Veggie diet linked to brain shrinkage: more reason to at least eat a little fish

I don't condone gorging yourself on red meat, but I also don't agree with complete vegetarianism based on health (moral issues are a different discussion).  It seems to me that the best diet is a well rounded one that includes lots of veggies, a little meat, and an occasional alcoholic drink.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthSci/ Eating_veggies_shrinks_the_brain/articleshow/ 3480629.cms

That's priceless.  So anyone who finds themselves standing at the open fridge door again and can't quite remember why it's probably because they're an overweight, wine-loving, vegetarian... LOL! 

Mind you, I heard somewhere that motherhood (or was it pregnancy?) also shrinks the brain cells....  Which presumably means any overweight, wine-loving, vegetarian, mothers out there should be electronically tagged so they don't wander off and get lost...?

any diet can be unhealthy!

if your a lacto-ovo veg, getting b12 is a breeze, ya dont need meat for that.

gi-jane, lol, another reason for me not to get pregnant!!!

So anyone who finds themselves standing at the open fridge door again and can't quite remember why it's probably because they're an overweight, wine-loving, vegetarian... LOL! 

Or in my case, it's all the beer I drank.  But at least my brain didn't shrink!  (I can get a new liver in India, right? )

So somehow the millions of Hindus in India, who eat no meat or fish in their entire lives, have shruken brains?  Yet they can take our high tech jobs?  It makes no sense at all.

The study was of only 107 people.  That's much too small a sample to be significant.  Missing from the article was information about who paid for the study. 

Sorry, I'm not buying it.

i think it's a good study (it was reviewed last week by global news's medicine critic, Dr. Art Hister.  he knows his stuff).  everyone's brain shrinks with age; veg*ns' brains just shrink a little more.

anyway, dr. art's recommendation wasn't for veg*ns to eat meat or fish, but to take B12 supplements.

edited to add the link to dr. art's analysis.  it's the sept. 10 clip.

Yeah I saw this on the news this afternoon. She said that it overall is not healthy to be a veg*n without taking supplements and that them vs. meat/dairy etc eaters have a 6x higher risk of brain shrinkage. Which you'd think that if you made that big decision to be a vegetarian/veg*n that you'd be sure to get your other supplements too. Thats why these 12, 13, 14 year old girls are getting so sick because they don't know what they're doing and I've only seen a few smart ones that actually look into it more than "it'll help me eat weight if i just eat this kind of stuff".

 

Lol, I wish I could use that excuse for pregnancy. Unfortunately, two recent peer-reviewed articles came out demonstrating compelling support for increased brain functioning during and shortly following gestation. See this month's American Psyc Assn's Monitor on Psychology, "The Pregnant Brain." Also The Maternal Brain in Scientific American Mind reviews some studies done in this area.

Oops, and one more....recent MIT research by L. Tsai involving rats suggests that the long-debated brain shrinkage/memory loss with age in not an inevitability, but may be a by-product of reduced social stimulation as we age.  A short (and incomplete, unfortunately) video on her work can be accessed here:

. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0301/ 02.html .

Original Post by socioval:

Oops, and one more....recent MIT research by L. Tsai involving rats suggests that the long-debated brain shrinkage/memory loss with age in not an inevitability, but may be a by-product of reduced social stimulation as we age. A short (and incomplete, unfortunately) video on her work can be accessed here:

. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0301/ 02.html .

i would think that that would have a greater impact, even at a younger age, for keeping the mind nimble. ya know the old saying, if you dont use it, you lose it.

Well, it undoubtedly would make an impact in youth. That's the demographic we have most generally studied. The current schooling environments and a general lack of diverse stimulation are a hot topic at present.

What's interesting about current research is that it is overturning these long-held notions that decay and decline of the brain is inevitable. We have folk saying like "use it or lose it," but we weren't so good at applying them in this area.

yeah well its sort of like other parts of the body. like exercising. i believe & so does my dad at 83 (going on 63) that what we consider the "usuals" about old age are just from us not focusing on what we need to do to keep our bodies in shape. our bodies will of course change, loss of muscle mass & bone density, loss of flexibility/mobility, etc. but we can help to slow it down.

I read that also, but isn't that in people who didn't take vitamins? They have b6-b12 vitamins and omega 3 fatty acid and fish oil vitamins.

that's referring to b-12 defiency, which is found more commonly in vegetarians/vegans but it doesn't mean that you are deficient just because you are vegetarian or vegan.