Baked, Broiled Fish Keeps Brain Healthy in Old Age

Including baked or broiled fish in diet keeps the brain healthy, a new study suggests.

According to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, people who eat fish have lower chances of suffering from dementia. However, the fish must be boiled or baked and not fried. The study builds on earlier research on the subject that states that omega- 3 in fish helps maintain cognitive abilities in old age.

Scientists say that people should try and include fish in diet, regardless of how much good cholesterol it contains.

"Our study shows that people who ate a diet that included baked or broiled, but not fried, fish have larger brain volumes in regions associated with memory and cognition," James T. Becker, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, said in a news release. "We did not find a relationship between omega-3 levels and these brain changes, which surprised us a little. It led us to conclude that we were tapping into a more general set of lifestyle factors that were affecting brain health of which diet is just one part."

The study was based on data from 260 people, who answered questionnaires about their dietary habits. All the participants were part of the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), a 10-year study that began in 1989 and was conducted to identify risk factors for heart disease in old people. The participants underwent brain MRI scans and showed normal cognitive activity at two points during the study.

The researchers found that people who ate fish at least once a week had more grey matter in brain regions dedicated to memory and even cognition. These people were also more likely to get a college education than those who didn't eat fish regularly. The team didn't find any association between brain differences and level of omea-3 fatty acid in blood.

"The subset of CHS participants answered questionnaires about their eating habits, such as how much fish did they eat and how was it prepared," Cyrus Raji, M.D., who now is in radiology residency training at UCLA, said in a news release. "Baked or broiled fish contains higher levels of omega-3s than fried fish because the fatty acids are destroyed in the high heat of frying, so we took that into consideration when we examined their brain scans."

The study is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Previous research has shown that eating fish can reduce weight and even extend lifespan. Pregnant mothers might be especially careful about fish consumption as some fish contain high levels of heavy metals, which could be dangerous to the baby's mental health.