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Updated: Jul 10, 2025

Breakfast Habits among Schoolchildren in the City of Uruguaiana, Brazil
Published on: July 29, 2020
Rural-urban disparities in fruit and vegetable consumption and cognitive performance in Brazil
Natalia Gomes Gonçalves1, Laiss Bertola2, Cleusa Pinheiro Ferri2
1Divisão de Geriatria, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Objectives:
Rural residents are exposed to many risk factors for poor diet quality, such as low socioeconomic status and food insecurity. However, the differences between urban and rural residents regarding the association of fruit and vegetable consumption with cognitive performance have not been explored. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of fruit and vegetable consumption with cognitive performance in urban and rural areas in a nationally representative sample of Brazilian older adults.
Methods:
The sample included 9,412 adults aged 50 years or older from the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Aging (Estudo Longitudinal da Saúde dos Idosos Brasileiros [ELSI]). The association between consumption of fruits and vegetables and cognitive performance was evaluated using linear regression.
Results:
In 8,158 participants (mean age 61.6 ± 9.3 years, 54% women, 44% White, and 15% from rural areas), the mean frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption was 2.0 ± 1.3 times a day. Higher intake of fruits and vegetables was associated with better memory (ß = 0.031, 95%CI 0.014-0.049), verbal fluency (ß = 0.030, 95%CI 0.004-0.056), and global cognition (ß = 0.035, 95%CI 0.015-0.055) performance in urban, but not rural residents (p for interaction = 0.036).
Conclusions:
Higher frequency of fruit and vegetable intake was associated with better cognitive performance in urban, but not in rural areas in Brazil.
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