Eating carrots, kale and sweet potatoes can prevent dementia as you get older

Eating carrots, kale and sweet potatoes can prevent dementia in older people, a new study suggests.

Many carotenoid compounds in carrots, kale and sweet potatoes can help boost brain activity, prevent dementia and dementia in the elderly.

People with high levels of lutein and zeaxanthin (the types of carotenoids - many organic pigments in plants) do not need a lot of brain activity to complete the word memorization, the scientists found.

Picture 1 of Eating carrots, kale and sweet potatoes can prevent dementia as you get older
Eating Carotenoid-rich foods enhances brain activity in the elderly.

Powerful compounds can be found in a wide variety of colorful vegetables and are known to improve cognition.

Researchers from the University of Georgia (USA) have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to find out how carotenoids affect brain activity. They measured brain activity of more than 40 people between the ages of 65 and 86 with an MRI scanner, while these people were trying to recall the pairs of words they had been exposed to before.

Researchers found that people with high levels of lutein and zeaxanthin (many types of carotenoids - many organic pigments in plants) do not need a lot of brain activity to complete the required memory.

However, people with low levels of these carotenoids must use different parts of the brain to memorize the words.

"There is a natural decline process that occurs in the brain when people get older, but the brain is still able to compensate for that deficiency. One of the ways to compensate is one," said lead researcher, Lindbergh . use more brain parts to complete a task, help the brain maintain the same rate of cognitive activity ".

Picture 2 of Eating carrots, kale and sweet potatoes can prevent dementia as you get older
Lutein and zeaxanthin are also effective in increasing eye health in older people.

Lindbergh's cutter added: "On the surface, people seem to have a normal memory ability. However, when analyzing the results through scanners, we found the activities happening in the brain of each person. Significant differences, based on their carotenoid levels ".

Scientists are currently conducting further research on the amount of carotenoids needed to ensure increased brain function. But before that, scientists still encouraged to supplement the daily intake of lutein and zeaxanthin.

In some previous studies, carrot carotenoids were also found to reduce breast cancer risk by up to 60%. In addition, lutein and zeaxanthin are also effective in increasing eye health in older people.