
Whole grains could be the key to Black people protecting their brains against aging and dementia, a new study reports. Black folks who ate more foods with whole grains appeared to have a slower rate of memory decline than those who ate fewer whole grains, according to findings published Nov. 23 in the journal Neurology. Among Black people, those who ate the most whole grains had brains about 8.5 years younger than those who ate the least. Whole grains only appeared to help Black people – researchers saw no similar trend in white participants. “With Alzheimer’s disease and dementia affecting millions of Americans, finding ways to prevent the disease is a high public health priority,” researcher Xiaoran Liu, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Rush University in Chicago, said in a journal news release. “It’s exciting to see that people could potentially lower their risk of dementia by increasing their diet of whole grains by a couple of servings a day,” Liu added. For the study, researchers followed more than 3,300 people without dementia (average age: 75). About 3 out of 5 participants were Black. Participants filled out a questionnaire every three years about the whole grains they ate, and they also completed brain games and memory tests. Researchers divided participants into five groups based on the amount of whole grains in their diet.… read on > read on >