Neuroprotective and cognitive enhancing effects of a multi-targeted food intervention in an animal model of neurodegeneration and depression.

Rising neurodegenerative and depressive disease prevalence combined with the lack of effective pharmaceutical treatments and dangerous side effects, has created an urgent need for the development of effective therapies. Considering that these disorders are multifactorial in origin, treatments designed to interfere at different mechanistic levels may be more effective than the traditional single-targeted pharmacological concepts. To that end, an experimental diet composed of zinc, melatonin, curcumin, piperine, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5, n-3), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6, n-3), uridine, and choline was formulated. This diet was tested on the olfactory bulbectomized rat (OBX), an established animal model of depression and cognitive decline. The ingredients of the diet have been individually shown to attenuate glutamate excitoxicity, exert potent anti-oxidant/anti-inflammatory properties, and improve synaptogenesis; processes that all have been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases and in the cognitive deficits following OBX in rodents. Dietary treatment started 2 weeks before OBX surgery, continuing for 6 weeks in total. The diet attenuated OBX-induced cognitive and behavioral deficits, except long-term spatial memory. Ameliorating effects of the diet extended to the control animals. Furthermore, the experimental diet reduced hippocampal atrophy and decreased the peripheral immune activation in the OBX rats. The ameliorating effects of the diet on the OBX-induced changes were comparable to those of the NMDA receptor antagonist, memantine, a drug used for the management of Alzheimer's disease. This proof-of-concept study suggests that a diet, which simultaneously targets multiple disease etiologies, can prevent/impede the development of a neurodegenerative and depressive disorders and the concomitant cognitive deficits.

Dietary influences on cognitive development and behaviour in children.

There are a number of ways in which food can influence behaviour, including malnutrition, types of diet, eating habits, pharmacological effects, food allergy, fatty acid deficiency and possibly food additives. The range of behaviour affected is also wide, and includes attention, conduct disorder and mood. A particular focus of interest has been the effects of food on hyperactivity in children. There is some initial evidence that fatty acids may influence hyperactivity in children with specific learning disabilities. The findings also suggest that some food additives (colourings, flavourings and preservatives) may increase hyperactivity in children with behaviour problems. For children showing behaviour problems such as hyperactivity the use of dietary manipulation tends to be a more acceptable approach to treatment than the use of drugs. However, there needs to be awareness of the dangers of the use of unsupervised restriction diets with children, and the use of dietary treatments alone is not likely to be sufficient treatment for many children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. A study is currently underway to investigate the possible effects of additives on behaviour in the general population of children.