The Cognitive Health Committee explores how foods, nutrients, diets and bioactive food components support optimization and maintenance of cognitive performance.
With a focus on health promotion, the Cognitive Health Committee advances translational nutrition research - prioritizing real world cognitive health outcomes with meaningful impact on quality of life from adolescence through older age.
Read about our February 2024 Stakeholder Roundtable.
The specific goals of the Committee are to:
- Build the evidence required to fill data gaps in support of dietary recommendations or guidance related to how diet and nutrition can promote optimized cognitive health
- Promote and/or develop research guidance and best practices, with clarity on limitations – both for research conduct and for research interpretation
Why is this important?
Neurocognitive health is central to quality of life. However, dietary guidance and food development that support the optimal brain in “generally healthy” populations is limited. The 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee explored neurocognitive health through several systematic reviews and was faced with a literature having “considerable variation in testing methods, inconsistent validity and reliability of cognitive testing methods, and differences between dietary patterns and cognitive outcomes examined,” reducing the ability to draw conclusions.
Understanding how foods, nutrients, diets and bioactive food components support optimization and maintenance of cognitive performance has potential for significant societal and public health benefit.
Overarching Themes to be Addressed:
- Advancing research methods that prioritize outcome measures with real-world impact
- Advancing research approaches emphasizing causal pathways linking diet with cognitive health
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Balchem
Cargill
Florida Department of Citrus
General Mills, Inc.
Haleon
Kraft Heinz
Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.
Reckitt Benckiser
ACADEMIC ADVISORS
Emily Ho, PhD, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine
Maryam Makowski, PhD, Stanford University
Linda Snetselaar, PhD, RD, University of Iowa
Hayley Young, PhD, Swansea University
GOVERNMENT ADVISOR
Cindy Davis, PhD, USDA, ARS
Projects Supported by the Committee:
Publications
Perspective: Advancing Dietary Guidance for Cognitive Health—Focus On Solutions to Harmonize Test Selection, Implementation and Evaluation
Advances in Nutrition, 2023
Diet Patterns Associated with Cognitive Decline: Methods to Harmonize Data from European and US Cohort Studies
Frontiers in Nutrition, 2024
The impact of dietary intake on cognitive outcomes and dementia prevention is a topic of increasing interest.
Events
Roundtable: Understanding Approaches, Decisions, and Challenges to Cognitive Performance Measure Selection, Validation, and Evaluation to Support Effects of Nutrition
March 14, 2022
Virtual, Event
This meeting aims to understand decisions and approaches that underlie cognitive assessment tool selection by authoritative groups, with the aim to advance evidence evaluation and development to support future dietary guidance and outline next steps for addressing measure variability.