April 28, 2024

Mediterranean Diet May Reduce Risk of Dementia by Up to 23%

A research study released in BMC Medicine suggests that consuming a Mediterranean-type diet plan, which consists of foods such as seafood, fruit, and nuts, is related to a decreased threat of dementia. Those who had a greater adherence to the diet plan had up to 23% lower danger for dementia compared to those with lower adherence to the diet plan.
Usage of a standard Mediterranean-type diet plan– rich in foods such as seafood, fruit, and nuts– is related to a minimized risk of dementia, reports a research study released in the journal BMC Medicine. People with a greater adherence to a Mediterranean diet plan had up to 23% lower risk for dementia compared to those who had lower adherence to a Mediterranean diet.
Diet plan might be a crucial flexible danger element for dementia that might be targeted for disease prevention and risk reduction however previous research studies checking out the effect of a Mediterranean diet plan have actually typically been restricted to small sample sizes and low varieties of dementia cases. Oliver Shannon and associates examined information from 60,298 people from the UK Biobank who had completed a dietary evaluation. The authors scored people using two steps for adherence to the Mediterranean diet. During the mean follow-up of 9.1 years there were 882 cases of dementia. The authors also thought about each persons genetic risk for dementia by estimating their polygenic risk, a measure of all the various genes that are associated with risk of dementia.
The authors discovered that individuals with the greatest adherence to the Mediterranean diet had a 23% lower risk of establishing dementia in comparison with those with the most affordable adherence score, equivalent to an outright threat reduction of 0.55%. There was no significant interaction between the polygenic danger for dementia and adherence to a Mediterranean diet plan, which the authors recommend may show that the association of greater adherence to a Mediterranean diet plan and a decreased dementia risk remains, irrespective of the specific genetic danger for dementia. This finding was not consistent across all the sensitivity analyses and the authors propose more research study is needed to examine the interaction in between diet and genetics on dementia threat.

Diet plan may be a crucial modifiable risk element for dementia that could be targeted for disease prevention and risk decrease but previous studies exploring the impact of a Mediterranean diet have actually usually been limited to small sample sizes and low numbers of dementia cases. The authors likewise considered each individuals hereditary danger for dementia by estimating their polygenic risk, a procedure of all the various genes that are related to risk of dementia.
There was no significant interaction in between the polygenic risk for dementia and adherence to a Mediterranean diet plan, which the authors suggest may suggest that the association of higher adherence to a Mediterranean diet plan and a lowered dementia danger remains, irrespective of the private hereditary threat for dementia.

The authors warn that their analysis is limited to people who self-reported their ethnic background as white, British, or Irish, as hereditary information was only offered based upon European origins, and that more research study is required in a series of populations to determine the possible benefit. They conclude that, based on their information, a Mediterranean diet plan that has a high consumption of healthy plant-based foods may be an essential intervention to incorporate into future strategies to lower dementia threat.
For more on this research study, see Mediterranean Diet Linked With Lower Risk of Dementia.
Recommendation: “Mediterranean diet adherence is connected with lower dementia risk, independent of genetic predisposition: findings from the UK Biobank prospective mate research study” by Oliver M. Shannon, Janice M. Ranson, Sarah Gregory, Helen Macpherson, Catherine Milte, Marleen Lentjes, Angela Mulligan, Claire McEvoy, Alex Griffiths, Jamie Matu, Tom R. Hill, Ashley Adamson, Mario Siervo, Anne Marie Minihane, Graciela Muniz-Tererra, Craig Ritchie, John C. Mathers, David J. Llewellyn and Emma Stevenson, 14 March 2023, BMC Medicine.DOI: 10.1186/ s12916-023-02772-3.