Eating a Mediterranean diet plan that's high in healthy fats, limits dairy and meats isn't just good for your heart, some new research suggests it might also be healthy brain food. Following a Mediterranean style diet helps lower the risk of developing small areas of dead tissue that have been linked to thinking problems. Doctor's call these brain infarcts, and cite them as involved in vascular dementia, the second most common form of disease after Alzheimer's disease. The Mayo Clinic puts the numbers with vascular dementia at between 1-4% of those over 65.
The risks for vascular disease are similar to Alzheimer's disease and include high blood pressure, a high fat diet, type 2 diabetes and low folate intake. In this latest study the subjects had never had a clinical stroke, but might have had smaller, unnoticed ones. MRI brain scans can detect such small strokes.
The study ties diet to stroke and involved 712 New Yorkers over the age of 65 who were asked about their diet and then six years later underwent an MRI. Researchers found that those who most closely followed a Mediterranean style diet were 36% less likely to have areas of brain damage, compared with those whose eating habits were least like the diet.
When the researchers controlled for high blood pressure, the Mediterranean diet was still tied to a lower risk of brain damage. It could be this way of eating helps to protect the brain vessels themselves, without regard to other problems like hypertension.
The researchers also looked at the individual components of the Mediterranean diet to see if one could be identified as especially beneficial. They found a stronger association between eating the whole diet and brain damage prevention than with any single food in the diet. It might just be that the combination of all the elements, including fish oil, may be producing the positive effect on the brain.
When it came to strokes, the subjects who followed the diet plan the least had an increased risk of strokes that was similar to those with high blood pressure. Those who stuck to the Mediterranean diet regimen had a level of protection that was similar to those who didn't have hypertension. Other studies have suggested that this eating style might help in preventing a second heart attack, stopping the need for diabetes drugs and lowering cancer risk.
It's important to understand that the results of the work show association, not causation, which tells us that there could be other factors linking the Mediterranean diet to resistance to this type of brain damage. Other research has shown that the more subjects stick to the diet, the better protection against hypertension they get, and this is also associated with these brain problems.
The Mediterranean diet isn't so much a diet plan as a way of eating for life, and is nothing like the typical American diet. The Mediterranean diet is:
- Very low in red meat and poultry
- Uses olive oil as the main fat source
- Very high in fruits, nuts, legumes, vegetables and cereals
- High in fish
- Permits low to moderate intake of wine
Future work will need to confirm whether subjects must follow the entire Mediterranean diet plan, or if there are parts that bring about the positive effects. Identifying specific foods might make changing the way we eat easier - adjustments could be centered on adding one or two elements to our current diet, rather than trying to reshape a lifetime pattern of eating. Still, no matter what the experts end up concluding; we are seeing clearly that what you put into your body (good or bad) does indeed have an impact on both body and mind.
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