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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Senior citizens interested in hanging on to their brain power may want to increase the amount of meat, fish and milk in their diets.
According to researchers from the United Kingdom, eating these and other foods rich in vitamin B12 protect against the loss of brain volume as we age.
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The investigators arrived at that conclusion after looking at vitamin B12 levels in about 100 people ages 61 to 87. All were assessed with brain scans and memory tests to measure brain volume and cognitive abilities, and had blood tests to measure vitamin B12 levels.
Over about five years of follow up, results showed people with higher vitamin B12 levels were six times less likely to end up with brain shrinkage as people with lower levels.
Many factors that affect brain health are thought to be out of our control, but this study suggests that simply adjusting our diets to consume more vitamin B12 through eating meat, fish, fortified cereals or milk may be something we can easily adjust to prevent brain shrinkage and so perhaps save our memory, study author Anna Vogiatzoglou, M.Sc., from the University of Oxford, was quoted as saying.
SOURCE: Neurology, published online September 8, 2008
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