New evidence has discovered that mind diets can reach their name, even if they start later in life.
Middle-aged and elderly participants in large-scale, long-term studies were less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia when they traced a diet filled with green, lush vegetables, olive oil, whole grains and many berries.
Researchers at the University of Hawaii, Manoa and the University of Southern California found that adherence to the mind diet, which combines the Mediterranean diet with the blood pressure lowering dash diet, resulted in a stronger and more consistent reduction in the risk of dementia than that seen in other healthy diets.
The new findings suggest that it's not too late to switch to a healthy diet, said Son Park, an associate professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the study's lead author. “To stick to a healthy diet and improve a person's diet over time is incredibly important for older people who want to prevent dementia.”
All Mediterranean-related diets appear to be brain-friendly, but mental dietary patterns were specifically designed for brain health.
“One important difference is that the mind includes berries, which are associated with brain health,” Park said.
Mediterranean dash interventions for mental diet, or neurodegenerative delays, acquire individual foods based on how well they are protected and how much they are eaten. Berries, especially strawberries and blueberries, for example, when two or more servings are consumed per week, one score gets a score of 1. The score drops to 0.5 if only one serving is consumed per week, and a score of 0 if not present.
Individual diets are obtained overall ratings by summing the scores of individual foods. The higher the overall score, the better it will be for a person's brain.
Park and her colleagues provided information about what they ate as part of a research project known as the multiethnic cohort, providing detailed data on how diet affected the risk of developing dementia.
The multiethnic cohort was launched in the early 1990s through a joint effort between the University of Hawaii Cancer Center and the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. The men and women enrolled in this study came from five ethnic/racial groups: Japanese-American, Native Hawaiian, Black American, Latinos and White.
Initially, 215,000 participants were between 45 and 75 years of age. When data from the new study was analyzed, more than 21,000 participants developed Alzheimer's disease or related dementia.
At the start of the study, those who scored higher scores for mental adherence were at a 9% lower risk of developing dementia.
In the new analysis, the amount of reductions was varied across racial groups. A greater risk reduction, 13%, was seen in participants identified as black, Latino, or white.
Participants who improved mental adherence over the course of 10 years were 25% lower risk of dementia and were seen in all age and racial groups compared to those with reduced adherence.
How to follow the mind diet
According to a 2015 survey, some suggestions for reaching the optimal score for the mind diet:
Lush green vegetables such as kale, spinach, broccoli, bokchoy, mustard: 6 servings per week: Nuts per day, such as almonds, walnuts, pistachios: Servings for more than one week: Less than one piece per week and sweets: Less than five servings per week
Park warned that, like all observational studies, the new study reported a connection and did not prove that diet interfered with dementia.
This is a high quality study, said Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, in an email.
“The Mediterranean diet adds to the evidence that there are important benefits to reducing the risk of dementia,” says Willett, who is not involved in the study. “As differences between groups defined by race/ethnicity may be due to random variation, it is reasonable to assume that at this time this healthy eating pattern has benefits for all groups.”
When it comes to lush green vegetables, it's probably best to consume diversity rather than a single type, Willett said.
“Spinach in particular is excellent in many ways, but high oxalate content and high spinach intake can be caused by kidney stones,” he said.
Generally, mental diets are in line with the two dietary principles that it was built, says Dr. Yian Gu, an associate professor of neuroscience at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “Each of these meals has unique characteristics,” she said.
The Mediterranean diet highlights multiple daily servings of fruits and vegetables, along with whole grains, legumes, olive oil, seafood, nuts and seeds, including chia, flax, pumpkin and sesame seeds.
Dashes to stop high blood pressure, or dietary approaches, are intended to prevent high blood pressure, highlighting low salt, which is not the main ingredient in the Mediterranean diet.
The mind diet is easy to follow, Gu said he encourages people to choose the green, lush vegetables they like. The key is to increase the diversity of vegetables.
Another benefit of a Mediterranean diet: it can be useful for other types of chronic diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, she said.
