Monash University team in world-first study revealing a diet for mums that boosts brain protection

A diet high in these foods may offer mothers protection for brain health that could extend to multiple generations.

A diet rich in apples and herbs may help women protect not only the brain health of their children, but a new study shows for the first time that protection may also extend to their grandchildren.

A five-year study by researchers from Monash University has revealed a molecule found in fresh apples and herbs such as basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano and sage could help to reduce the breakdown of communication cables needed for the brain to work properly.

The study by the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute team was published overnight in Nature Cell Biology.

The molecule is ursolic acid, a natural plant product, and the researchers discovered that when present in a mother’s diet it turned on a gene that makes a fat, or lipid, called sphingolipid.

This lipid helps to improve the health of axons, or nerve fibres, and may protect them from becoming fragile, damaged or deteriorated with age.

A molecule found in fresh apples may help with brain health in children and grandchildren. Picture: iStock

“This is not genetic inheritance; it is not the transfer of genes from a mother to offspring, this is the inheritance of a lipid signal that has never been shown before, which is a major finding of our study,” senior author Roger Pocock said.

“It is a message that is provided by the mother that enables her to protect her children and grandchildren.

“It doesn’t go any further, we did try. For some reason it only protects for two generations and we don’t understand why that is.

“We feel that there is some kind of threshold level that drops off; a temporary evolution in a way where it helps for a couple of generations and then subsides again. That was absolutely fascinating to us.”

He says the discovery may also offer potential treatments and protection from degenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Multiple Sclerosis.

“This is early stage discovery research,” Professor Pocock said. “But we do know the lipids that we have identified have already been shown to have functions in protecting the human nervous system. There is a clear link.”

Professor Roger Pocock from Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute.

In the world-first, Professor Pocock’s team, that included Dr Wenyue Wang as lead author, used genetic models of a transparent roundworm called Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) to show that this protection comes directly from the mother and travels from her intestine, where food is digested, to eggs in the uterus, allowing it to protect axons in the next generation.

“We can apply this molecule just for a few hours and it protects the next generation, and the following generation,” Professor Pocock says, adding when the team attempted to deliver it after fertilisation, it didn’t provide any protection.

“So there is something about what happens in the egg that is protective, we don’t understand that right now. That is part of our next steps,” he says

Professor Pocock describes the C. elegans worm as a fantastic model to study ageing and brain function.

“They have been used as a genetic model by researchers worldwide for more than 50 years to understand how genes control development,” he said.

The next steps for the researchers will be understanding how much lipid is needed, and where, to enable the best brain health protection.

“We believe too much of this lipid can also cause defects in development. Where you generate the lipid also appears critical,” Professor Pocock says.

He says while the results are promising, they still need to be confirmed in preclinical trials.

“Our work supports a healthy diet during pregnancy for optimal brain development and health,” Professor Pocock said.

Originally published as Monash University team in world-first study revealing a diet for mums that boosts brain protection