Eat basics and live to remember

Two studies back theories that a diet of fruits, vegetables and whole grains rich in antioxidants may help stave off Alzheimer's disease.

But they also produced some contradictory findings, which may be an inevitable drawback of asking future victims of the brain-robbing disease to reliably describe their diets.

Scientists have long tried to decipher the beneficial impact of Vitamins C and E, which are antioxidants that bind with and inactivate harmful "free radicals."

Created as the body's cells metabolise, free radicals harm cell structures and DNA and have been blamed for everything from premature ageing, to dementia and cancers.

Antioxidant benefits extend to reducing the toxicity of B-amyloid, which is found in the damaged brains of Alzheimer's victims.

The two studies found that Vitamin E - found in green, leafy vegetables, fortified cereals, cantaloupe, seeds and nuts, vegetable and olive oils, and whole grain products - reduced the risk of Alzheimer's.

The nine-year Dutch study of more than 5000 people aged 55 or older living in Rotterdam found that diets also rich in antioxidants Vitamin C, flavonoids and beta-carotene were protective against Alzheimer's.

The protective effect was especially true among smokers, considered another risk factor for Alzheimer's, according to the study's author, Marianne Engelhart of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But a smaller seven-year study of 815 subjects published in the same journal found a protective effect only with Vitamin E and not necessarily the other antioxidants.

Its author, Martha Morris, a professor of internal medicine at Rush Presbyterian-St Luke's Medical Centre in Chicago, said the more vitamin E that people consumed in their diets from foods, the lower their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

- REUTERS

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