A New Study Reveals There's A Specific Diet Linked To A Significantly Lower Dementia Risk
A new study suggests that a specific diet could lower your dementia risk.
Researchers analyzing data from nearly 93,000 American adults found that those who closely followed the MIND diet had a 9 percent lower risk of developing dementia.
The MIND diet stands for Mediterranean–DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay.
If you've been paying attention to health and wellness headlines over the past few years, you'll already know that your diet impacts everything from gut health to energy levels, but new research suggests it may even influence your dementia risk.
That's the major takeaway from the study, which was presented at the American Society for Nutrition's annual meeting. The study pinpoints a specific eating plan—the MIND diet—as having a meaningful impact on dementia risk.
Of course, following a specific diet won't automatically wipe away any risk of developing dementia, but neurologists say these new findings are worth paying attention to. Here's why that is, and what they make of the results.
Meet the experts: Clifford Segil, DO, is a neurologist at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA; Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, is the medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University
For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 93,000 American adults who participated in the Multiethnic Cohort Study, a long-term study that started in the '90s. At the start of the study, the participants were between 45 and 75 years old. During the study period, more than 21,000 developed Alzheimer's disease or related dementias.
The researchers discovered that study participants who closely followed the MIND diet had a 9 percent lower risk of developing dementia. There was a difference in race, too: People who were African American, Latino, or White had a 13 percent lower risk.
But the researchers also discovered that people who followed the MIND diet more closely over 10 years, even if they weren't super consistent at the start of the study, had a 25 percent lower risk of dementia compared to those who stopped adhering as much to the eating plan over time.
The MIND diet stands for Mediterranean–DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay. It's an iteration of the Mediterranean diet that is focused on eating plant-based foods with the goal of preventing dementia, according to the National Institute on Aging (NIA).
The MIND diet encourages people to focus on eating green leafy vegetables, berries, whole grains, beans, and nuts. It also encourages followers to have olive oil and one or more weekly servings of fish, while limiting red meat, sweets, cheese, butter and margarine, and fast and fried food, per the NIA.
The study didn't find that following a MIND diet caused a drop in dementia risk—it just found a link between people who followed the diet and lower risk. But neurologists say there could be something behind this link.
'The MIND diet is generally a balanced diet that manages portion control and offers a diversity of food choices,' says Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University. 'This approach offers benefits for improving cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health. By improving blood flow to the brain, overall brain health can be improved.'
Clifford Segil, DO, a neurologist at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, agrees. 'Eating healthy prevents cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease which, in turn, prevents heart attacks and strokes,' he says.
That question is still under investigation, Dr. Segil says. 'Many diets have been proposed to decrease your risk of getting Alzheimer's dementia as we age and it still remains challenging to see any diet is 'neuro-protective' against getting Alzheimer's dementia,' he adds.
Still, Dr. Segil suggests that it may be best to avoid diets that are high in fats and sugars, and limit simple carbohydrates and ultra-processed foods. (All of these food factors have been linked to bodily inflammation, which is associated with dementia risk.) 'Eating a balanced diet of proteins, vegetables, and vitamins, and drinking water are healthy choices which can make you more healthy—and maybe your brain more healthy,' he says.
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