Eating Walnuts May Increase Cognitive Health

Eating Walnuts May Increase Cognitive Health

Patrick Cavanaugh
Patrick Cavanaugh
Carol Sloan is the Health Research Director of the California Walnut Board and Commission. She describes a recent study.

“The California walnut industry has been supporting research in the area of cognitive function for many years. And in fact, the five-year strategic plan for funding health research continues to be our mission,” Sloan said.

“And we want to advance the knowledge of benefits of walnuts and also inform public policy, so people can make informed choices on good foods to give them a good quality of life. Especially older adults and our U.S. population is certainly aging,” noted Sloan.

And this study with Dr. Nick Bishop, was sent in as a proposal that was vetted with our Health Research Advisory Group and then funded by the industry. “It's a epidemiological study and it uses this Health and Retirement Study data set, which is supported and sponsored by the National Institute On Aging and the Social Security Administration,” Sloan explained.

Sloan describe what these data sets can do. “They can share a snapshot in time of what certain individuals that are participants of these projects, what they're eating and how it may correlate with cognitive outcomes in this case,” she said.

The bottom line: Walnut consumers did better on brief tests and recall assessments.

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