Memory: Forgetting Is the New Normal

No matter what you eat, if you want to keep your memory sharp, you should strive for a diet that keeps your belly fat down. A study of more than 6,500 people published in the March 26 edition of the journal Neurology showed that people who were overweight and had a large belly were 2.3 times as likely to develop dementia as those with normal weight and belly size, while those who were obese and had a large belly were 3.6 times as likely. As scientists have long known, as belly fat--which disrupts body chemistry more than less reactive fat elsewhere on the body--increases, blood glucose rises along with it. Some of Small's most recent animal studies show that rising glucose levels in turn disrupt the function of the dentate gyrus. That doesn't draw a straight and conclusive line between waistline and memory, but it does suggest one. "It's possible," Small says, "that blood glucose, which tends to drift upward as we get older, is one of the main contributors to age-related memory decline in all of us."

None of these insights, of course, make your sputtering memory less frustrating. When you've misplaced your keys for the third time this month, it does you little good to be reminded that it all may be just too much glucose and too few blueberries. And nothing entirely removes the specter of true dementia and the horrors it implies. Still, figuring out how memory works is the most important step in figuring out how it can be fixed. When you can make some of the fixes yourself, the news is even better. If you needed one more reason to get your exercise and watch your diet, the memory scientists are providing you with one--even if you have to write it down.

Adapted from CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT I FORGOT: THE GOOD NEWS FROM the FRONT LINES OF MEMORY RESEARCH by Sue Halpern. Copyright 2008 by Sue Halpern. Published by Harmony Books, a division of Random House, Inc.