CNN
—
A new study found that following the MIND Diet over a 10-year period was associated with a small but significant reduction in the risk of developing problems with thinking, concentration and memory.
The Mediterranean-DASH intervention diet for slowing neurodegeneration combines elements of the traditional Mediterranean diet and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH diet), which focuses on lowering blood pressure.
The MIND Diet was specifically designed to combat cognitive decline, said study lead author Russell Sawyer, PhD, assistant professor of clinical neurology and rehabilitation medicine at the University of Cincinnati’s Gardner Neuroscience Institute.
“The components of the MIND diet include 10 brain-healthy food groups: green leafy vegetables, other vegetables, nuts, berries, legumes, whole grains, seafood, poultry, olive oil, and wine,” Sawyer said in an email.
Sawyer said the MIND diet limits five unhealthy food groups – red meat, butter and margarine, cheese, fried and fast foods, and pastries and sweets – and helps reduce intake of trans fats and saturated fats.
“The MIND diet has all the key features needed to reduce systemic inflammation, promote weight loss, improve microbiome health, improve insulin resistance, lower elevated blood lipids (fats), and slow atherosclerosis (clogging of the arteries) with an emphasis on real foods, primarily plants,” said David Katz, PhD, a preventive and lifestyle medicine expert and founder of the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine, who was not involved in the study.
“It’s not at all surprising that such an effect would translate into brain protection,” Katz said in an email. “This association study does not prove in itself that the MIND Diet protects cognitive health, but given the clear mechanisms at work, it certainly suggests that it does.”
Greater benefits for women and black people
The study, published Wednesday in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, is part of the ongoing REGARDS (Reasons for Geographic and Racial Disparities in Stroke) study, which is backed by the National Institutes of Health and was created to explore why Southern and black Americans have higher rates of stroke, and has been following about 30,000 adults ages 45 and older since 2003.
Of the more than 14,000 people who participated in the study, 70 percent were white and 30 percent were black. At the start of the study and again after 10 years, participants were asked about their dietary intake and underwent electrocardiograms, blood pressure measurements, and blood tests.
The researchers then assigned scores to diets that more closely adhered to the parameters of the MIND diet: eating whole grains at least three times per day, green leafy vegetables at least six times per week, at least one other vegetable per day, berries at least two times per week, fish dishes at least once per week, chicken at least two times per week, and beans at least three times per week. Eating nuts and using primarily olive oil also received higher scores.
People who ate red or processed meat less than four times a week, fried or fast food less than once a week, and less than one tablespoon of butter or margarine a day also scored higher.
The study found that people who followed the MIND diet more strictly were 4% less likely to develop memory or thinking problems than those who didn’t, even after controlling for moderating factors like exercise, education, smoking, BMI, health, age, and anxiety or depression.
For women, the risk was even lower — they were 6 percent less likely to develop cognitive impairment — but men saw no such benefit, the study found.
When it came to how quickly people with memory and thinking problems lost performance, those who followed the MIND Diet strictly experienced a slower decline than those who didn’t, the study found, and the association was stronger in black participants than in white participants, Sawyer said.
“This was a surprising finding,” Sawyer said. “It’s possible that the benefits of the MIND diet may have different effects on women and black people, which is an area for future research.”
A randomized controlled clinical trial conducted in 2023 found that the MIND diet was not superior to a control diet in reducing signs of cognitive decline in the brain, but experts were concerned that the trial period was too short to fully understand the results.
“Three years of follow-up is great for a randomized clinical trial, but it provides less insight into the long-term benefits of the diet compared with the 10-plus years of follow-up in our study,” Sawyer said.
Additionally, only 66 black people participated in the clinical trial, so “although both provide important information, the generalizability of this randomized controlled study is limited compared with our cohort study,” he said.
Subscribe to CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style, an eight-part guide that shares delicious, expert-recommended eating habits that will boost your health for life.