Q: Weve read that drinking a lot of fruit juice or eating a lot of turmeric or blueberries can help prevent Alzheimers. But isnt it futile after 50 or 60 years to try this? Wouldnt it take a lifetime of eating these foods to do any good? At what age approximately does it really not make any difference?

Answer :James Joseph, PhD, research physiologist at the Neuroscience Laboratory at Tufts Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, answers: We now have data from one of our collaborators which shows that aged individuals (average age in their 60s) exhibiting early memory declines who were given Concord grape or blueberry juice (approximately 12 ounces per day) showed improvements in memory on several parameters, such as list recall, intrusion errors, etc. In addition, all of our initial studies with blueberries, strawberries, blackberries or walnuts were done in old animals. So it is never too late to start.