Saturated Fats Bad for Cognition, Claim Harvard Researchers

A recent study has reportedly claimed that higher saturated fat (SFA) intake “was associated with worse global cognitive and verbal memory trajectories” in women aged 65 years or older. Olivia Okereke, et al., “Dietary fat types and 4-year cognitive change in community dwelling older women,” Annals of Neurology, May 2012. Harvard Medical School researchers evidently analyzed data from 6,183 participants in the Women’s Health Study over a four-year period, finding that those in the highest quintile for SFA consumption had “a higher risk of worst cognitive change” than their counterparts in the lowest quintile. At the same time, however, higher monounsaturated fat (MUFA) intake was related to better global cognitive and verbal memory trajectories. These results apparently led the study’s authors to speculate that “different consumption levels of the major specific fat types, rather than total fat intake itself, appeared to influence cognitive aging.”

“When looking at changes in cognitive function, what we found is that the
total amount of fat intake did not really matter, but the type of fat did,” said
study author Olivia Okereke in a May 18, 2012, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
press release. “Our findings have significant public health implications.
Substituting in the good fat in place of the bad fat is a fairly simple dietary
modification that could help prevent decline in memory.”