If you want to have a better memory and thinking skills, pack your plate full of fruits and vegetables and cut back on the booze.

People who eat a healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables, nuts, fish, moderate alcohol and not much red meat are less likely to suffer memory loss and a decline in thinking skills, according to a study in the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (http://www.aan.com ).

Participants' thinking and memory skills were tested at the start of the study, after two years and after about five years. They were asked at the beginning of the study how often they ate certain types of foods, including fruits and vegetables, nuts and soy proteins, whole grains, deep fried foods and drank alcohol, as well as the ratio of fish to meat and eggs in their diet.

The study participants were followed until they experienced a heart attack, stroke, hospitalization for congestive heart failure or death from cardiovascular disease or until the end of the study.

The thinking and memory tests yielded total scores with a maximum of 30 points. Participants were considered to have declined in their skills if their scores dropped by three or more points during the study. A total of 4,699 people had a decline in their thinking and memory skills.

People with the healthiest diets were 24 percent less likely to have cognitive decline than people with the least healthy diets. Among the 5,687 people with the healthiest diet, 782, or about 14 percent, had cognitive decline, compared to 987, or about 18 percent, of the 5,459 people with the least healthy diets.

The results were the same when researchers accounted for other factors that could affect the results, such as physical activity, high blood pressure and history of cancer.