors more," he added, all of which could decrease their risk of strokes.

Still, most studies have tried to take those other health and nutrition factors into account to isolate the effects of fish as much as possible -- and they suggest a cause-and-effect relationship, he said.

It's likely that people who start out eating no fish or very little probably have the most to gain by putting it on their plate more often.

"You get a lot of bang for your buck when you go from low intake to moderate, a few servings per week," Mozaffarian said.

After that, the benefit from each extra serving probably goes down.

Fatty fish such as salmon and herring are especially high in omega-3s, The American Heart Association recommends at least two servings of fatty fish in particular each week. SOURCE: bit.ly/oe88xL

(Reporting from New York by Genevra Pittman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

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