Lee Swanson Research Update

Berry Extracts May Ease Age-related Mental Decline

January 2009

Old lab rats fed a diet supplemented with a compound from berries and grapes called pterostilbene performed better in mental challenges than their un-supplemented counterparts, according to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The results indicated that in aging rats, pterostilbene was effective in reversing the decline in cognitive function that occurs naturally with age, and that precedes diseases such as Alzheimer's.

The improvements in the working memory of the animals was associated with pterostilbene levels in the hippocampus region of the brain, said the researchers from the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, and the ARS Natural Products Utilization Research Laboratory in Oxford, MS.

The researchers, led by Barbara Shukitt-Hale, performed two studies. The first involved screening seven different stilbene compounds in cell cultures. This led to the identification of pterostilbene as the most effective at preventing oxidative stress.

The second study involved separating aged rats into three groups, and feeding them a control diet or the control diet adjusted to include high or low concentrations of pterostilbene. Shukitt-Hale and her co-workers report that, in the aging rats, the compound was associated with a reverse in cognitive decline and in improvement in the working memory of the animals.

Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 56(3):636-641, 2008

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