Adults who participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, experienced slightly slower cognitive decline over the course of a decade than those who were eligible for the program but did not enroll in it. That’s according to new research presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.
Diet and brain health are closely connected, and not having enough food is associated with poorer cognitive function and higher incidences of dementia in older adults. The differing rates of cognitive decline seen in the new study may be because using SNAP benefits can enhance the quality of people’s diets and ensure they receive enough calories and nutrients, said Suhang Song, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Georgia College of Public Health, who led the study.
It’s also possible that SNAP freed up financial resources for other health essentials (like medication for a chronic disease) or helped to reduce stress, both of which are good for brain health, Dr. Song said.
The research was released just weeks after Congress passed a government spending bill that could cut SNAP funding by an estimated 20 percent. Those cuts could result in millions of people losing access to the benefit.
The new findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, drew on data from the national Health and Retirement Study, which has tracked more than 20,000 adults over age 50 since 1992. Every two years, participants answer questions about their income, work status, physical health and more, and complete a battery of cognitive tests.
Researchers looked just at adults whose household income made them eligible for SNAP in 2010 and who did not have an existing cognitive impairment. Of those 2,347 people, a little less than half were enrolled in SNAP. The two groups had similar cognitive scores to start, but over a 10-year span the adults who weren’t on SNAP declined a little faster every year than those who were. The difference was small — just an extra tenth of a point annually on a 27-point scale — but Dr. Song said that can add up to a meaningful difference over time and even potentially delay the onset of mild cognitive impairment.
Dr. Hussein Yassine, a professor of neurology at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the findings. “We’ve always known that nutritional insufficiency is a major risk factor for dementia,” said Dr. Yassine, who was not involved in the study. But, he added, the new study “confirms the importance of access to nutrition and foods in the aging brain.”
Puja Agarwal, an assistant professor at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago, who was also not involved in the research, said she would be interested to know what types of foods the participants were buying with the SNAP benefit. A diet with plenty of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables, healthy fats like olive oil, and lean sources of protein such as chicken, fish and legumes is known to support brain health. In contrast, eating a diet high in ultraprocessed foods may increase a person’s risk for cognitive impairment.
A few previously published studies have also looked at the connection between SNAP use, food insecurity and cognition. Two similarly showed that using SNAP was associated with slower cognitive decline. A third study, however, found that while older adults with food insecurity had lower cognitive scores and faster decline, SNAP use was not associated with better outcomes.
The inconsistent findings may “come down to just differences in methodology,” such as how researchers control for other discrepancies between SNAP users and nonusers, said Matthew Lohman, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, who led the third study. For example, people who participate in SNAP tend to be younger and in poorer health than people who are eligible but don’t participate.
Dr. Lohman added that if SNAP does improve brain health, the effects would likely be subtle and take years or even decades to manifest. But the program’s known short-term health benefits, such as lowering food insecurity and improving medication adherence, could also contribute to better cognitive health in the long term.
Dana G. Smith is a Times reporter covering personal health, particularly aging and brain health.
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