Traditional Indian Food for Improving Brain Cognition
Sudrita Roy Choudhury, Joyeta Ghosh, Samarpita Koner, Khusboo Singh, Alekhya Bera
Abstract
Foods not only supply energy but also help in growth, development and maintenance of health including cognitive functions. It has also been observed that specific nutrients can affect cognitive abilities at different ages. Diverse nutrients present in the food play a crucial role in the maintenance of cognitive functions and deficiencies of such nutrients might lead to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease, Parkinson's disease and other neuronal dysfunction including dementia. The purpose of the present study is to determine the existing data available in different science literature regarding food items available in India that have potent action on brain function. Searched in PubMed, Google Search, Google Scholar, Research Gate. Using the keywords "Foods for Brain", Diet influence on cognition'', "Micronutrients on cognition ", "Diets in Cognition". The direct connection between nutrition, brain function and behaviour exist in several research. Traditional Indian diet consists of many phytochemicals/phytonutrients which have shown one pivotal role in reducing inflammation. There are hundreds of different spices that are specifically used in traditional Indian food which are rich in many phytonutrients that proves to play an important role in better nerve health like turmeric prevents brain damage due to oxidative stress even saffron has neuroprotective properties that protects the hippocampus against age related damage. Many studies proved that specific nutrients can affect our brain development. Phytonutrients present in the Indian food does improves alertness, concentration and performance of brain by reducing oxidative stress, high inflammation, stress induced neurotoxicity and it also impacted on the nerve functionality, however how much portion of such specific food we need to include in diet for best cognitive performance is yet to get disclosed, further research is still needed in this field. Furthermore, traditional Indian foods are having bright future in improving neurological health of an individual.