TUESDAY, May 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) — According to a study published May 19 in Nutrition Frontiers.

Emma Flanagan, from the University of East Anglia in the UK, and her colleagues randomly assigned 60 elderly people (aged 50-80) to freeze-dried cranberry powder (equivalent to a small cup of cranberries) or a placebo for 12 weeks. Neuroimaging and blood analysis were performed before and after the procedure.

Researchers found that 12 weeks of cranberry supplementation significantly improved episodic visual memory in older adults. Increased regional perfusion was observed in the right entorhinal cortex, area accumbens, and caudate in the cranberry group. There was also a significant decrease observed in low density lipoprotein cholesterol. No significant difference was observed in brain-derived neurotrophic factor between the groups.

“Future studies to determine whether these changes translate to a clinical population of adults with cognitive impairment in the context of neurodegenerative diseases such as mild cognitive impairment or dementia are warranted based on these findings,” write the authors. authors.

The research was funded by a grant from the Cranberry Institute.