The Effect of Nutrition on Cognitive Performance in Young Versus Elderly Community-Living Adults

Several variables such as verbal ability, age, gender, level of depression and vitamin B12 deficiency have been found to moderate memory performance on cognitive tasks. The current study examined the above variables, plus also looked at levels of magnesium and zinc for their probable moderating effect on memory performance. Examined were 38 adults: 27 younger (between 21-35 years) and 11 oider (between 60-85 years), to identify those factors that moderated memory performance for this community-dwelling sample. The results of the current study replicated previous work reported in the literature that examined age-related changes in prose recall, word list recall and working memory span. There were a limited number of nutrition measures that impacted memory performance. Vitamin B12 significantly predicted memory performance in a number of analyses but the relationship was in a negative direction