Researchers have announced a new breakthrough in reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It’s easy. It’s safe. And it only involves a slight change to your diet. Or, you may already have this common food on your list!
This one is good news all ’round! It turns out that eating just one egg a week can reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s by as much as 47 percent!
Who knew?
The secret was the all the time, right under our noses. on our plates!
The discovery has to do with a substance called choline – which is especially abundant in eggs. Eggs, the researchers remind us, are also linked to brain health and cognitive function, which may help explain the observed connection. What’s best, eggs have recently been had their former unhealthy reputation redeemed by science. An egg a day is now okay!
What they did
A recent Food & Wine story sets the scene: “The study drew on data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a long-running research effort based in northeastern Illinois that tracks older adults to bet-ter understand aging and dementia. None of the participants included in the analysis had dementia at the start of the study.
“To assess diet, researchers focused on people who completed at least one detailed food-frequency questionnaire, which asked how often they had eaten specific foods — including eggs — over the pre-vious year. Each person’s first questionnaire served as a snapshot of their typical egg intake,” F&W contributor Stacey Leasca adds.
Information gathered over a nearly-7-year period by the Aging Project was data-mined to compare the Alzheimer outcomes of subjects who said they ‘rarely or never’ ate eggs with those who reported eating eggs at least once a week.
What they found
Over the 7-year period, it emerged that 280 of the 1,024 participants studied were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia.
Eating at least 1 egg a week was associated with a 47 percent lower rate of diagnosis. People who reported they ate two or more eggs a week experienced a similar reduction. Which suggests that eating more eggs, on their own, didn’t offer extra protection against dementia.
However, the study doesn’t necessarily mean all the credit should go to eggs. “It’s also possible that people who eat eggs regularly tend to have other advantages – such as healthier overall diets or better access to healthcare – that help lower their dementia risk, independent of egg consumption,” Leasca notes.
The takeaway
One way or the other. It can’t hurt to add at least one egg per week to your diet! A potential 47 per-cent reduction in the risk of developing Alzheimer’s is too good to pas up!
My take
I already consume an egg a day, based on the recommendations of the latest research on the health-iness and safety of Hen Fruit. And I’ve long been aware of all the other essential nutrients they supply in abundance.
As I said off the top: It’s a true ‘win – win’situation!
Get Crackin’! – as the egg producers say…
~ Maggie J.