A joint team of Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), a research centre of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, along with the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, has shown that the regular consumption of foods rich in omega-3 fats, both of plant and marine origin, is related to a better capacity of the brain to metabolize the glucose necessary for its functioning, even if the first damage related to Alzheimer's disease has already occurred.
The results of the study, recently published in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, they point out that Preventive nutritional interventions, especially during middle age, could help improve brain function and prevent dementia associated with Alzheimer's.
Before the clinical symptoms of Alzheimer's disease appear, there are already specific areas of the brain that have difficulty metabolizing glucose.This is important because it is the organ in the body that uses it the most.”, he highlights Aleix Sala-Vila, author of the study, member of the Cardiovascular Risk and Nutrition Research Group of the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, and scientific collaborator of the BBRC.
The study, which focused on exploring whether omega-3 intake is linked to better glucose uptake in brain areas vulnerable to Alzheimer's, included data from 320 volunteers from the Alfa+ cohort, belonging to the Alfa cohort, promoted by the ”la Caixa” Foundation.
The results show that plant-based omega-3s (provided, for example, by foods such as nuts or soybeans) were associated with better use of brain glucose., especially in participants with a higher genetic risk (carriers of the APOE-e4 gene). On the other hand, omega-3s of marine origin (from oily fish) were more beneficial in those people who, despite not showing symptoms of Alzheimer's, were already beginning to show the accumulation of proteins characteristic of the disease (amyloid and tau).
