Intermittent fasting diet or a standard healthy diet: improvements in memory and executive function with both diets

 but more strongly with the intermittent fasting diet.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine and the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging say their study of 40 older adults with obesity and insulin resistance who were randomly assigned to either an intermittent fasting diet or a standard healthy diet approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers important clues about the potential benefits of both eating plans on brain health.

IThe results revealed that both types of diet plans had benefits regarding decreasing insulin resistance and improving cognition, with improvements in memory and executive function with both diets, but more strongly with the intermittent fasting diet, according to Mark Mattson, Ph.D., adjunct professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and former chief of the laboratory of neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore. “Other scientists may want to incorporate the (brain) markers (we used) into additional, larger studies of diet and brain health,” Mattson says.