Possible reasons for memory loss in older adult cases

Posted by Kayla Phantom On Friday, December 30th 2011 in Health

It appears that bad memory in cases of older adults has a new cause and also a prevention. A research made by the U.S. National Institutes of Health revealed that older adults have pockets of dead brain cells that have been caused by "silent strokes." The size of the hippocampus, however, does not affect memory loss.

"Since silent strokes and the volume of the hippocampus appeared to be associated with memory loss separately in our study, our results also support stroke prevention as a means for staving off memory problems," said study author Adam Brickman, of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. The explanation was given in a news release made by the American Academy of Neurology.

Another study revealed that certain vitamins and low-trans-fat diets might help in this condition.

“Trans fats are known to be bad for cardiovascular health, so it's not too much of stretch to think that they're bad for the brain," study author Gene Bowman, an assistant professor of neurology at Oregon Health and Science University explained for MSNBC. "It turns out trans fat was actually our most consistent finding in the study."

Apparently trans fat led to "more shrinkage of the brain".

"I think it's timely in that we have other studies showing a connection between, for example, overweight or obesity and dementia risk," said Dr. Gary Small, the director of the UCLA Longevity Center and co-author of "The Alzheimer's Prevention Program". "You can see there is clearly a connection between what we eat and how well we think as we age."