All of us forget an appointment or phone number once in a while, but when forgetfulness is serious enough to affect your daily life, or is getting more pronounced over time, you may need to mention it to your doctor who may suggest a certain diet as some foods improve memory.
This latest news in the battle to preserve memories comes from the work of a team of researchers out of the University of California, Irvine who have just discovered a unique memory booster
Oleic acids from fats that are changed into a memory enhancing agent right in the digestive tract. The hope for this work is that it might lead to new ways to treat memory problems, or perhaps a drug to help in the fight against obesity.
In the most recent research, oleoylethanolamide, or OEA for short, was given to rats and was found to improve their memory for two different standard tests. One was running a maze, Telecoustic the other avoiding an unpleasant experience.
Blocking the OEA with a drug caused the rats' performance to decline on both tests.
This intriguing work presents a compelling case for how the foods we eat might impact brain activity.
Earlier work by UCI's Dr. Daniele Piomelli had uncovered how oleic acids from fats are changed into the OEA compound when they reach the first part of the small intestine. The OEA is responsible for sending messages to the brain that bring feelings of fullness.
In high enough levels OEA has been shown to cut appetite, lower blood cholesterol (including those dangerous triglycerides) and produce weight loss.
As you can imagine, hopes for a diet pill of some form are high.
A leading learning and memory researcher found that OEA seems to bring on memory consolidation.
This is the way superficial, short-term memories are changed into meaningful, long lasting ones.
But what these researchers have uncovered is that OEA appears to activate memory-enhancing signals in the part of the brain, the amygdala, involved with remembering emotional events.
So if you've lingering memories of a deliciously decadent desert you enjoyed, this is only a natural.
"OEA is part of the molecular glue that makes memories stick," Piomelli explains. "By helping mammals remember where and when they have eaten a fatty meal, OEA's memory-enhancing activity seems to have been an important evolutionary tool for early humans and other mammals."
Scientists suspect that by helping early man remember where and when they at a fatty meal, OEA served as a survival aid in a time when food had to be caught and killed, not bought at the local market.
Fat rich foods are actually quite rare in nature.
Though OEA is also known to contribute to our feelings of fullness after a meal, some wonder if the compound may also help to encourage cravings for fatty foods, all too accessible in our modern world.
This isn't the first time science has suggested a natural survival mechanism might be troublesome in a world so very different than the one in which earlier people lived.
While a healthy, balanced diet is still the best bet to keep your brain, and body, healthy, OEA certainly shows promise.
Not yet available to the general public, OEA likely won't be, until its effectiveness (and safety) in humans can be demonstrated.
Next just head on over to the Daily Health Bulletin for more information on how foods improve memory and other nutritional information, plus get 5 free fantastic health reports.
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