Patriot Health Digest
Nutritional studies have long confirmed the importance of food. However, missing from this equation was which diet was best for brain health. Although some people swear by Keto, there is another diet that is sure to go viral thanks to a brand new study.
Knowing the importance of nutrition, Martha Clare Morris studied nutrients linked to explicitly help brain health and lower a person’s risk for getting Alzheimer’s disease, and in 2015, she announced the MIND diet.
The MIND diet is a hybrid diet of the Mediterranean diet and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet. And it has finally passed its final test as of last month.
In a study published this September scientists show the MIND diet can truly slow cognitive decline and lower your risk of Alzheimer’s.
This holds true even with the study participant’s brains still getting the abnormal clumps of proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
Each participant was given a MIND score based on how well they kept to the meals in the diet. Within the MIND diet are 10 healthy brain food groups and five bad groups: The bad group has butter and stick margarine, fried and fast food, cheese, pastries and sweets, and red meat.
Correctly following this MIND diet involved daily eating of these good foods:
- At least three whole grain servings
- One green leafy vegetable
- One other vegetable
- One glass of wine
Also included in the good category were beans every other day, nuts as snacks, poultry and berries twice per week, and fish at least once a week. Proper adherence included stopping consumption of the bad items.
Participants with a better MIND score were also found to have better thinking skills and memory as they got older. But autopsies of their brains shows something staggering: While some brains had the protein deposits found in people with Alzheimer’s — enough to merit a diagnosis postmortem — they never really got clinical dementia.
This suggests the MIND diet supports better cognitive function, regardless of pathologies connection to Alzheimer’s disease. The results align with past findings: For example, the MIND diet is also linked with delaying Parkinson’s disease and causing the brains of older people to effectively function like they are 7.5 years younger.
Author: Scott Dowdy
