Peanut Butter And Jelly Is Good For Your Heart

I love my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I get picked on all of the time for eating them in the morning. Well, it turns out that I may be helping my heart as well.

Maybe you should eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch and drink a glass of red wine with dinner. An antioxidant compound called resveratrol that is found in red grapes and peanuts and is already known to improve heart health, might also help prevent memory loss as we age.

At least, it works in rats. More than anything else, one activity helps improve your memory -- so much so that when you do it, the area of the brain involved in memory actually grows in size. Led by Ashok Shetty of Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, the team found over a two-year period that aged rats who received resveratrol improved both spatial learning and memory, while rats that were not given the antioxidant experienced a marked decline in these functions.

"The results of the study were striking," Shetty said. "They indicated that for the control rats who did not receive resveratrol, spatial learning ability was largely maintained but ability to make new spatial memories significantly declined between 22 and 25 months. By contrast, both spatial learning and memory improved in the resveratrol-treated rats." So what? Shetty said it's possible that resveratrol treatment during middle-age will not only prevent or delay changes in memory and mood but could also be used to treat Alzheimer's patients.

So, to all of my co-workers that call me a 5-year-old for eating PB & J for breakfast, now what do you have to say?