Eat more carbs for healthy brain

CONSUMING less protein and more carbohydrates could be the key to long life and healthy brain ageing, a new study suggests.

Scientists at the University of Sydney in Australia came to the conclusion after conducting diet experiments on mice.

The animals were allowed to eat as much as they liked, as long as the food was low in protein and high in carbohydrates.

As a result, their performance in learning and memory tests saw modest improvements. Both young and old mice of both sexes experienced the benefits. The effects mirrored those of calorie restriction, which had previously been shown to boost longevity but is not practical for humans.

Other work from the same university has indicated low-protein, high-carb diets can also promote long life by improving heart and digestive health.

Lead researcher PhD student Devin Wahl said: “We have close to 100 years of quality research extolling the benefits of calorie restriction as the most powerful diet to improve brain health and delay the onset of neurodegenerative disease in rodents.

“It shows a lot of promise that we have been able to replicate the same kind of gene changes in the part of the brain responsible for memory that we also see when we severely restrict calories.”

Some populations renowned for their healthy ageing have long observed the same kind of dietary pattern, according to the team’s senior author Professor David Le Couteur. They include the people of Okinawa in Japan and many Mediterranean communities.