Older people who consume seafood or other foods containing omega-3 fatty acids at least once a week may experience a lesser cognitive decline than those who do not, according to research from Rush University Medical Center and Wageningen University published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging and the Judith Zwartz Foundation.
During the study, researchers followed 915 people with a mean age of 81.4 years for an average of five years. At study enrollment, none had signs of dementia. Each participant received annual, standardized testing for cognitive ability in five areas—episodic memory, working memory, semantic memory, visuospatial ability, and perceptual speed, and they also completed annual food frequency questionnaires, which allowed the researchers to compare participants’ reported seafood intake with changes in their cognitive abilities as measured by the tests.
Participants in the higher seafood consumption group ate an average of two seafood meals per week, while those in the lower group ate an average of 0.5 meals per week.
According to the researchers, people who ate more seafood had reduced rates of decline in both semantic memory—memory of verbal information—and perceptual speed, or the ability to quickly compare letters, objects, and patterns. The study did not find a significant difference in the rate of decline in episodic memory (recollection of personal experiences), working memory (short-term memory used in mental function in the immediate present), or visuospatial ability (comprehension of relationships between objects).
“This study helps show that while cognitive abilities naturally decline as part of the normal aging process, there is something that we can do to mitigate this process,” says Martha Clare Morris, a Rush nutritional epidemiologist and senior author of the paper.
