Researchers, based at the German University of Munster, have been conducting trials in an attempt to establish links between diet and memory.
In particular, they are seeking to discover if diet has an effect on the onset of the memory debilitating disease Alzheimer’s.
The scientists carefully monitored 50 people in the 60 years of age range. All of the people were considered to be medically within normal or slightly overweight condition.
They were divided into three separate sections. Each group was then required to take on a specific eating regime. One group was asked to decrease their calorie intake by 30%, another group were told to increase the number of calories they ate by 20%. The third group was told to take no action and continue to eat as they normally would.
For the next three months, scientists carefully followed their diets and at the end of the experiment carried out an identical memory test to one that they had performed on each volunteer before they started their different diets.
The results according to researchers were very clear, those who had reduced the number of calories they ate had improved their memory by 20%. The other two groups who are increased their calorie intake or had not changed their diet showed absolutely no change in their memory abilities.
The scientists concede that diet is not the only factor with memory loss, especially Alzheimer’s, but they believe that their results are a significant indicator of how diet affects memory.
