Higher flavonol intake was linked to lower risk of Alzheimer’s dementia in a prospective cohort study of older adults.
After adjusting for genetic, demographic, and lifestyle factors, people who consumed the highest dietary intake of flavonols were 48% less like to develop Alzheimer’s dementia than people with the least intake, reported Thomas Holland, MD, of Rush University in Chicago, and colleagues, in Neurology.
“This research lends a further understanding of the contents of the foods we eat,” Holland said. “The bioactives in foods — which from our research would be specifically flavonols found in kale, spinach, tomatoes, tea, olive oil, apples, pears, and over 20 other foods — have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that have the potential to protect against cellular damage due to oxidative stress and sustained inflammation,” he told MedPage Today.
Flavonols are a type of flavonoid, a group of phytochemicals found in plant pigments. “Technically speaking, we knew little regarding flavonols, specifically, and Alzheimer’s dementia,” Holland said. Earlier research has looked at antioxidants and Alzheimer’s risk, but no studies have researched whether dietary intake of flavonoid subclasses is associated with Alzheimer’s dementia, he added.
This work complements other studies that show fruit and vegetables support brain health, observed Robert Friedland, MD, of the University of Louisville, who wasn’t involved with the study.
“The presence of flavonols in plants has developed through evolution because of their ability to protect the plant against damaging rays from the sun,” he told MedPage Today. “In humans, flavonols similarly protect us from free radicals, products of oxidative metabolism. Flavonol intake also may be beneficial through influence on the partner microorganisms we have in the gut, the microbiota.”
“Fruit and vegetables are good sources of dietary fiber, which is metabolized by the microbiota, producing short chain fatty acids, enhancing colonic health and serving to produce circulating immune cells which protect the brain from the inflammatory components of neurodegenerative diseases,” Friedland continued. “A remarkable array of experimental data has now amply demonstrated the importance of the microbiota in age-related brain diseases.”
Read the full article here: https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/alzheimersdisease/84603
