Recently, the NIH Director’s blog published an article titled “Could Flavanols Reverse Age-Related Memory Decline?” by Dr. Francis Collins explaining that flavanols – antioxidant compounds found in cocoa beans – could help diminish and even reverse age-related memory loss.
“In a study published in Nature Neuroscience, a research team partially funded by NIH has provided evidence that changes in a specific brain region are associated with age-related memory loss [1]. And they found that they could reverse this loss by boosting activity in this part of the brain, called the dentate gyrus. What’s especially interesting is that this boost came from a drink that was specially formulated to be rich in flavanols, a group of antioxidant compounds found in cocoa beans.”
While chocolate does contain flavanols, it doesn’t contain much – so don’t go binging on Snickers just yet! Hopefully, once more research is conducted, doctors will be able to administer flavanol-laden vitamins to help age-related memory loss.
[Click here to see another video on the flavanols and age-related memory loss from NIH]
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