The connection between lifestyle behaviors and brain health has been firmly established. We’ve highlighted numerous studies that document how basic activities, such as exercise, eating, social engagement, and sleep, can affect brain health and potentially increase or decrease your risk for such afflictions as memory loss or dementia. In recent weeks, some brand new studies have not only underscored these connections but have highlighted how certain factors, including diet, sleep, and weight gain, can actually accelerate the biological aging of the brain, potentially leaving you with a brain age greater than your chronological age. That’s an age difference you want to avoid if possible.

First, let’s talk about fat. You may remember that belly fat, also known as visceral fat, may not only be an appearance problem, but it also may portend deep fat wrapped around your inner organs, which is linked to such health problems as diabetes, heart disease, and even Alzheimer’s. Now, a brand new study published in Nature Mental Health reports that this visceral fat, more than just general obesity, appears to play a significant role in brain aging. Studying the brains of over 23,000 adults as part of the UK Biobank data, researchers in Hong Kong observed that how fat is distributed in your body maps to specific brain changes that can affect such activities as planning, impulse control, memory, and emotion. Why that happens is not clear- it may be due to inflammation caused by the visceral fat, or it may be due to cardiovascular changes. Reducing the amount of visceral fat you have- through exercise, diet, better sleep, and stress reduction- may therefore be an important strategy for lowering your risk of brain aging. For more on this study, push away that plate of fatty food and look here.

Speaking of food and diet, another new study published in Clinical Nutrition reports a connection between following a Green Mediterranean Diet and slowing down your rate of brain aging. You may remember from a previous agebuzz post that the Green Mediterranean Diet follows the original way of Mediterranean eating, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, olive oil, fish, and whole grains, but it also includes such additions as green tea and Mankai (duckweed). Following a group of 300 participants, broken into one group eating a standard diet, one group eating a Mediterranean diet, and one group eating a Green Mediterranean Diet, researchers determined that those who followed the Green Mediterranean Diet, which is rich in polyphenols, had fewer proteins in their blood that are linked with accelerated brain aging. On examination through MRI scans, the brains of those on the Green Mediterranean Diet had a smaller “brain age gap” (ie, age measured by MRI scans versus chronological age) than those on the other diets. The outcome suggests you may want to get some of the Green Mediterranean Diet items into your own regular menus, such as sipping green tea regularly or adding some walnuts to your salad, or yogurt.     

Finally, one of the other brain-saving behaviors that should slow down your brain aging has to do with your sleep. According to a new study published in eBioMedicine, researchers from the Karolinska Institutet found a clear link between unhealthy sleep patterns and accelerated brain aging. Once again, using MRI scans and AI technology, these scientists determined that the gap between the brain age measured by MRI and the chronological age of the participants widened by 6 months for every point decrease on an unhealthy sleep scale. What counted as unhealthy sleep behaviors? Such factors as insomnia, daytime sleepiness, snoring, struggling to fall asleep or stay asleep, and sleep duration of less than 7 hours. Men seemed to have a wider gap between brain age and chronological age, and those with poor sleep habits appeared to have brains about one year older than their chronological age. Given that sleep, like diet, may be modifiable, there is hope that these various studies will point the way to slowing down the brain aging process and thereby lowering the risk of such neurodegenerative problems as memory loss or dementia. For more on this sleep study, put your head down and look here.