Resolution: Eat Greens to Stay Smart

Is your New Year's resolution to eat healthy in danger of slipping? Then read this: A newly-published study found that eating 1.3 servings of leafy greens per day led to a significant reduction of cognitive decline equivalent of being 11 years younger.

If you are like many of us, our resolve to eat healthy slips during the holiday season. There are so many tempting unhealthy foods around. And our family members and friends are encouraging us to indulge in high-sugar, high-fat treats. My personal demons include chocolate, candied nuts, and eggnog. I manage to avoid regular eggnog because I know it contains milk from cows and therefore the dairy protein, casein, that nutrition researcher Colin Campbell of Cornell refers to as "the most relevant chemical carcinogen ever identified." But this year, I discovered nog made from almond milk. It is certainly healthier than eggnog, but it contains fat and sugar. So drinking almond nog, along with my other dietary indiscretions, caused me to enter the new year with more pounds and a bigger waistline than I had a few weeks before.

So like many of us, I made a New Year's resolution to eat more healthy. If you have made a similar resolution, that's great. But as the days and weeks stretch on, the temptations are always whispering to us to stray from our resolution.

Here is a great reason to stay eating healthy. Rush University researchers published the results of their study1 that tracked 960 participants and found that the cognitive decline of people eating just 1.3 servings of leafy greens per day had slower cognitive decline equivalent of being 11 years younger in age. For their study, a serving consisted of 1/2 cup of spinach, kale, or collard greens or 1 cup of lettuce. So if you want to be able to think and remember clearly as you grow older, the message is clear: eat your leafy greens.

This study suggested that a better cognitive result comes from specific micronutrients in the greens that they named. While these compounds likely do contribute to cognitive health, it is also likely that there are many other health-promoting compounds in the green leafy vegetables that act in combination with each other to protect cognitive function. So taking a set of supplements of specific micronutrients is unlikely to have the same benefit as eating leafy greens.

There are other mechanism's for leafy greens to protect cognitive function. As people eat more greens, they are likely to eat less animal products. During their entire lives, animals are accumulating toxins in their tissues, so by the time we eat their meat or dairy products, we are getting a heavy load of pesticides and heavy metals that are known to produce cognitive decline. So eating fewer animal products results in less cognitive decline. Plus the added fiber from the greens helps transport toxins out of the intestines. So for many reasons, its good for your brain to eat leafy greens.

Here's to your long, healthy, and mentally-sharp life.

John Tanner

1.  Rush University researchers published the results of their study entitled "Nutrients and bioactives in green leafy vegetables and cognitive decline" by Martha Clare Morris, Yamin Wang, Lisa L. Barnes, David A. Bennett, Bess Dawson-Hughes and Sarah L. Booth. Published December 20, 2017, in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology. http://n.neurology.org/content/early/2017/12/20/WNL.0000000000004815
See also https://www.rush.edu/news/press-releases/daily-leafy-greens-may-slow-cognitive-decline

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