NEW YORK — August 13, 2014 — Eating baked or broiled fish at least once a week may preserve parts of the brain that are hit hard by aging, according to a small new study.
Brain scans showed that people over age 65 who regularly ate fish had 14 percent more gray matter in brain regions associated with memory and 4 percent more in areas devoted to cognition than people who didn’t consume fish regularly.
The effect was independent of omega-3 fatty acids in the study participants’ blood, suggesting that a fondness for fish is a sign of an overall healthy lifestyle that benefits the brain, researchers said.
“The presence of baked or broiled fish in the diet reflected more general differences in lifestyle than could be accounted for simply by measuring one biological compound." said Dr. James Becker, the study's lead author from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
"Even after controlling for a range of other factors that might have accounted for differences in brain health, eating baked or broiled fish was still a significant predictor of a healthy brain,” he said.
Omega-3 fatty acids, which are plentiful in oily fish varieties like tuna and salmon, have been credited with benefits for the heart and brain, including possibly preventing the normal brain shrinkage that happens with age (see Reuters Health article of January 24, 2014 here: http://reut.rs/1pO5Xgb).
Becker and his coauthors write in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that there are more than 20 million people with dementia in the world and that number is expected to double every 20 years until there are 80 million people afflicted in the year 2040.
Any modifiable behavior that could help preserve brain function in the aging population is worth exploring “as a means to influence risk of dementia,” the study team writes.
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