Pesticide and Environmental Update
Berry
Compound Reduces Aging Effect
By Rosalie Marion Bliss
In a new study, aged laboratory animals
that ate a diet rich in the berry and grape compound pterostilbene
performed better than those in a group that did not eat the enriched diet,
scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have reported.
Pterostilbene reversed measurable negative effects of aging on brain
function and behavioral performance.
Neuroscientist James Joseph, psychologist
Barbara Shukitt-Hale and colleagues at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition
Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass.,
collaborated on the study with chemist Agnes Rimando of the ARS Natural
Products Utilization Research Laboratory in Oxford, Miss.
The study was published recently in the
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
For the two-part study, the researchers
wanted to determine if pterostilbene would be effective in reversing the
effects of aging on mature rats.
For the first part of the study, they
tested seven stilbene compounds in cell cultures and found that
pterostilbene was the most effective at preventing oxidative stress. For
the second part of the study, they fed aged rats one of three diets:
control, or control adjusted to include either low or high concentrations
of pterostilbene.
The results indicated that in aging rats,
pterostilbene was effective in reversing cognitive decline and that
improved working memory was linked to pterostilbene levels in the
hippocampus region of the brain.
The study results are the latest in a
series of ARS cell culture and animal model studies published in the last
decade that shed light on relationships between various dietary components
and brain function while aging. The authors noted that there are
additional berry compounds showing similar potential, which they continue
to investigate in animal and cell models.
The researchers followed protocols approved
by the Frederick, Md.-based Association for Assessment and Accreditation
of Laboratory Animal Care International and a Boston, Mass.-based Internal
Animal Care Review Committee.
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