None of them have any objective specifics(NO protocol!) so you can be sure you're following them properly. In my opinion, pretty much useless other than whitewashing your doctor's incompetence in not knowing anything specific to get you recovered!
Six Diets Tied to Lower Risk of Cognitive Decline
One midlife plan showed the best brain health measures later in life
Key Takeaways
- Six dietary patterns were associated with a lower relative risk of subjective cognitive decline.
- The DASH diet had the lowest subjective decline risk and the strongest relationship with objective cognitive function.
- Associations were most pronounced when the DASH diet was followed at ages 45 to 54.
Healthcare professionals who followed six healthy eating patterns in midlife had less risk of long-term cognitive decline and better cognitive function, a large prospective study showed.
Among nearly 160,000 health professionals with a mean age of 44, those who followed these six dietary patterns had a lower relative risk (RR) of subjective cognitive decline, comparing the top and bottom 10% of adherence:
- Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH): RR 0.59, 95% CI 0.57-0.62
- Healthful Plant-Based Diet Index: RR 0.76, 95% CI 0.65-0.85
- Reversed Empirical Dietary Indices for Hyperinsulinemia: RR 0.76, 95% CI 0.73-0.80
- Planetary Health Diet Index: RR 0.80, 95% CI 0.75-0.86
- Alternate Healthy Eating Index 2010 (AHEI-2010): RR 0.84, 95% CI 0.80-0.89
- Reversed Empirical Dietary Indices for Inflammatory Pattern: RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.85-0.93
The DASH diet had not only the lowest subjective cognitive decline risk, but the strongest relationship with higher objectively measured global cognition with a mean z score difference of 0.05 (95% CI 0.02-0.09), reported Kjetil Bjornevik, MD, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and co-authors in JAMA Neurology.
Associations were most pronounced when the DASH diet was followed in midlife, at ages 45 to 54.
Diet is one of several modifiable risk factors that may help reduce dementia risk, but evidence about what type of diet matters most for cognitive health is inconsistent, Bjornevik noted.
"What was encouraging about our findings was the consistency across different types of diet, which suggests that there is not just one right approach and that different dietary strategies may have beneficial effects on cognitive health," Bjornevik told MedPage Today.
"We selected these six patterns to cover a broad range of dietary approaches," he pointed out.
"They include general diet quality indices like the AHEI-2010, the DASH diet which targets blood pressure, plant-based and sustainability-oriented patterns, and data-driven patterns that capture dietary influences on insulin and inflammatory pathways," he said. "This allowed us to compare how different dietary strategies relate to cognitive health within the same populations."
The researchers followed professionals in three ongoing cohorts: the Nurses' Health Study (NHS), the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS), and the NHSII. Earlier findings from the NHS and the HPFS reported that higher intake of red and processed meat was associated with worse cognitive outcomes over 43 years of follow-up.
Research in other cohorts has linked ultraprocessed foods with cognitive decline and has shown that cognitive risks drop when diets include more minimally processed food. Inflammatory foods like saturated fats have been tied to increased dementia risk in the Framingham Heart Offspring cohort.
The MIND diet -- a hybrid of the Mediterranean and the DASH diets -- has been linked with higher brain volumes among U.K. Biobank participants. Most recently, researchers reported that a Mediterranean diet was associated with less dementia risk and slower cognitive decline in people who carried the APOE4 Alzheimer's risk gene.
The DASH dietary plan, which had the best outcomes in the current study, promotes eating vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fat-free or low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, nuts, and vegetable oils. It recommends limiting foods high in saturated fat, sugary beverages and sweets, and sodium intake.
Bjornevik and colleagues followed 62,412 women in the NHS from 1986-2014; 27,787 men in the HPFS from 1986-2012; and 69,148 women in the NHSII from 1991-2017. Most participants in the study were female (82.6%) and white (96.2%).
Self-reported subjective cognitive decline was assessed with seven questions about perceived cognitive changes in memory, executive function, attention, and visuospatial skills. Cognitive function was objectively measured only in the NHS cohort with telephone-based cognitive tests among nurses ages 70 and older, followed by three rounds of biennial follow-up assessments.
Diet was evaluated with food frequency questionnaires every 4 years. Because early cognitive symptoms can affect eating patterns, the researchers stopped updating diet scores 6 years before subjective cognitive decline assessments and 5 years before objective testing.
Overall, green-leafy, yellow, and other vegetables were significantly associated with better cognition in the study. Fried (but not nonfried) potatoes were tied to a higher risk of subjective cognitive decline and worse objective cognitive performance. Fish intake correlated with better cognitive function, and red meat, processed meat, and eggs were linked with worse cognitive outcomes.
The DASH diet targets blood pressure, the researchers observed. "Although direct evidence for the mediation role of hypertension in diet-cognition pathways remains limited, our findings aligned with prior literature on the cognitive benefits of blood pressure control and cognitive health," they noted.
The study had several limitations, the researchers acknowledged. Subjective cognitive decline may be influenced by individual differences in health awareness or reporting tendencies, they noted. Unmeasured variables also may have influenced results.
This analysis was supported by grants from the Zhejiang University Global Partnership Fund and the Alzheimer's Association.
The Nurses' Health Study (NHS), the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, and the NHSII cohorts were supported by the NIH.
Bjornevik had no disclosures. Co-authors received grants from the NIH.
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