Influence of Ultra-High Hydrostatic Pressurizing Brown Rice on Cognitive Functions and Mental Health of Elderly Japanese Individuals: A 2-Year Randomized and Controlled Trial

Abstract

Brown rice contains many ingredients that might protect against cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease. However, brown rice is very hard, difficult to cook, and is poorly digested; thus, it is difficult to eat long-term. To solve these problems, ultra-high hydrostatic pressurizing brown rice (UHHPBR) was prepared. We investigated the effects of dietary UHHPBR administration for 24 mo on cognitive function and mental health in the elderly. Healthy elderly participants (n552) were randomized into UHHPBR and polished white rice (WR) groups. The UHHPBR group consumed 100 g of UHHPBR per day for 24 mo and the WR group consumed white rice. At baseline, and after 12 and 24 mo, cognitive functions were assessed using the Revised Hasegawa's Dementia Scale, Mini-Mental State Examination, Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), and the Cognitive Assessment for Dementia, iPad version (CADi). Mental health condition was also assessed using the Apathy Scale and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, and serum biochemical parameters were determined. From baseline to month 24, the mean change in the FAB-sub item 1 scores was higher in the UHHPBR group compared to the WR group. Furthermore, apathy scores decreased, as well as the time required to answer all questions of the CADi, and plasma epinephrine levels increased. These results indicate that a 2-y oral consumption of UHHPBR increases information processing speed (as a measure of cognitive function) and improves apathy in the elderly, suggesting a protective effect of UHHPBR administration against agerelated decline in brain cognition and motivation.

The Effect of Healthy Diet on Cognitive Performance Among Healthy Seniors – A Mini Review

“…This is in line with other studies on this research topic (Vauzour et al, 2017;Calil et al, 2018;Kita et al, 2018;Mazza et al, 2018;Solfrizzi et al, 2018;Chen et al, 2019;Cremonini et al, 2019;Dodd et al, 2019). Furthermore, the findings reveal that healthy diet and healthy diet components might have effects on specific cognitive domains, such as memory in general (Chai et al, 2019;Karstens et al, 2019), episodic memory (Okubo et al, 2017;Marseglia et al, 2018;Whyte et al, 2018), or processing speed (Kuroda et al, 2019). Better memory performance influenced by targeted nutrition interventions was also mentioned in previous research studies, e.g., Kulzow et al (2016), whose intervention was based on the omega-3 fatty acid supplementation.…”

“…The findings indicate that the described dietary and single nutrient interventions had a positive effect on global cognition (Marseglia et al, 2018;Moran et al, 2018), specifically on memory performance (Chai et al, 2019;Karstens et al, 2019), processing speed (Kuroda et al, 2019), and episodic memory (Okubo et al, 2017;Marseglia et al, 2018;Whyte et al, 2018). One study (Moran et al, 2018) reported a minor effect, and that concerned a reduced task completion time in the followup periods, revealing improved performance.…”

“…Altogether nine original studies were detected in the databases described above. Six studies ( Danthiir et al, 2018 ; Marseglia et al, 2018 ; Moran et al, 2018 ; Whyte et al, 2018 ; Chai et al, 2019 ; Kuroda et al, 2019 ) were RCT and three studies ( Okubo et al, 2017 ; Milte et al, 2019 ; Karstens et al, 2019 ) were cohort studies. Two studies ( Chai et al, 2019 ; Karstens et al, 2019 ) originated in United States, two ( Okubo et al, 2017 ; Kuroda et al, 2019 ) in Japan, two in Australia ( Danthiir et al, 2018 ; Milte et al, 2019 ), one in Ireland ( Moran et al, 2018 ), one in United Kingdom ( Whyte et al, 2018 ), and one study was an European multicenter study ( Marseglia et al, 2018 ).…”

“…The smaller effect might have been caused by a slightly older age group of participants. In our mini review, especially the consumption of vitamins (e.g., vitamin B6 and B12) in ultra-high hydrostatic pressurizing brown rice ( Kuroda et al, 2019 ) and the consumption of flavonoids contained in tart cherry juice ( Chai et al, 2019 ), plant foods and fish diet ( Okubo et al, 2017 ), and blueberry extract ( Whyte et al, 2018 ) were associated with enhanced cognitive performance. As Ayaz et al (2019) state, the mechanisms of flavonoids have been shown to be mediated through the inhibition of cholinesterases including acetylcholinesterase (AChE), and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), β-secretase (BACE1), free radicals and modulation of signaling pathways that are implicated in cognitive and neuroprotective functions.…”

Effect of the Intake of Brown Rice for Six Months on the Cognitive Function in Healthy Elderly Persons: A Study Protocol for a Pilot, Non-Randomized Controlled Trial

“…On one hand, at the time of writing this manuscript, there were no active intervention studies on human subjects on cognitive ability, except for a few studies [ 29 , 30 ]. For instance, in the study by Uenobe et al (2019), elderly people living in an elderly welfare facility were divided into two groups, and brown rice or white rice was ingested three meals a day for six months.…”