Present in the red root, resveratrol would have protective properties against the cognitive decline of the elderly, according to a study.
To protect your memory from decline, you don’t need to binge on cod liver oil. Certain products are also proving their worth, while offering a much tastier tasting. This would be the case with resveratrol, present in red grapes (and therefore wine), peanuts or even chocolate.
For a decade, this polyphenol has been the subject of much ink. Its cardio-protective, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties are regularly highlighted in scientific studies. So much so that some even evoke a powerful lobbying of resveratrol …
If the industrial interests related to this compound have never been discovered, studies, they continue to flow. The latest, published in the journal Scientific Reports, took place at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine. These results need to be qualified – the trials focus on rats – but nevertheless provide information worthy of interest on the treatment of cognitive decline in seniors.
Creating new memories
Scientists have thus formed two groups of rodents of an advanced age (around 22 months). At the first, they administered resveratrol; the other served as a control group. “The results are striking,” say the authors. Thus, while the rats of the second group showed a gradual loss of their ability to create new memories, the rats of the first group recorded a marked improvement in their spatial learning abilities and their memory.
At the brain level, the researchers observed a decrease in neurogenesis (the creation of neurons) in the second group, while the development of neurons in rats treated with resveratrol almost doubled. The latter also recorded a better blood flow and less inflammation of the hippocampus, involved in learning, memory and mood.
“This study provides new evidence that resveratrol treatments around the age of 60 can help improve memory and mood functions at the end of life,” said Professor Ashok K. Shetty, director of the Institute.
From there to conclude that it is beneficial to supplement with red wine… There is only one step, which the researchers do not take!
.