Federal food assistance program may slow cognitive decline, study suggests
The elderly who participated in the additional nutritional aid program, or SNAP, had a slower cognitive decline rate than the people who were eligible for the anti-chase program but did not receive services, according to a study presented on Wednesday.
Although many adults are starting to slowly slow down in their forties, researchers have found that people over 50 who participated in Snap, which helps people with low income to afford grocery products, had a slower drop rate of their memory and their skills to think about their peers.
This is equivalent to obtaining two to three more cognitive health over 10 years, said Linlin DA, the main study of the study, which presented its results on Wednesday at the International Conference of the Alzheimer association in Toronto.
By providing a safe source of food, Snap “can have subsidized advantages for brain health,” said DA, who led the study when she was a doctoral student at the University of Georgie College of Public Health.
The study of the National Institutes of Health financed occurs only a few weeks after President Donald Trump signed legislation that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the financing of SNAP, formerly known under the name of food stamps, of $ 186 billion until 2034. Food banks across the United States are already having trouble meeting the growing demand for the funding reductions.
Food insecurity “can cause poor nutrition and chronic diseases, and all this can have a negative impact on the brain,” said DA. “Thus, by improving access to foods rich in nutrients, Snap can support brain health, reduce stress and promote better health overall.”
The new study, which has not yet been published in a review evaluated by peers, leaves many unanswered questions.
The researchers did not measure which foods study participants in the participants, so that they do not know if people receiving Snap services had a healthier diet.
But doctors know that diets rich in sodium can increase blood pressure, one of the most important risk factors of dementia, said Dr. Mitchell Elkind, director of brain health sciences and cerebral vascular accidents at American Heart Association.
The study does not explain how food security could benefit from the brain, said Elkind, who was not involved in research. Programs such as Snap are possible to relieve anxiety that people feel when they cannot afford their grocery store or when they have to choose between paying for food or medicines, giving them more mental bandwidth to focus on other problems. Chronic stress has been linked to a higher risk of dementia.
The design of the new study, which has followed more than 2,300 elderly people for 10 years, cannot definitively prove that participation in SNAP protects brain health.
The people who participated in Snap may be cognitively healthier before the start of the study, said DA. Registration for Snap can take time and complicated, which makes more difficult for people with cognitive problems to complete their applications.
However, an increasing research area links nutrition, food security and the risk of dementia.
“Observational studies from around the world have shown us that food insecurity and poor cognitive health are going together,” said Kriti Jain, health administrator at the National Institute of Aging, who is part of the NIH, which was not involved in the study. “More recent studies have shown us that food insecurity occurs before cognitive health is getting worse.”
The health of the brain is shaped from much more than genetics, said DA.
Cognitive aging “can also be shaped by policies, the environment and by access to different resources,” she said. “This means that we can do something to change and improve it.”
The anti-chasers argue that the reduction in Snap advantages will leave people hungry and less healthy. Research shows that poverty and food insecurity – a condition in which people lack a coherent source of nutritious food – are common -rate risk factors in the elderly.
“SNAP is both a rescue buoy for the elderly and a critical public health tool,” said Crystal Fitzsimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, a defense group. “Participation in SNAP can mean additional years of cognitive health, helping the elderly to remain independent”, instead of moving to nursing homes.
The Chamber’s Agriculture Committee led by the Republicans said that the reduction in financing “restores the snot to its initial intention – promotional work, not well -being – while saving the dollars of taxpayers and investing in American agriculture.”
Food as medicine
Karen Forbes, 61, participated for the first time in Snap decades when she was a single mother of a young child. She replied the program during the pandemic when her customers sitting by animal stopped needing her.
Forbes, who lives outside Portland, Oregon, said that Snap was particularly important since she developed Long Cavid in 2022, which left her heavy fatigue, prevents her from working and caused a “brain fog” which resembles the age -related cognitive decline. Forbes said that she and her father, who were 82, “cross a kind of Alzheimer’s thing together.”
Although Forbes said she was talking about “a million miles per minute”, she is now having trouble finding the right word. If she tries to speak too quickly, “everything is blurred and stupid.” After an expectation of 18 months, Forbes said that she had recently started to receive social security disability benefits.
Due to Snap, said Forbes, she does not have to choose between buying grocery products and paying her rent or her electricity bills. Her favorite Snap part is to be able to afford fresh fruits and vegetables, she said. Oregon’s Snap program offers “double advantages” for shopping market purchases, so that people can buy twice as fresh for the same money. Forbes said she is trying to follow a healthy diet in the hope of overcoming her illness.
“When you are chronic ill, every little little thing you can do to improve your health makes all the difference in the world,” she said.
Food insecurity linked to dementia
Jain described food insecurity as “a serious and growing public health problem in America”.
In families with members over the age of 60, the prevalence of food insecurity has almost doubled in the past two decades. Twenty-three percent of these families were faced with chronic or recurring food insecurity from 2015 to 2019, according to a NIH survey published last year in Jama Health Forum.
Another study published last year revealed that food insecurity has doubled the risk of probable cognitive decline.
And an article published in 2024 in the Journal of Nutrition revealed that adults with food insecurity and lower quality diets had a significantly higher drop in cognitive scores during the study, conducted from 2012 to 2020. In this study, however, participation in Snap was not linked to the rate of mental decline, which suggests that Snap foods “can be insufficient to prevent Negative cognitive effects and limited access to nutritive access ”.
Unprecedented cuts
The Urban Institute, a non -profit research organization which focuses on social and economic policy, estimates that financing reductions could lead 22.3 million families to lose all or part of their food advantages.
The 20% decrease in financing is “the greatest reduction in Snap in history”, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priories, a non -partisan reflection group. The measure will also move a large part of the cost of the Federal Government program to the States from 2028, as well as to expand the work requirements for the participants.
Seven out of 10 of the 42 million people participating in the Snap are the elderly, people with disabilities and families with children.
The new study suggests “We need more research on the role of healthy food and nutrition in brain health,” said Elkind. “In particular, this suggests that there should be more research in the field of food as medicine, which means the supply of healthy food to people to see what the impact on cognition, the risk of dementia and brain health.”
