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Friday, January 29 2010 01:44 |
Jan. 27, 2010 -- Having trouble remembering where you left your keys? Forgot the name of an acquaintance? A new study suggests that increasing your intake of magnesium, an essential mineral found in dark leafy vegetables and certain fruits, beans, and nuts, may help combat memory lapses associated with aging.
In the study, published Jan. 28 in Neuron, neuroscientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Tsinghua University in Beijing found that increasing brain magnesium using a newly developed compound, magnesium-L-threonate (MgT), improves learning abilities, working memory, and short- and-long-term memory in rats. The magnesium also helped older rats perform better on a battery of learning tests. "This study not only highlights the importance of a diet with sufficient daily magnesium, but also suggests the usefulness of magnesium-based treatments for aging-associated memory decline," one of the study's authors, Susumu Tonegawa, says in a news release. Tonegawa works at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.
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