Summary
An Omega-3 fatty acid known as DHA and commonly found in fish, may be just the ticket to protecting yourself from Alzheimer's Disease. A recent study was conducted on two groups of genetically altered mice, one fed a DHA deficient diet, and the other loaded with fatty acids. The mice were trained to perform a task and then asked to remember it later. The group with the deficient diet could not perform the task, while the group fed a diet rich in Omega-3 fatty acids completed the assigned tasks.
This discovery could be an important factor in preventing Alzheimer's by supplementing your diet with DHA or healthy oils found in fish.
Original source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-09-01-alzheimers_x.htm
Details
- A diet rich in a type of fatty acid found in salmon and other types of oily fish might help protect the brain from Alzheimer's, according to new study of mice.
- Salmon is one type of food that is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids.
- The study, published in today's Neuron, says that such a diet helped prevent memory loss and brain damage in mice genetically engineered to get an Alzheimer's-like disease.
- These findings, along with other evidence, suggest that people at risk for Alzheimer's might gain some protection by eating foods or taking supplements that contain an omega-3 fatty acid called DHA.
- "People can control what they eat," says Greg Cole, a neuroscientist at UCLA.
- Cole hopes that adding DHA to the diet might help reduce the rising rates of Alzheimer's, a disease that afflicts 4.5 million Americans today and could affect up to 16 million by the middle of the century.
- The UCLA team studied mice that had been genetically altered to develop the abnormal brain deposits, or plaques, that are hallmarks of this disease.
- They first trained the mice to find a raised platform in a tank of water.
- Mice fed the DHA-rich diet performed much better on the memory test, finding the underwater platform in most trials.
- In contrast, the mice eating the DHA-deficient diet flunked the test: More often than not, these mice couldn't find the platform at all.
- "They swam in circles at the edge of the tank," says co-author Sally Frautschy of UCLA.
- Mice on the bad diet had lots of damage where nerve cells connect, a type of brain damage often seen in Alzheimer's patients with more advanced disease, Cole says.
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Saturday, September 04, 2004
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