Frost Hits the Rhubarb

Diet and Senility

Study links diet to senility -- Antioxidants effective in dogs -- Work raises hope for Alzheimer's Peter Calamai, The Star, Feb. 16, 04

SEATTLE—Scientists have devised a diet of vegetables, vitamins and nutritional supplements that delays and even reverses the effects of Alzheimer's-like senility — but only in beagles so far.

Research chief Carl Cotman said the improved mental agility of middle-aged beagles fed the anti-senility diet over three years "startled" his team at the Irvine campus of the University of California.

"The animals rejuvenated aspects of their brain function which they'd had when they were young but lost as they grew old," Cotman told reporters at a science conference here.

He said beagles were a good model for people because they develop a pre-Alzheimer's condition as they age, called mild cognitive impairment.

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