You’ve probably heard the phrase, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” That statement might not be entirely accurate, but a recent study might have coined a better one. It goes: “A glass of orange juice a day keeps the dementia away.”
A recent study that took 20 years to complete suggests that drinking orange juice could significantly reduce risk of dementia. It examined 28,000 men to see how their brains were affected by fruit and vegetable consumption.
When the men were, on average, 51 years old, they were separated into groups. These groups were determined by how many servings of fruits and veggies they consumed.
For this study, a serving of vegetables was one cup of raw or 2 cups of leafy greens. A serving of fruit is considered either a half cup of juice or one cup of whole fruit.
The group with the highest consumption of vegetables ate about six servings per day. The group with the highest consumption of fruit ate about three servings per day.
Over 20 years later, the men were asked to perform tasks to test their cognitive function. This includes things like remembering recent events or recalling items on shopping lists.
What the researchers found was that 6.6% of the men who ate the most veggies developed poor cognition. There was cognitive decline in 7.9% of men that ate the least veggies.
Fruit, on the other hand, seemed to have little effect on cognitive ability. That is, until they got to the orange juice.
The group of those that drank a glass of orange juice a day had one of the lowest percentages of poor cognitive function. They were at 6.9%, compared to 6.6% for the group with highest consumption of veggies.
Lead author of the study, Changzheng Yuan, warns of drinking too much OJ, however. “Since fruit juice is usually high in calories from concentrated fruit sugars, it’s generally best to consume no more than a small glass per day.”
OJ aside, this study shows that fruit and veggie intake are directly linked to staving off brain degeneration.
