Eating two or more servings of vegetables a day may slow a person's mental decline by about 40 per cent, compared with a person who consumes few vegetables, according to a six-year study of nearly 4,000 Chicago residents age 65 or older.

The slowdown in cognitive decline in people who ate 2.8 or more servings of vegetables a day is "equivalent to about five years of younger age," compared with people who ate less than one vegetable a day, reports Martha Morris, chief of Rush University Medical Center's Rush Center for Healthy Living, in the journal Neurology.

Vegetables are good for you! This study just reaffirms what people have been hearing all along – veggies are an important part of healthy living. 5 servings a day just could keep the doctor away. Apart from the cognitive benefits, it has been estimated that eating at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables a day could reduce the risk of deaths from chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer by up to 20%.