Grape Juice, Berries, and Walnuts Affect Brain Aging and Behavior

Only from 2009 and I bet your hospital has DONE NOTHING to create a stroke diet protocol based on this. I bet no one has created a protocol for the amounts needed to achieve these results.
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/139/9/1813S.short

1. James A. Joseph ^* ,
2. Barbara Shukitt-Hale, and
3. Lauren M. Willis

+ Author Affiliations

1. USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, MA 02111

1. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jim.joseph@ars.usda.gov.

Abstract

Numerous studies have indicated that individuals consuming a diet containing high amounts of fruits and vegetables exhibit fewer age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Research from our laboratory has suggested that dietary supplementation with fruit or vegetable extracts high in antioxidants (e.g. blueberries, strawberries, walnuts, and Concord grape juice) can decrease the enhanced vulnerability to oxidative stress that occurs in aging and these reductions are expressed as improvements in behavior. Additional mechanisms involved in the beneficial effects of fruits and vegetables include enhancement of neuronal communication via increases in neuronal signaling and decreases in stress signals induced by oxidative/inflammatory stressors (e.g. nuclear factor κB). Moreover, collaborative findings indicate that blueberry or Concord grape juice supplementation in humans with mild cognitive impairment increased verbal memory performance, thus translating our animal findings to humans. Taken together, these results suggest that a greater intake of high-antioxidant foods such as berries, Concord grapes, and walnuts may increase “health span” and enhance cognitive and motor function in aging.

Footnotes

• ↵1 Published in a supplement to The Journal of Nutrition. Presented at the conference “Grape Health Workshop,” held in San Francisco, CA, December 2–3, 2008. The supplement coordinator for this supplement is John M. Pezzuto, University of Hawaii at Hilo. Publication costs for this supplement were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This publication must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. The conference was organized by the National Grape and Wine Initiative (NGWI) (its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NGWI). Supplement Coordinator disclosure: John M. Pezzuto serves as Chair of the Grant Review Committee of the California Table Grape Commission. John M. Pezzuto received an honorarium to serve as moderator at the Grapes and Health Workshop. Supplement Guest Editor disclosure: Maria-Luz Fernandez has no relationships to disclose. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not attributable to the sponsors or the publisher, Editor, or Editorial Board of The Journal of Nutrition.