Sorry about the memories...

I like Ed Yong's blogs - they make science approachable.

The other day he commented on the research by Veronica Witte and colleagues from the University of Munster in Germany into the effects of a reduced calorie diet.

“Witte found that elderly people who slash the calories in their diet by 30% were better able to remember lists of words than people who stuck to their normal routine. It's the first experiment to show that cutting calories can improve human memory at an age when declining memory is par for the course. “

“The benefits of low-calorie diets have been extensively studied in animals, ever since Clive McCay discovered that "caloric restriction" doubled the lifespan of rats, over 70 years ago. Many studies have found that such diets could help to slow the brain's eventual decline and protect its neurons from the ravages of ageing. But until now, no experiments had confirmed that the same benefits are relevant to the human brain.”



As a final note, Ed gave his wife a quick summary of this research and she said, "Doesn't this mean that people who eat less chocolate will be better able to remember not eating any chocolate? That's sad."

I think it’s even more sad that people who eat more chocolate and rich food are less likely to remember it. The more you eat the less you remember – what a waste of good food!