From: express
Feeding the nuts to mice with Alzheimer’s disease kept their mental skills up, researchers discovered.
But mice deprived of them suffered a dramatic loss in learning, memory and physical and emotional control.
Dr Abha Chauhan, who led the research, said: “Walnuts may have a beneficial effect in reducing the risk, delaying the onset or slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”
His team from the New York State Institute told the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease at Honolulu in Hawaii yesterday that vitamin E and flavonoids in walnuts helped destroy harmful free radical chemicals that cause dementia.
The results represent a breakthrough in the study of how the brain decays. An estimated 750,000 Britons have dementia and the number is expected to hit a million by 2025.
More than half suffer from Alzheimer’s, the most common form of the disease. Dementia affects a third of over-65s by the time they die.
Other studies have shown the benefits of tea and coffee and exercise.
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