Antioxidant diet reduces brain pathology in aged beagles

Elizabeth Head and collaborators studied beta amyloid pathology in aged beagle dogs that were maintained for over two years on either control food or food enriched with antioxidants and mitochondrial cofactors. The animals maintained on the high antioxidant diet showed less beta amyloid accumulation in three different brain regions: the parietal lobes, the entorhinal cortex, and the occipital cortex. These findings indicate that oxidative stress has a causal role in the development of beta amyloid pathology, and that this development is slowed by nutritional supplementation.