"Spinach? Gross!” Do you remember saying this as a kid? Maybe you love it now that you’re an adult? If broccoli and other veggies are fairly popular today; this wasn’t always the case. In addition to their digestive benefits, a recent American study shows that regularly consuming green vegetables could delay cognitive decline. Why are these foods good for our brains?

Good nutrition may contribute to good cognitive health. Martha Clare Morris and her colleagues at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago wanted to study the effects of the primary and bioactive nutrients found in leafy, green vegetables (salad, cabbage, celery, etc.); namely vitamin K (phylloquinone), lutein, beta-carotene, nitrate, folate, kaempferol, and alpha-tocopherol.

The research team undertook a prospective study on 960 participants in the "Memory and aging" project, ages 58 to 99 (average age = 81 years). These subjects, who had no detectable signs of dementia, completed a questionnaire about their consumption of green vegetables (mainly spinach, kale, green cabbage, and lettuce). They were monitored for an average of 4.7 years, during which they underwent two cognitive evaluations.

The results suggested that participants who consumed a daily serving of green vegetables showed slower cognitive decline than those who consumed them only rarely or not at all. In fact, on a cognitive level, veggie lovers were 11 years younger than the other participants! But let's not jump to conclusions too quickly, because in this study, certain factors were incorporated during the protocol. And these factors could also have a negative (alcohol consumption, smoking, high blood pressure) or positive (fish and seafood consumption, physical and/or cognitive activity, a high level of education) effect on the results. Epidemiologist and nutritional expert Martha Clare Morris doesn’t deny the limits of the study: “The study results do not prove that eating green, leafy vegetables slows brain aging, but it does show an association. We can’t exclude other possible factors.” A study will need to be conducted on subjects of different ages (including younger subjects) from a variety of backgrounds.

But while we’re waiting for more research in this area, it can’t hurt to fill up on greens!