Becoming a vegetarian could be good for the planet, but it’s bad for your brain. Scientists at Oxford University in England have found that vegetarians are six times more likely to have brain shrinkage than those who include meats in their diets.
The cause could be a lack of vitamins. Vegetarians are more likely than meat-eaters to be deficient in vitamin B12, which is mainly found in meats, and a B12 deficiency is known to cause anemia and inflammation of the nervous system.
Oxford researchers examined 107 people between the age of 61 and 87 using physical exams, memory tests and brain scans. When the same volunteers were retested five years later, those with the lowest amounts of B12 had the most brain atrophy.
Swedish researchers found that being overweight is also linked to brain loss. Women with a BMI (body mass index) that averaged 27 showed brain shrinkage. (A BMI of 25 or over is “overweight” and a BMI of 30 or higher is “obese.”) For every additional point in BMI, brain loss increased by 13 to 16 percent.
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