High Protein Diet Helps Cognitive Skills of 70-plus

I’m KayDee Gilkey with today’s Open Range reporting from the Washington Cattlemen’s Convention in Cle Elum.

Good news on the research nutrition front. According to a recent Mayo Clinic Study, people 70 and older who consume a lot of protein and fat relative to carbohydrates are less likely to become cognitively impaired. So, beef and other proteins indeed can make a positive difference in older people’s diet.

Our field reporter Lacy Gray shares more details.
Gray: “Researchers tracked 1,230 people ages 70 to 89 who provided information on what they ate during the previous year. At that time, their cognitive function was evaluated by an expert panel of physicians, nurses and neuropsychologists. Of those participants, only the roughly 940 who showed no signs of cognitive impairment were asked to return for follow-up evaluations of their cognitive function. About four years into the study, 200 of those 940 were beginning to show mild cognitive impairment, problems with memory, language, thinking and judgment that are greater than normal age-related changes.”

According to the study, those whose diets were highest in fat–compared to the lowest–were 42 percent less likely to face cognitive impairment, and those who had the highest intake of protein had a reduced risk of 21 percent.

When total fat and protein intake were taken into account, people with the highest carbohydrate intake were 3.6 times likelier to develop mild cognitive impairment.