Fruit and vegetable juice can delay Alzheimer's

• Certain polyphenols abundant in fruit and vegetable juices may play an important role in delaying the onset of Alzheimer's disease, reports Dominique Patton.
• The research was presented at the US-based Alzheimer's Association's first conference on prevention of dementia, running in Washington this week (abstract 05-A-103-ALZ-PC).
• The Florida researchers studied more than 1,800 older Japanese American men and women from the Kame Project in Seattle, in which participants were dementia-free at the onset of the study and were followed for up to nine years.
• Dietary consumption was determined using a food frequency questionnaire given at the beginning of the study that provided information on intake of fruits, vegetables, tea, wine, and fruit and vegetable juices.
• The accumulation of reactive oxygen species in the brain are thought to exhaust antioxidant capacity and lead to the onset or progression of Alzheimer's.
• Antioxidant vitamins, particularly vitamin E from dietary fruits and vegetables, has been associated with delayed onset of the disease, although there is little evidence to date that supplements can offer the same benefit.
• But animal studies have found that a number of polyphenols from juices have stronger protection for neuronal cells against oxidation than vitamins E and C.