Eggs come loaded with essential vitamins and minerals that are known to promote overall health in various ways. Now, there is another reason for adding this superfood to your daily diet. According to a latest study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, intake of dietary choline is associated to play a role in the prevention of cognitive decline. Eggs and meat are two of the main sources of dietary phosphatidylcholine. The study was conducted in an attempt to investigate the association of dietary choline intake with cognitive performances in middle-aged and older men.
For the study, a population-based sample of 2497 dementia-free Finnish men aged 42-60 years were examined. Four years later, a subset of 482 men completed five different cognitive performance tests that measured their memory and cognitive processing. Dietary intakes were assessed with the use of 4-d food records at baseline. For the analysis, cox regression and ANCOVA were used. All analyses were also stratified by the apolipoprotein E phenotype (APOE-ε4 compared with other phenotypes).
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After a follow-up period of 22 years, 337 men were diagnosed with dementia. The mean ± SD total choline intake was 431 ± 88 mg/d, of which 188 ± 63 mg/d was phosphatidylcholine. As per the findings of the study, those in the highest compared with the lowest phosphatidylcholine intake quartile had 28% (95% CI: 1%, 48%; P-trend = 0.02 across quartiles) lower multivariable-adjusted risk of incident dementia.
Total choline intake had no association with the risk of incident dementia. However, both total choline and phosphatidylcholine intakes were associated with better performance in cognitive tests assessing frontal and temporal lobe functioning.