14 DAY TRIAL // Sunshine and fish may be the two things that are indispensable to the development of the human brain, a new scientific study from experts at the University of Manchester shows. The health experts argue that vitamin D, which can be abundantly found in fish, has the ability to increase the mass of gray matter inside the brain, favoring the creation of larger numbers of synapses, and aiding in complex processes. Additionally, sunlight triggers the formation of vitamin D when it touches the skin, which in turn regenerates the skin and benefits the brain as well.
The effects of vitamin D can be more accurately identified and are more present in middle-aged and older men, whose cognitive functions are considerably boosted by high doses of the chemical. The primary source of the stuff that researchers from the University of Manchester and other European research centers used was sunlight. They asked the test participants to bask in the light for given amounts of time, consistent with the generation of specific amounts of vitamin D.
More than 3,000 men between the ages of 40 and 79 were part of the new research, which took place on a massive scale, at several research centers throughout Europe at the same time. The results, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, show that the participants exhibited higher levels of attention, concentration, as well as a higher speed of information processing. The results improved in direct correlation to the amount of vitamin D in the organism.
“Previous studies exploring the relationship between vitamin D and cognitive performance in adults have produced inconsistent findings, but we observed a significant, independent association between a slower information processing speed and lower levels of vitamin D. The main strengths of our study are that it is based on a large population sample and took into account potential interfering factors, such as depression, season and levels of physical activity,” UM School of Translational Medicine expert Dr. David Lee, who has also been the lead author of the paper, said.
“Interestingly, the association between increased vitamin D and faster information processing was more significant in men aged over 60 years, although the biological reasons for this remain unclear. The positive effects vitamin D appears to have on the brain need to be explored further, but certainly raise questions about its potential benefit for minimizing aging-related declines in cognitive performance,” the expert concluded.