Health & Medicine
Mediterranean Diet Can Boost Your Brain, Reduce The Impact Of Alzheimer's Disease
Johnson D
First Posted: Aug 15, 2016 04:42 AM EDT
It has been revealed that Mediterranean diet is good for the brain. It is believed to slow down cognitive decline and increase the brain's performance in terms of memory, language and attention. Researchers also found that it can reduce the impact of Alzheimer's disease.
Pulseheadline.com reported that the study, led by Roy Hardman of the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology and executed in the University of Technology in Melbourne, used information from previous study between 2000 and 2015 to show how Mediterranean Diet can affect the cognitive process over time. After reviewing past data, researchers revealed that attention, memory and language improved among those who have been consuming Mediterranean diets.
It was seen in the findings that this kind of diet had a significant impact in the long-term and working memory. It also improved executive function, visual constructs and recognition. The main foods found in the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) include plant foods, like leafy greens, fresh fruit and vegetables, cereals, beans, seeds, nuts, and legumes. This diet is also low in dairy, does not include a lot of red meat, and uses olive oil as its major source of fat.
"The most surprising result was that the positive effects were found in countries around the whole world. So regardless of being located outside of what is considered the Mediterranean region, the positive cognitive effects of a higher adherence to a MedDiet were similar in all evaluated papers;" Hardman said.
According to Eurekalert, Hardman explained why a higher adherence to the MedDiet is related to slowing down the rate of cognitive decline. He started by saying that the diet gives opportunity to change some modifiable risk factors.
"These include reducing inflammatory responses, increasing micronutrients, improving vitamin and mineral imbalances, changing lipid profiles by using olive oils as the main source of dietary fats, maintaining weight and potentially reducing obesity, improving polyphenols in the blood, improving cellular energy metabolism and maybe changing the gut micro-biota, although this has not been examined to a larger extent yet."
Furthermore, Hardman clarified that the benefits of the MedDiet are not only exclusive to older individuals. In fact, two of the included studies focused on younger adults and they both found improvements in cognition using computerized assessments. Researchers also emphasized that research in this particular area is important because these group of people are expected to be part of the aging population in the next 20-30 years, Christian Post reported.
Meanwhile, the researchers also envision people making use of different dietary patterns such as MedDiet, to be an important tool in maintaining the quality of life and lower down the potential social and economic hardships of the manifestation of cognitive declines like dementia. "I would therefore recommend people to try to adhere or switch to a MedDiet, even at an older age," Hardman added.
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First Posted: Aug 15, 2016 04:42 AM EDT
It has been revealed that Mediterranean diet is good for the brain. It is believed to slow down cognitive decline and increase the brain's performance in terms of memory, language and attention. Researchers also found that it can reduce the impact of Alzheimer's disease.
Pulseheadline.com reported that the study, led by Roy Hardman of the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology and executed in the University of Technology in Melbourne, used information from previous study between 2000 and 2015 to show how Mediterranean Diet can affect the cognitive process over time. After reviewing past data, researchers revealed that attention, memory and language improved among those who have been consuming Mediterranean diets.
It was seen in the findings that this kind of diet had a significant impact in the long-term and working memory. It also improved executive function, visual constructs and recognition. The main foods found in the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) include plant foods, like leafy greens, fresh fruit and vegetables, cereals, beans, seeds, nuts, and legumes. This diet is also low in dairy, does not include a lot of red meat, and uses olive oil as its major source of fat.
"The most surprising result was that the positive effects were found in countries around the whole world. So regardless of being located outside of what is considered the Mediterranean region, the positive cognitive effects of a higher adherence to a MedDiet were similar in all evaluated papers;" Hardman said.
According to Eurekalert, Hardman explained why a higher adherence to the MedDiet is related to slowing down the rate of cognitive decline. He started by saying that the diet gives opportunity to change some modifiable risk factors.
"These include reducing inflammatory responses, increasing micronutrients, improving vitamin and mineral imbalances, changing lipid profiles by using olive oils as the main source of dietary fats, maintaining weight and potentially reducing obesity, improving polyphenols in the blood, improving cellular energy metabolism and maybe changing the gut micro-biota, although this has not been examined to a larger extent yet."
Furthermore, Hardman clarified that the benefits of the MedDiet are not only exclusive to older individuals. In fact, two of the included studies focused on younger adults and they both found improvements in cognition using computerized assessments. Researchers also emphasized that research in this particular area is important because these group of people are expected to be part of the aging population in the next 20-30 years, Christian Post reported.
Meanwhile, the researchers also envision people making use of different dietary patterns such as MedDiet, to be an important tool in maintaining the quality of life and lower down the potential social and economic hardships of the manifestation of cognitive declines like dementia. "I would therefore recommend people to try to adhere or switch to a MedDiet, even at an older age," Hardman added.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone