Eat seafood to optimise your brain function

Posted on :  August 20, 2020
Tuna Sushi

by Ashleigh Feltham
Accredited Practising Dietitian and Accredited Nutritionist

Do you want to improve your memory, executive function, your ability to plan and organise your life and the ability to execute these thought patterns and visual-spatial processing, the ability to tell where objects are in space? Then make sure you are including Safcol Seafood two to three times a week. Seafood is linked to optimal brain function and a high-quality level of evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis that specifically looked at how memory, executive function and spatial processing are improved with omega 3 fats.

Optimising your brain function for life and reducing mental decline is something which is important to many. Your lifestyle choices play an important role in the quality of your brain function throughout your life and diet plays a major part. To show just how diet can affect your brain function and health a systematic review of 25 studies and meta-analysis of 18 studies showed an improvement in brain performance with omega-3 supplementation in the diet.

There are many important properties of omega-3 fat which support brain function these include:

  1. As an anti-inflammatory fat, omega-3 fat promotes better blood flow in your brain.
  2. DHA, which is one of the components of marine sources of omega-3 fat is the main fat required by your brain for normal functioning.
  3. Having suboptimal levels of omega-3 fat have been linked to a reduction in brain size as you age which is consequently linked to cognitive decline.

Another advantage of this brain optimising fat is that it is linked to improvements in your mood. Specifically, the component of omega-3 fat called EPA. While supplements were used in this study there is no denying that the use of whole food is not only safer but provides your brain with much more nutrition than simply the single omega-3 fat. When you choose fatty fish like Safcol salmon or sardines these will provide you with a rich source of omega-3 fat as well as:

  1. Protein to make and repair all the cells in your body.
  2. Iodine and selenium for thyroid health.
  3. Choline and B12 for normal central nervous system production. This also assists your brain function.
  4. Antioxidants to help fight off free radicals that promote cognitive decline and ageing and cause damage and disease to the cells of your body.

These are only 4 examples of the many ways to include Safcol Seafood over supplements. You will also be saving money in the long term.

Take home message

Choose seafood to optimise your brain function and improve your ability to cope with any challenge life throws at you. Safcol seafood does not only tastes delicious but does amazing things to improve your brain function and health.

Not only is Safcol the Seafood Experts tuna lunchbox friendly, but it also tastes delicious, and boasts some amazing health benefits! Tuna contains Omega-3 fats that are an unsaturated form of fat called polyunsaturated. These types of fats cannot be made by the body, so we need to include them as part of our diet to stay healthy. For good health, you need omega-3 fats in our diet, particularly the type which comes from fish and seafood because it contains two acids known as docosahexaenoic acid or DHA and eicosapentaenoic acid or EPA. These two acids are linked to better health for your body particularly for your brain and heart.

 

Reference:

Alex A, Abbott KA, McEvoy M, Schofield PW, Garg ML. Long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and cognitive decline in non-demented adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutr Rev. 2020;78(7):563-578. doi:10.1093/nutrit/nuz073