Just remember this: Eating less 'can boost your brain'

Updated on: Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Just remember this: Eating less can boost your brain, says a new study.

Scientists have long known of the phenomenon, but have struggled to work out just what it is about severely cutting calories that improves health.

Now, Italian researchers have found that eating less helps one remember more in fact, they claim that skipping dessert and having an after-dinner coffee could also be good for one's waistline.

For their study, the researchers at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, led by Prof Giovambattista Pani, decided to focus on a protein called CREB1 that is known to be important to memory and learning.

In experiments on mice, they showed that cutting calories boosted learning if the animals could still make CREB1. They also showed that cutting calories boosts the amount of the protein made in the brain.

The animals' calorie count was only cut by 25 to 30 per cent. In human terms, this equates to about 600 calories a day, the 'Daily Mail' reported. A cup of tea or coffee may also be beneficial, with studies crediting caffeine with upping the amount of CREB1 made in the body, according to the findings published in the 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' journal.

Dr Pani said: "It is just 25 to 30 per cent fewer calories. It is like not eating a cake at the end of the meal. This gives us a tool to better investigate this brain circuitry and try to figure out more drugs that do the same.

"We are trying a couple of compounds right now on animals but it is at a very preliminary stage. Our findings identify for the first time an important mediator of the effects of diet on the brain.

"This discovery has important implications to develop future therapies to keep our brain young and prevent brain degeneration and the ageing process. Our hope is to find a way to activate CREB1, for example through new drugs, so to keep the brain young without the need of a strict diet."

Just remember this: Eating less 'can boost your brain'

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