Vegetables and your brain

I almost put this one in the "Ridiculous Item Of The Day" thread.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Heal ... 480629.cms

I have a hard time believing this, but I digress to those scientists and other people who should know more about the subject than I do


Comments and Opinions anyone?

Also, are you a vegetarian and if so, how do you think this might, or already has, related to you.

Eh, that article doesn't make sense at times. In one sentence that say beer does less damage than wine, then in the next they give a number that suggests the opposite.

I wouldn't put much stock in this one, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt for vegetarians to consider a vitamin supplement.

[face=Times New Roman]With media reports of this type, I often find it helpful to track down the source material to form an opinion. So here it is:

Vogiatzoglou A, Refsum H, Johnston C, Smith SM, Bradley KM, de Jager C, Budge MM, Smith AD. Vitamin B12 status and rate of brain volume loss in community-dwelling elderly. Neurology. 2008;71:826-32.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relationship between markers of vitamin B(12) status and brain volume loss per year over a 5-year period in an elderly population. METHODS: A prospective study of 107 community-dwelling volunteers aged 61 to 87 years without cognitive impairment at enrollment. Volunteers were assessed yearly by clinical examination, MRI scans, and cognitive tests. Blood was collected at baseline for measurement of plasma vitamin B(12), transcobalamin (TC), holotranscobalamin (holoTC), methylmalonic acid (MMA), total homocysteine (tHcy), and serum folate. RESULTS: The decrease in brain volume was greater among those with lower vitamin B(12) and holoTC levels and higher plasma tHcy and MMA levels at baseline. Linear regression analysis showed that associations with vitamin B(12) and holoTC remained significant after adjustment for age, sex, creatinine, education, initial brain volume, cognitive test scores, systolic blood pressure, ApoE epsilon4 status, tHcy, and folate. Using the upper (for the vitamins) or lower tertile (for the metabolites) as reference in logistic regression analysis and adjusting for the above covariates, vitamin B(12) in the bottom tertile (<308 pmol/L) was associated with increased rate of brain volume loss (odds ratio 6.17, 95% CI 1.25-30.47). The association was similar for low levels of holoTC (<54 pmol/L) (odds ratio 5.99, 95% CI 1.21-29.81) and for low TC saturation. High levels of MMA or tHcy or low levels of folate were not associated with brain volume loss. CONCLUSION: Low vitamin B(12) status should be further investigated as a modifiable cause of brain atrophy and of likely subsequent cognitive impairment in the elderly.

Admittedly, I have only skimmed the full text of the article, but I can find no reference to vegetarian diets therein!

Dietary sources of B12 include meat, oily fish, dairy products, and eggs – as well as fortified breakfast cereals. It is true that some vegetarian diets may be relatively deficient in B12. The only inference I draw is that strict vegetarians, like everyone else, need to pay attention to their nutritional intake.[/face]

as someone who was vegan for 5 years and is still a strict vegetarian, you do need to watch your nutritional intake, but it's not some sort of number crunching experience. there are also vitamins available that will give you your daily b12.