Derek Burnett
Derek Burnett is a Contributing Writer at Bottom Line Personal, where he writes frequently on health and wellness. He is also a contributing editor with Reader’s Digest magazine.
If you’ve noticed that your memory isn’t quite what it used to be, you may be wondering if one way to combat memory loss might be to eat certain foods. If so, you’re on the right track. Certainly there is a clear link between our cognition and what we put into our bodies. The human brain cannot function at its best without a constant supply of vitamins, nutrients, and protective compounds, and there’s no doubt that a healthy diet is more conducive to brainpower than a junk-food diet.
Research bears this out. In a 2022 Harvard-led study of nearly 50,000 women, those who ate the healthiest diet had up to 40% lower odds of cognitive decline over a 30-year period compared to those with the worst diets.
Such research underscores an important point about what approach to take when it comes to improving brainpower through food. While there may be certain foods that help memory, your dietary approach to brain health should not be based on narrow, specific food choices but on generally healthy eating patterns. In other words, rather than eating the standard American diet (which is high in salt, sugar, unhealthy fats, and processed foods) and sprinkling in a few “brain-improving foods,” your best bet is to take a comprehensive approach, finding an eating pattern that is broadly healthy while incorporating some individual foods that have been linked to improved cognition.
Here’s an analogy to illustrate the difference between these two mindsets. Imagine that your cognition is a house and that an excellent “brain food” is a fancy new gutter system. Industry research shows that homes incorporating this new gutter system last longer. You could install that gutter system onto an otherwise neglected house, with a leaky roof, broken siding, cracked foundation, and blown-out windows. Or you could shore up the house to make it as stable as possible and then install the state-of-the-art gutter system as additional protection.
The human brain is a very hungry organ. It demands 20% of the oxygen we breathe, 25% of our blood supply, and 20% of the nutrition we take in. Obviously, when we eat and breathe, food and oxygen don’t proceed directly from the mouth to the brain. Instead, they get there through the circulatory system, which means that our hearts and blood vessels must be healthy for our brains to get the nutrients they need. In fact, there is virtually no difference between a heart-healthy diet and a brain-healthy diet, since the two organs need similar nutrients and since you can’t have a healthy brain without a healthy heart.
When you think about feeding your heart and brain, it’s helpful to break nutritional components down into three broad categories. Macronutrients are proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals. And a third category encompasses the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds known as phytonutrients.
Macronutrients… No matter what, you’re going to be consuming proteins, carbohydrates, and fats in one form or another. The trick to healthy eating is making smart choices when it comes to those macronutrients. For proteins, that means choosing plant and fish sources or lean cuts of meat rather than fatty, red, and processed meats. For carbohydrates, it means choosing whole grains and starches rather than refined products such as white flour, as well as making sure to get plenty of fiber. When it comes to fats, the healthy choice is olive oil and unsaturated fats from plant sources such as nuts and avocado, rather than saturated fats from animals.
Micronutrients… Brain health requires certain vitamins and minerals such as vitamins D, E, and B12, magnesium, zinc, and selenium. Although vitamin E has been associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s, consuming too much of it can be dangerous, so rather than taking it in pill form, get it from foods such as leafy green vegetables.
Phytonutrients… Antioxidants? Anthocyanins? Polyphenols? Flavanols? Flavonoids? It can be very confusing to try to keep all the labels straight, but the important thing to remember is that fruits and vegetables contain chemical compounds that tamp down inflammation and promote health in different ways. These compounds are often what give the foods their colors, and “eating the rainbow” is a good way to make sure you’re getting a variety of them. Examples include the kaempferols in onions and apples, the quercetin in tomatoes, the carotenoids in peppers, the flavanols in dark chocolate, and the flavonoids in tea.
The best-studied healthy eating pattern is the Mediterranean diet. But don’t let the word “diet” fool you. It isn’t a diet in the sense of being a fad or a temporary routine to help you lose weight. Instead, it’s a way of eating that one adopts and sticks to for a lifetime. There’s such overwhelming evidence for its heart and brain benefits that you could ignore all the other advice in this article and still have the best shot at protecting your cognition simply by adopting a Mediterranean dietary pattern.
The Mediterranean diet focuses on avoiding…Added salt, sugar, chemical preservatives, saturated (animal) fats, processed meats, and refined carbohydrates.
The Mediterranean diet focuses on including…Fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, natural foods, lean proteins, plant-based proteins, and olive oil.
There are several twists on the Mediterranean diet, including the Nordic diet, the DASH diet (for blood pressure), and the MIND diet designed explicitly for brain health. The MIND diet puts extra emphasis on berries and leafy green vegetables, but any form of the Mediterranean diet will go much further toward preserving your memory than the standard American diet.
When it comes to individual foods to eat to improve memory, bear in mind that any statement that a specific food is good for your brain should be taken with a grain of salt. Such claims may have some basis in scientific research, but it’s very difficult to design and execute an ethical study that would determine the exact effects of a single food on brain health. Instead, these studies are often conducted on animals, which may or may not translate over to humans, or are based on questionnaires in which researchers ask participants how often they eat certain foods. These can contain bias or faulty data.
The following foods have some degree of research supporting their brain-health benefits, but the shortcomings of that research underscore the importance of following a generally healthy eating pattern instead of chasing after individual superfoods.
Nuts… Virtually all nuts are considered healthy, although they’re calorie-dense and should be consumed in moderation. In particular, several studies have linked walnut consumption to superior cognitive outcomes.
Berries…In animal studies, berry consumption has been linked to improved cognition and short-term memory, as well as increased neuron production in the hippocampus. And in a study of 16,000 older women, regular berry consumption appeared to defer mental decline by about 2.5 years. Blueberries get most of the glory in the press, but most berries are probably similar in terms of brain health.
Leafy green vegetables…Spinach, kale, and similar vegetables are high in vitamin E, as are avocados, broccoli, and asparagus.
Seafood…Fish, particularly fatty fish including salmon, herring, sardines, mackerel and tuna, is the best source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are crucial to brain health. Experts recommend consuming two 4 oz. servings of fish a week.
Coffee and tea…Long considered vices, these beverages are shown to be brain-protective in more and more research, most likely thanks to their phytonutrients. In a study of 365,000 adults, those who drank two to three cups of coffee or three to five cups of tea daily enjoyed a 28% lower risk of dementia compared with those who eschewed the beverages.
