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A long-term diet rich in vegetables, fruit, and orange juice was tied to lower risk of memory loss in men, a prospective study found.
Greater intake of total vegetables, total fruit, and fruit juice across middle to late adulthood were associated with lower odds of moderate poor subjective cognitive function in later life,
reported Changzheng Yuan, ScD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues.
Leafy greens, dark orange and red vegetables, and berry fruits showed the strongest links in subgroup analyses. And a vegetable- and fruit-rich diet 18-22 years earlier was linked with lower
odds of poor cognitive function independent of more recent eating patterns, they wrote in Neurology.
"One of the most important factors in this study is that we were able to research and track such a large group of men over a 20-year period of time, allowing for very telling results," Yuan
said in a statement. "Our studies provide further evidence dietary choices can be important to maintain your brain health."
The study looked at repeated assessments of diet over 20 years in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, a prospective cohort of American men who were dentists, optometrists, pharmacists,
podiatrists, and veterinarians. The analysis included 27,842 men with a mean age of 51 years at enrollment in 1986.
Every 4 years, participants completed a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire about their usual intake of foods and beverages over the preceding year, with frequencies
ranging from