This one is for anyone who cares about their memory as they age 🧠
🗞️ The just-released COSMOS-Web Study asked this question: Can flavanol supplements benefit the aging brain?
Flavanols are naturally occurring compounds in plant foods that have antioxidant and health-promoting properties, but not everyone eats enough 🍎🍇🍫
Building on over 15 years of research, the current study assigned 3500 healthy older adults to take a daily flavanol supplement (or placebo) for 3 years. The supplement contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80 mg of epicatechins.
The results?
✅ Memory scores improved slightly for everyone taking the daily flavanol supplement.
✅ Memory scores improved most significantly (by 16%) in those who were consuming a poorer diet and had lower baseline levels of flavanols.
✅ Even more importantly, memory improvement was sustained for at least two more years
Think of it like this:
Just like the developing brain of newborns and small children requires specific nutrients for proper development, so too does the aging brain require specific nutrients for optimal health.
Now we know flavanols are some of those key brain nutrients.
Reference
Brickman AM, Yeung LK, Alschuler DM, et al. Dietary flavanols restore hippocampal-dependent memory in older adults with lower diet quality and lower habitual flavanol consumption. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023;120(23):e2216932120. [link]
