A Teaspoon of Marmite a Day Could Keep The Doctor Away

If we said to you, you either love it or you hate it, you’ll know straight away that we’re talking about Marmite. This spread has been a staple of British kitchen cupboards for generations and has helped to divide people, as you do either love or loathe the stuff.

However, even haters of Marmite might want to consider adding it into their diet – no matter how much that thought might make you cringe – as it seems that Marmite may be more than a good/bad topping for your toast.

According to a new study, a teaspoon of Marmite a day could help keep the doctor away by staving off dementia and improving brain power. Researchers at York University found that people who eat a teaspoon of Marmite every day actually experienced positive changes in their brain’s electrical activity.

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It seems that as well as a very distinctive taste, the yeast extract packs in a lot of vitamin B12, which the researchers said helps to increase the level of certain chemicals in your body that protect against neurological disorders like dementia.

Researchers had people eat a teaspoon of Marmite every day for 30 days – heaven for some and hell for others – with a second group eating a teaspoon of peanut butter a day for the same period. Those who had Marmite, experienced a 30 per cent fall in their brain’s response to visual patterns compared to the peanut butter group.

According to the researchers, this is due to a rise in the levels of gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA), which is a neurotransmitter – we’ll take their word for it. This chemical effectively helps to balance the levels of activity in the brain, helping it to stay healthy by stopping neurons from firing too fast.

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This is the first time that diet has been found to change GABA levels, which have been linked to illnesses like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. If this isn’t enough to convince you to try and eat some Marmite every day, we don’t know what is!

Luckily, it isn’t just the yeast extract that might help keep your brain healthy, as it seems that red wine helps to give it a bit of a workout. A leading neuroscientists, Professor Gordon Shepherd from the Yale School of Medicine, has said that wine engages more of the brain than anything else we do.

He’s also said that you shouldn’t spit wine out when tasting it and instead appreciate every drop, which seems like a good plan to us. While it’s important to remember to drink responsibly, this is one workout we could get hyped for.