What diet + exercise can do for those with MCI

Описание: If you're looking for something that has the potential to bring a dramatic improvement in cognition, a combination of regular exercise and better eating habits could offer an answer for you. That's according to a new study at Duke University. It involved 160 people with mild cognitive impairment, and the results were impressive.

Watch my video on the easy, effective way to change a health habit:    • Try this proven strategy for health behavi...  

To learn more about exercise and brain health, watch this video on "The right 'dose' of exercise to save your brain":    • The right  'dose' of exercise to save your...  

For more about the MIND diet, watch this video on "10 Foods to Eat for Better Brain Health":    • 10 foods to eat for better brain health  

Read more about the Duke study in this article on the Harvard Health Letter: https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-a...

Here is a partial transcript of today's video:
If there were a way that you could turn your brain back to how it was working 10 years ago, most people would take that.

And p eople with mild cognitive impairment would definitely take that.

And there is a group of people with mild cognitive impairment who got that. Which was great for them, and it would be great for you, if you could do what they did, and get the benefit they got.

And that’s what I want to talk about today.

Hi, I’m Tony Dearing, of GoCogno.com, the website for people with mild cognitive impairment.

I do these videos every week, and people often ask me, what are you going to do when you run out of topics to talk about?

And I’m like, are you kidding me? We live in at time of explosive research about MCI. Really, the bulk of the research in brain health now focuses on mild cognitive impairment and new findings come out every day.

When I see something new come out that’s important to people with mild cognitive impairment, and shows them something they can do, right now, today, to get a potential cognitive benefit, I’m going to share it with you. Especially when the results are as dramatic as there were in a study that was just done at Duke University.

This was called the ENLIGHTEN study.

It involved 160 adults with an average age of 65.

And all of these people had mild cognitive impairment, and were sedentary, and had at least one cardiovascular risk factor.

So they broke these people down into four groups. The first group exercised regularly. The second group worked with a nutritionist to improve their diet, in this case, following what’s called the DASH diet. Of the others, some got both exercise and dietary improvements. And some didn’t do anything.

The people who exercised showed a measurable improvement in executive function, which is good, and was expected. We know that exercise can be good for cognition.

But here’s what really stood out. The people who did both, the people who exercised and ate according to the DASH diet showed a really significant improvement in executive function. According to the Harvard Health Letter, it was the equivalent of reversing brain aging by nearly 10 years.

Now to be clear, this was a small study, and it did not seem to affect memory and language in the same way it affected executive function. But this was a Phase 3 clinical trial, which is the highest level of scientific research, and it underscores the importance of healthy behaviors in potentially slowing or even halting cognitive decline, or as happened in this case, even significantly improving cognition.

So if you’re concerned about your cognition, and looking for things you can do, exercise and diet are two good places to start, and maybe work even better when you combine the two of them.

With exercise, the people in this study did 35 minutes of walking or riding an exercise bike three times a week.

But you don’t have to go to the gym. Any kind of physical activity that moderately raises your heart rate can do.

In terms of diet, the DASH diet was used in this study and it’s a good choice, but the Mediterranean diet or the MIND Diet (which combines the brain-health elements of both the Mediterranean and DASH diets) is even more associated with cognitive health.

So what’s the bottom line here? I've got two takeaways for you today.

First, these things your doctor is telling you to do, they really can work.

And second, as the Harvard Health Letter reminds us:

“It’s never to late to start.”

Thanks for joining me today. I’ll see you again next week. Until then, as always, be kind to your mind.

This site is educational, and is not intended as medical advice. It offers information about lifestyle choices that have been proven to help protect cognition. Always consult your doctor before making changes that can impact your health.