MIND Diet and Dementia Risk

In middle-aged and older adults, following the MIND diet was linked to a lower risk of incident dementia, says an article published in the Journal of American Medical Association Psychiatry.

Older persons' wellbeing is threatened by dementia, thus preventative measures are crucial. In order to assess the relationship between the Mediterranean-Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet and the risk of dementia in 3 prospective trials and a meta-analysis, Hui Chen and colleagues undertook this investigation.

The meta-analysis includes 11 cohort studies, including the Whitehall II study (WII), the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), and the Framingham Heart Study Offspring group (FOS). Women and men in their middle and later years without dementia who participated in the study were recruited from the WII in 2002 to 2004, HRS in 2013, and FOS in 1998 to 2001. From May 25 through September 1, 2022, data were examined. Food frequency surveys were used to determine the MIND diet score, which varied from 0 to 15, with a higher score suggesting more adherence to the MIND diet. Incident all-cause dementia with cohort-specific criteria is the study's key finding.

Key Findings

• 8358 people from WII, 6758 participants from HRS, and 3020 participants from FOS were included in this study.
• The mean (SD) baseline MIND diet score for WII, HRS, and FOS was 8.3 (1.4), 7.1 (1.9), and 8.1 (1.6), respectively.
• A total of 775 individuals experienced incident dementia over 166,516 person-years.
• A higher MIND diet score was linked to a decreased risk of dementia in the multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazard model.
• In subgroups based on age, sex, smoking status, and body mass index, the relationships were consistently seen.
• The greatest tertile of MIND diet score was related to decreased risk of dementia compared with the lowest tertile in the meta-analysis of 11 cohort studies involving 224,049 individuals.

Reference

Chen, H., Dhana, K., Huang, Y., Huang, L., Tao, Y., Liu, X., Melo van Lent, D., Zheng, Y., Ascherio, A., Willett, W., & Yuan, C. (2023). Association of the Mediterranean Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) Diet With the Risk of Dementia. In JAMA Psychiatry. American Medical Association (AMA). https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.0800