Cognitive decline occurs with age and may be slowed by dietary measures, including increased intake of dietary phytochemicals. However, evidence from large and long-term studies of flavonol intake is limited. Dietary intakes of flavonols were assessed from a large biracial study of 10,041 subjects, aged 45-64, by analysis of a food frequency questionnaire administered at visit 1 of triennial visits. Cognitive function was assessed at visits 2 and 4 with the following three cognitive performance tests: the delayed word recall test, the revised Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale digit symbol subtest, and the word fluency test of the Multilingual Aphasia Examination. The change in each score over 6 years was calculated, and a combined standardized change score was calculated. Generalized linear models controlled for age, ethnicity, gender, education level, energy intake, current smoking, physical activity, body mass index, diabetes, and vitamin C intake. Total flavonols across quintiles of intake were positively associated with preserved combined cognitive function (P<.001). This pattern with preserved combined cognitive function was consistent for the three major individual flavonols in the diet, myricetin, kaempferol, and quercetin (each P<.001). The positive association with total flavonols was strongest for the digit symbol subtest (P<.001). In this cohort, flavonol intake was correlated with protected cognitive function over time.

We argue that Rousseau's defense of the sex-roled family is not based on biological determinism or simple misogyny. Rather, his advocacy of sexual differentiation is based on his understanding of its ability to bring indiuiduufs outside of themselves into interdependent communities, and thus to counter natural independence , self-absolption and asociality , as well as social competitiveness and egoism. This political defense of the sex-roled family needs more critique by feminists.The task of returning to the major historical figures of philosophy in order to document the sexual inegalitarianism in their thought seems of limited usefulness for projects on the agenda of feminist theory and practice. It would appear that there are endless tasks for feminist scholars more pressing, constructive, and relevant to the attainment of sexual equality than reconstructing the arguments of someone such as Rousseau-an eighteenth-century, white, male, European writing in defense of enforced sexual differentiation.It is necessary, however, for the cogency of feminist theory and the success of feminist politics to hear and answer the concerns and questions of the opposition, concerns and questions too often ignored or oversimplified. Rousseau, for example, was not simply a misogynist determined to interpret nature, history, or culture in such a way as to bless male supremacy with the stamp of inevitability or justifiability. In fact, the concerns that led him to support sexual differentiation, especially the concern with moving beyond self-interest to real community, are often laudable and shared by many feminists. We will argue that Rousseau's resistance to feminism, as expressed in his endorsement of the sex-roled family, is not based on the same morally offensive principles and logically flawed reasoning as are many other anti-feminisms. But because Rousseau's anti-feminism is as troubling in its implications as are the others, it is one that deserves to be heard and responded to.

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