People who eat a healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables could be helping to protect their brains against memory and thinking decline, a new study has suggested.
In a study carried out by McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, people with the healthiest diets were 24% less likely to experience cognitive decline than those with the unhealthiest diets.
Study author Andrew Smyth, whose study is published in the latest online issue of Neurology said: “Adoption of a healthy diet probably begins early in life, and a healthy diet might also go along with adoption of other healthy behaviours.”
For the research, 27,860 people in 40 countries were followed for an average of about five years. All participants were 55 or older and had diabetes or a history of heart disease, stroke or peripheral artery disease.
At the beginning of the study, they were asked how often they ate certain types of foods, such as fruits and vegetables, nuts and soy proteins, whole grains, deep fried foods, the ratio of fish to meat and eggs in their diet, and how often they drank alcohol.
Their thinking and memory skills were tested at the start of the study, after two years and after about five years.
These tests yielded total scores with a maximum of 30 points and participants were considered to have declined in their skills if their scores dropped by three or more points during the study. A total of 4,699 people recorded a decline in their thinking and memory skills.
However, people with the healthiest diets were 24% less likely to have experienced decline. Of the 5,687 people who had the best with the healthiest diet, 782 (14%) were found to have had cognitive decline, compared with 987 (18%) of the 5,459 people with the least healthy diets.
Neurology May 7 2015; [abstract]
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