If you’re following a Mediterranean diet plan, high in plant foods and monounsaturated fats, you may be cutting your risk of mental decline and it may also prevent Alzheimer’s disease taking hold.
Add exercise to this healthy eating choice and your risk plummets even further.
Earlier work has already studied either diet or activity in relation to Alzheimer’s, but a study that looks at both of these together has been carried out.
The study, and an accompanying editorial appear in the August 12, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The Columbia University Medical Center population-based, observational study began in 2006 and involved a group of 2,258 elderly New Yorkers, finding those who ate most like the Mediterranean diet had almost a 40% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease than those who didn’t eat this way.
Now a new French study of over 1,400 older men and women confirmed that those who ate most closely to the Mediterranean diet had slower age related cognitive decline than those whose diets were least like this way of eating.
Columbia University Medical Center researcher Nikolaos Scarmeas, MD and colleagues, in an update to the earlier 2006 work, report that of the 1,880 mixed race/ethnicity subjects, those who get the most exercise have even lower rates of Alzheimer’s.
The effects appear to add up, building on each other’s healthful benefits to the body.
Those who stuck to the Mediterranean diet and were most active had a 61-67% lower risk of Alzheimer’s than those who did not.
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Cut Alzheimer’s Risk With Mediterranean Diet And Exercise Continued…
In the U.S., those not following the Mediterranean diet are more likely be eating lots of fast food and sweet treats, and the bad part of these foods might have more of an impact on brain health than the good that comes from the Mediterranean diet.
More work is needed as the research is based on self-reported information on diet and exercise, and no randomized interventions were done.
The best the experts can say today is that you need to eat well and be active. Even a little bit of regular activity can be helpful when it comes to Alzheimer’s.
“If two people are eating the same healthy diet, that person who also gets physical activity has much lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease compared with the person who is not active,” Scarmeas points out. “And if both are active, the one with the healthy diet has much lower risk than the person with a less healthy diet.”
The Mediterranean diet isn’t so much a diet plan as a way of eating for life, though it isn’t at all like most Americans eat. This plan is…
- 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
But if you think you can start living (and eating) healthy in your later years, think again.
Mayo Clinic neurologist David S. Knopman, MD who wrote a supporting editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association disagrees, seeing diet as a key part of a healthy lifestyle. What’s more, healthy foods and activity probably exert their influence over decades, not just months.
While the research has yet to prove that a mediterranean diet plan along with exercise is protection against cognitive decline or prevents Alzheimer’s disease, the strong hint that they might is certainly worth considering when it comes to your brain health.
