No matter how old you are, drink at least a glass of milk everyday if you want to sharpen your mental skills, say researchers.
A new study has claimed that drinking a glass of milk daily not only boosts one’s intake of much-needed nutrients, but it also positively impacts one’s brain power and mental performance.
According to the researchers, certain nutrients in dairy products, such as magnesium, could play a role in staving off memory loss.Moreover, dairy foods also help protect against heart disease and high blood pressure, which in turn maintains the brain’s ability to properly function.
In their study, the researchers at University of Maine have found that adults with higher intakes of milk and milk products did score significantly higher on memory and other brain function tests than those who drank little to no milk.
In fact, they asked 972 men and women, all aged 23 to 98 years, to fill in detailed surveys on their diets, including how often they had dairy products, even if only having milk in their tea and coffee.The subjects then completed a series of eight rigorous tests to check concentration, memory and learning abilities.
The findings revealed that adults who consumed dairy products at least five or six times a week did far better in memory tests compared with those who rarely ate or drank them.
In fact, in some of the tests, adults who rarely consumed dairy products were five times more likely to fail compared with those who had them between two and four times a week, the researchers found.
“New and emerging brain health benefits are just one more reason to start each day with low-fat or fat-free milk,” the ‘Daily Mail’ newspaper quoted the researchers as saying.