If you read Beating the Dementia Monster, you know that red wine is considered part of the MIND diet, a diet that appears to be effective in supporting brain health. As I mentioned in the book, I don't drink, and so I don't turn to red wine as part of my own diet. (I make an exception for celebration of the Eucharist.) Red wine contains resveratrol, the chemical component thought to be helping the brain. Unfortunately, research has not found that extracting the resveratrol and taking it as a supplement will help with brain health. At least not until recently.
Green tea has also attracted interest for brain health, and I have taken it at times. However, it has caffeine, and the caffeine and acids in the tea get to be a problem with my insomnia and nocturia.
Recently, my friend Teale sent me this article in Neuroscience News about some research at Tufts University on green tea and resveratrol. The researchers claim to have found green tea catechins and resveratrol may reduce the formation of amyloid plaques in neural cells.
What did the resveratrol and the catechins do? The researchers believe that they acted as antiviral agents against the herpes virus. As we discussed in Beating the Dementia Monster, the herpes virus is high on the list of suspects for causes of Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at Tufts have done other work tying herpes to Alzheimer's disease.
But don't get your hopes up too high. This was not research done in humans or even in brains. It was done in the laboratory with cells on a sponge simulating a brain. And lot of work has been done already simply seeing what happens when people consume more resveratrol and green tea. The benefits have been marginal. The real value of the research seems to be to support the hypothesis that the herpes virus--the variety that causes cold sores and chickenpox--also causes Alzheimer's disease.
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