Clinical Trial to Study the Effects of Dietary Flax Beverage on Memory and Cognition

This study is a multisite, double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trial to examine the effect of daily flax beverage consumption on memory and cognition. This trial will be conducted at the I.H. Asper Clinical Research Institute and at the John Buhler Research Centre, Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Sixty men and women diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) aged 60 to 84 years will be recruited by using advertisements/flyers, radio/TV announcements, the Alzheimer's Society network and/or will be referred by a general practitioner. The participants will be randomly divided: 30 subjects in the flax-treatment group and 30 placed in the control - placebo group. For 180 days (6 months) participants will either consume 2 servings of 330 ml of flax beverage (treatment group; 30 gms flax/day beverage) or placebo beverage (i.e. normal fiber beverage; control) per day. Potential candidates will first be screened in-person at the I.H. Asper Clinical Research Institute; the screening visit (SV1) will last about 2 hours. The subject will first be asked to read, understand and sign a consent form. Then they will be subject to a questionnaire, a medical history, a blood pressure (BP) measurement and 2 screening memory \& cognition tests; Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), which is sensitive to MCI and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS). Based on this initial in-person visit, investigators will determine participants' eligibility to continue in the study. Study staff will contact the Office of Clinical Research at St. Boniface Hospital to assign an eligible participant a unique study code. If the participant meets the inclusion criteria based on their SV1 visit, investigators will plan a baseline visit for the participant. During the first baseline visit (BV1), if the subject is interested to take part in this study, they will be asked to perform the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). This baseline visit will take about 1.0 hours to accomplish. Investigators will then plan a second baseline visit (BV2) for a fasting blood draw, which will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. The participant will have to fast for 10 hours prior to their visit and a certified phlebotomist will collect approximately 16 mL of blood (about 3 teaspoons). In addition, investigators will review beverage consumption logs with participants and provide 30 days of beverage regime if they have a vehicle to take it home (if they have a car and are not scheduled for a PET scan). A third baseline visit will be scheduled (BV3), where some participants will be randomly invited for a brain PET scan (10 controls from the placebo group and 10 from Flax-treatment group) at the baseline and at the end of the study. For this procedure the participant will need to fast for 4 hours. The participants have the option of declining the PET scans, if they wish. The participants will need to be provided with 30 days of flax beverage every month (by either pickup or delivery). They also will need to submit their consumption log sheets (requested monthly) at this time to be reviewed by a study coordinator. At the end of the study, the participants (T180) will have final follow up review of their medical history, blood pressure measurements and memory and cognitive tests (similar to those performed at the screening visit and baseline visit 1), along with a fasting blood draw (FV1, FV2). In addition, a third final study visit (FV3) will be scheduled for those who agreed to brain PET scans at the beginning of the study. In the final visit, an honorarium of $25.00 will be paid for their participation. Each participant will visit the I.H Asper Clinical Research Institute a minimum of 5 times for the entire study. Those participants selected for brain PET scan will have 2 additional visits at John Buhler Research Centre, Health Sciences Centre; therefore, they will need a total of 7 visits for the entire study.