Can MIND Diet Reduce the Risk of Memory Problems in Old Age?

People whose diets are more like the MIND diet may be at lower risk for cognitive impairment, according to a study published in the online edition of Neurology^®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The results were similar for black and white participants. These results don’t prove that the MIND diet prevents cognitive impairment, they only show a correlation.

Beneficial Diet

The MIND diet is a combination of the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet. It is a particular form of the Mediterranean diet that was developed especially for people with high blood pressure. This type of diet includes leafy green vegetables such as spinach, kale, and collard greens, as well as other vegetables. It recommends whole grains, olive oil, poultry, fish, beans, and nuts. She favors berries over other fruits and recommends one or more servings of fish per week.

“With the number of people with dementia increasing as the population ages, it is critically important to find changes we can make to delay or slow the development of cognitive problems,” said study author Russell P. Sawyer, MD, of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers were particularly interested in seeing if diet affected the risk of cognitive impairment in both black and white study participants.

Fewer Cognitive Impairments

The study involved 14,145 people with an average age of 64. 70% of the participants were white and 30% were black. They were followed for an average of 10 years. The participants completed a questionnaire about their diet over the past year. The researchers looked at how closely the foods people ate matched the MIND diet. A point was awarded for each of the following: three or more daily servings of whole grains; six or more weekly servings of green leafy vegetables; one or more daily servings of other vegetables; two or more weekly servings of berries; one or more weekly servings of fish; two or more weekly servings of poultry; three weekly servings of beans, five daily servings of nuts, four or fewer weekly servings of red meat, one or fewer weekly servings of fast food or fried foods, one or more weekly servings of olive oil and one or fewer tablespoons of butter or margarine daily, five or fewer weekly servings of pastries and sweets, and one glass of wine per day. The maximum achievable score was 12.

The researchers then divided the participants into three groups. The group with the lowest score had an average nutritional value of five, the middle group had an average value of seven, and the group with the highest score had an average value of nine. Cognitive and memory abilities were measured at the beginning and end of the study. During the study, 532 people, or 12% of the 4,456 people in the low-scoring diet group, 617 people, or 11% of the 5,602 people in the middle group, and 402 people, or 10% of the 4,086 people in the group with a high score in their diet, developed cognitive impairment. After adjusting for factors such as age, high blood pressure and diabetes, the researchers found that people in the high group had a 4% lower risk of cognitive impairment than people in the low group.

When examining male and female participants, researchers found that the risk of cognitive impairment was reduced by 6% in female participants who adhered most closely to the diet, but not in male participants. Researchers also looked at how quickly people’s thinking skills declined when they developed problems. They found that people who stuck more closely to the MIND diet experienced slower declines than those who did not, and that this association was stronger for black participants than for white. These findings warrant further studies, the researchers said, particularly to examine these differential effects in men and women and in blacks and whites. However, it is exciting to think that people could make some simple dietary changes and potentially reduce or delay their risk of cognitive problems. One limitation of the study was that it only included older black and white people, so the results may not be the same for other populations.