An apple juice a day may keep your brain in play. In a new University of Massachusetts study, researchers carried out a number of laboratory studies demonstrating that drinking apple juice helped mice perform better than normal in maze trials, and prevented the decline in performance that was otherwise observed as these mice aged.
One experiment demonstrated that mice receiving the human equivalent of 2 glasses of apple juice per day for 1 month produced less of a small protein fragment, called "beta-amyloid" that is responsible for forming the "senile plaques" commonly found in brains of individuals suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Of course what works in mice doesn't always translate to humans, but the findings, published in the January 2009 Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, add to a growing body of evidence demonstrating the simple yet powerful steps we can take to delay age-related cognitive decline, including in some cases those which accompany Alzheimer's disease.
