The healthy kind of fatty foods can be just the support your brain needs as it gets older. But there are two types of fatty foods that are better than any others: nuts and olive oil.Â
If you’re like me and one of your biggest nightmares is a memory that is degrading, then you might want to start today in taking steps to protect your brain from that. And scientists agree on what is the best kind of support: fatty foods like nuts and olive oil. The healthy fats in them are a good deterrent for oxidative stress, which is one of the reasons for the developing of dementia. Perhaps not coincidentally, these two foods are also key components of the Mediterranean diet.
If you want to do even more for your brain, then load up on these 5 foods as well!
How do these fatty foods help?
So you’ve probably heard about oxidative stress and free radicals, but how many of us actually know what those are? Free radicals are produced as part of the metabolic processes of the cells and usually, when the body is working properly, its defense system tends to clean up those free radicals. But oxidative stress means that too many of these free radicals are produced and the body doesn’t have enough resources to deal with them. Then the free radicals harm your cells. The only solution against them is the fabled antioxidants.
The subjects of a 2015 study conducted in Barcelona were put on a Mediterranean diet with a large dose of olive oil or about an ounce of mixed nuts per day. There was a third control group that just went on a low-fat diet. The results definitely speak in favor of olive oil and nuts. The participants were tested for cognitive ability, to be more precise memory, attention, and higher thought skills, at the beginning of the study and after about 4 years.
The low-fat diet control group participants had a significant decrease in every aspect of cognitive function. People who ate more nuts ended up having a better memory, while the ones who consumed more olive oil had better results in global cognition tests and higher thought skills.
