A Surprising Way to Boost Your Brain Health

The foods you now eat can have an impact on your cognition down the road. And, according to the results of a new study, eating cheese and drinking red wine may actually give your brain a boost.

A study, co-authored by Brandon Klinedinst, a neuroscience PhD candidate working in the Food Science and Human Nutrition department at Iowa State University, and published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, analyzed data over a 10-year period from 1,787 people between the ages of 46 and 77 in the U.K. Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database and research resource. The researchers specifically looked at participants’ fluid intelligence test (FIT) — which provides a snapshot of a person’s ability to think quickly — when they started the study and again in two follow-up assessments. Researchers also analyzed their diet and alcohol consumption over time.

The researchers found that certain foods and drinks seemed to have protective effects against cognitive decline. Specifically:

Cheese was the most protective food against age-related cognitive decline, with researchers noting that eating the food “strongly predicted better FIT scores over time.”

Drinking alcohol daily, especially red wine also affects our risk factors for vascular disease, including effects on cholesterol and blood sugar, and these can affect the health of brain vessels.”

This, of course, is not to override the fact that diet and exercise are the two most important things that everyone should be careful to get right for optimal body and brain health. But now we know that at the end of a long day – assuming you’ve eaten smart and done your workout – relax with a glass of wine and some cheese. Your brain will thank you for it!