Dietary Fats Are Associated with Cognition

“Unhealthy fats” — saturated fats and trans fats — promote cardiovascular disease, and “healthy fats” — monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats — prevent cardiovascular disease. A new report from the Women's Health Study involved 6183 older women (mean age at study entry, 66) who provided detailed food-intake histories and underwent repeated cognitive testing (general cognition, verbal memory, and semantic fluency) during 4 years.

After adjusting for multiple confounding factors, higher saturated fat intake was associated significantly with worse global cognitive scores. In contrast, higher monosaturated fat intake was associated with better global cognitive scores. Researchers found a linear relation between the amount consumed of each fat…