EATING a small bowl of cranberries every day could help ward off dementia, research suggested.
Scientists tested giving healthy older adults the equivalent of 100g of the fruit each day.
Volunteers who ate a powdered version of the fruit which has a notoriously bitter taste were found to have a better memory recall after 12 weeks.
And MRI scans showed those eating cranberries had better blood flow to important parts of the brain.
People given cranberries also had 9 per cent lower bad cholesterol levels, according to the University of East Anglia study. The team wrote this ‘may in part contribute to the improvement in brain perfusion and cognition’.
LDL ‘bad’ cholesterol can harden and form plaques in arteries, reducing blood flow to the brain.
Doctors recommend eating cranberries raw or blended rather than consuming them in cranberry juice, which is often laden in sugar.
The paper, in Frontiers in Nutrition, analysed blood tests and MRI scans in men and women who had not been diagnosed with dementia at the start and end of the study.
Lead author Dr David Vauzour said the group who ate cranberries had ‘significantly improved’ memory.
They also saw better circulation to important parts of the brain that support taking in knowledge, he said.