Fisetin: Natural Flavonoid in Strawberries that Enhances Memory
Remember my entry on strawberries having more Vitamin C than oranges?
Well, here's another reason why strawberries should be your fruit of choice:
Researchers from Salk Institute of Biologic Studies recently reported that a naturally occuring flavonoid found in strawberries (and other fruits and vegetables), called fisetin, stimulates the signaling pathways that enhance long-term memory in mice.
Interestingly the signaling pathway activated by fisetin in neural differentiation also played a role in memory formation, a process neuroscientists call "long-term potentiation" or LTP.
LTP allows memories to be stored in the brain by strengthening connections between neurons. "We wanted to find out whether we could detect any effects of fisetin on long-term potentiation and the formation of memories in animals," Maher recalls.
Since the hippocampus plays an important role in establishing new memories, Maher, and co-authors Tatsuhiro Akaishi and Kazuho Abe, both at Musashino University in Tokyo, Japan, extended the study and found that fisetin activates the same signaling pathway in rat hippocampal tissues and also induces LTP.
The report said that the findings are relevant to the times as an estimated one third of people aged 60 and over (in the U.S. alone) already suffer from memory and recall woes.
Well I've started to be awfully forgetful, considering that I'm still way too far into my 60s. Heck I'm way too far into my 40s!
However, lead author Pamela Maher, Ph.D., a researcher in the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, cautioned that it would take about 10 pounds of strawberries a day to achieve a beneficial effect: too much amount even for the most avid strawberry lovers.
Therefore the researchers will work more on the findings until they have the compound locked in a pill for us to pop into our mouths. (Honestly, eating the natural source, like strawberries, is much more exciting.)
Even so, I guess this is the time and age to gorge on more fruits and vegetables. Don't forget the strawberries please. I'm scarred of dementia as well.
The abovementioned study appeared in the recent Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:29 am
I also blogged about this in Eating Fabulous (http://www.eatingfabulous.com/flavonoid-in-strawberries-may-boost-memory/). If not strawberries, fisetin is also available in other fruits such as tomatoes, onions, oranges, apples, peaches, grapes, kiwifruit and persimmons.
I have to admit, though that 10 pounds of fruits is a bit too much!
November 1st, 2006 at 9:25 pm
thanks for the added info and link. 10 pounds is too indeed too much. but it will be a pleasure if we can all have strawberries daily.