How much time do you spend thinking about improving the way you eat instead of doing exactly that? How many times have you promised to eat a salad at lunch and had a take-out instead? Yes, we all have learned the great importance of a healthy diet. However, it is not uncommon for us to forget about it as we turn to a tasty burger or a home-made grilled cheese. And although this might not seem like a big deal while we are young, the great consciences are going to come later.
Maybe in the form of high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, or often, unfortunately, in the form of a bad memory. So the question is – does your diet really influence your memory? Or to ask it better – can you bad diet be the cause for your bad memory later in life? As it turns out – yes, unfortunately, that burger or fries will evidently add to your poor memory as you age. So the next question is – how? Let’s find out!
What does the term healthy diet stand for?
A healthy diet is a term that stands for a diet that includes all food groups. It includes vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, sugars, and a lot of water. All of these components are essential for a healthy body and mind. Whenever a component is missing, or its intake is sufficient, your body responds in a proper way with a decreased function of some kind. And as it turns out, one of those functions can be our memory!
How is the healthy diet and memory loss connected?
Let’s start with the basics. Your brain is an organ like every other organ in your body. This means that it requires energy to perform all of its important functions, one of which is creating memories. It is the bloodstream that brings this energy in the form of compounds that the brain uses. However, if the bloodstream is for some reason damaged or unable to bring these compounds to the brain, the brain will be unable to proceed with completing all of its work.
One way that this can happen is when your cholesterol is high and starts to build up in the walls of the blood vessels, making it harder for the blood to be transported through the body. And how can your cholesterol increase to abnormal ranges? Through an unhealthy diet filled with lots of saturated and unsaturated fats with a sufficient level of vitamins and minerals, of course! Another factor has been investigated and then published a study in the Journal of Neurology.
For the purposes of this study, 27, 860 participants have been gathered whose eating habits have been followed. All of these participants were a part of a risk group for cardiovascular disease of some kind. The study lasted for 56 months in which 4, 699 cases of memory decline have been noticed. All of these cases were participants who did not mind the way that they ate, following a bad, unhealthy diet.
On the other hand, a lower risk of memory decline and loss has been detected among the participants who were noticed to follow a healthy lifestyle and a healthy diet. This has led to the conclusion that memory loss is unavoidable when an unhealthy diet is being followed. Not to mention all of the other health risks that an unhealthy diet brings along.
What kind of diet should you follow?
It is the Mediterranean diet that is being considered to have a great impact regarding our health and, most importantly, to prevent memory decline and eventually complete loss.
The Mediterranean diet is filled with foods of all food groups, just like we talked about what a healthy diet should include. It includes a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, which will bring all the natural sugars, vitamins, and minerals, whole grains, which will bring the fibers and a lot of fresh fish from which your body can use the healthy fats.
Conclusion
Feeling as your memory declines is not an easy thing to go through for you, nor for your family and friends around you. Sure, it is normal for our memory to decline in small ranges as we grow old, and our body starts to go through the unavoidable changes. But what if you can improve your chances and decrease the risk of great memory loss?
We are talking about a healthy diet that has been shown to decrease the risk of memory decline. And there is real scientific proof behind this statement. So why not try to really prepare and eat that salad today instead of leaving it for tomorrow as you snack on those fatty fries? It will be surely worth it!
