Genius Foods

FINGER trial, or Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to
Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability, the world’s
first ongoing, large-scale, long-term randomized control trial
to measure the impact that our dietary and lifestyle choices
have on our cognitive health.
The trial involves over 1,200 at-risk older adults, half of
whom are enrolled in nutritional counseling and exercise
programs, as well as social support to reduce psychosocial
risk factors for cognitive decline such as loneliness,
depression, and stress. The other half—the control group—
receives standard care.
After the first two years, initial findings were published
revealing striking results. The overall cognitive function of
those in the intervention group increased by 25 percent
compared to controls, and their executive function improved
by 83 percent. Executive function is critically important to
many aspects of a healthy life, playing a key role in
planning, decision making, and even social interaction. (If
your executive function isn’t working up to snuff, you
might complain that you are unable to think clearly or “get
stuff done.”) And the volunteers’ processing speed
improved by a staggering 150 percent. Processing speed is
the rate at which one takes in and reacts to new information,
and it typically declines with age.
The success of this trial highlights the power that a full
lifestyle “makeover” can have on improving the way your
brain works, even in old age, and provides the best evidence
to date that cognitive decline does not have to be an
inevitable part of aging.