Best foods for brain health and memory: what the research says

Leafy greens, berries and fish keep turning up in brain studies. Supplements mostly don’t. Here’s what the evidence supports, and how strong it really is.

By the Daily Recall team · Updated October 3, 2026 · 9 sources

Search “brain foods” and you’ll find long lists of superfoods. The research is more modest, and more useful. A few food patterns are consistently linked to slower memory decline, but most of that evidence comes from observational studies, and most supplements have disappointed in proper trials. Here’s what holds up.

The MIND diet

The MIND diet combines the Mediterranean diet with the DASH diet for blood pressure, and adds brain-specific choices. Harvard’s summary of the guidelines:

• Leafy greens 6 or more servings a week, plus other vegetables at least once a day
• Berries 2 or more times a week
• Nuts 5 or more servings a week, beans 4 or more
• Whole grains 3 or more servings a day
• Fish at least once a week, poultry twice a week
• Olive oil as the main cooking fat
• Limit red meat, butter, cheese, pastries and sweets, and fried or fast food

In the 2015 study that launched it, 923 older adults were followed for about 4.5 years. Those who followed MIND most closely had a 53% lower rate of Alzheimer’s disease than those who followed it least.

The catch: that was observational, and people who eat well tend to do lots of other healthy things. When researchers finally ran a randomized trial (Barnes et al., NEJM, 2023), 604 older adults followed either MIND or a control diet for 3 years, both with mild calorie cuts. Thinking scores improved in both groups, and the difference between them was not significant. The diet may still help over longer periods or in other groups, but it isn’t proven to prevent dementia.

Foods with the best evidence

Leafy greens. In a study of 960 older adults followed for about 5 years, those who ate about 1.3 servings a day of greens such as spinach, kale and lettuce declined as slowly as people 11 years younger than those who ate almost none. Researchers point to vitamin K, lutein and folate.

Berries. In the Nurses’ Health Study of more than 16,000 women over 70, the highest intake of blueberries and strawberries was linked to cognitive aging delayed by up to 2.5 years. The researchers couldn’t rule out other lifestyle differences.

Fish. In a 2016 study of 286 brains examined after death, people with the APOE4 gene variant (a risk factor for Alzheimer’s) who ate seafood at least once a week had fewer Alzheimer’s-related brain changes. Seafood eaters had more mercury in their brains, but it wasn’t linked to more brain damage.

Nuts, beans, whole grains and olive oil are part of the MIND pattern and generally good for the heart, and what helps blood vessels tends to help the brain.

Supplements: what the trials say

• Fish oil (omega-3): eating fish has the more consistent findings. A 2020 meta-analysis of 38 trials and nearly 50,000 people found supplements had little or no effect on thinking.
• Multivitamins: the COSMOS trials found a daily multivitamin modestly slowed cognitive aging in older adults, by the equivalent of about 2 years across the studies. That’s promising, but the NIH’s complementary health center still says there’s no clear benefit for well-nourished people.
• Cocoa flavanols: no overall memory benefit in COSMOS, with a possible effect only in people whose diets were low in flavanols to begin with.
• Ginkgo biloba: the GEM study gave more than 3,000 adults aged 75 and over ginkgo or a placebo for about 6 years. Ginkgo didn’t lower dementia risk or slow decline.
• Vitamin B12: it matters if you’re deficient, which is more common after 50, on a vegan diet, or with metformin or acid-reducing drugs. Ask for a blood test rather than guessing.

Ginkgo and fish oil can interact with blood thinners, so check with a doctor or pharmacist before starting any supplement.

The bigger picture

Food is one part of brain health. Exercise, sleep, treating high blood pressure and hearing loss, and staying socially active all have evidence behind them too. The forgetfulness guide covers the 14 risk factors the 2024 Lancet Commission linked to dementia, and exercise and memory looks at the strongest of them.

A quick memory check

Here’s a short word-recognition test: is each word new, or have you seen it already?

The full daily version is Words. Playing it daily won’t replace a healthy diet, but it’s a fun way to keep an eye on your memory over time.

Sources

1. Morris et al. (2015), Alzheimer’s & Dementia: MIND diet associated with reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease
2. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: The MIND diet
3. Barnes et al. (2023), NEJM: trial of the MIND diet for prevention of cognitive decline
4. National Institute on Aging: leafy greens linked to slower age-related cognitive decline (Morris et al. 2018)
5. Devore et al. (2012), Annals of Neurology: berries and cognitive decline (ScienceDaily)
6. NIEHS: seafood consumption and brain pathology (Morris et al. 2016, JAMA)
7. NCCIH: dietary supplements and cognitive function, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease
8. COSMOS trial results: multivitamins and cocoa flavanols
9. NCCIH: the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) study

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