MIND diet associated with reduced incidence of Alzheimer's disease.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Prospective cohort study evaluating dietary patterns and incident Alzheimer's disease.
PubMed 25681666 · doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2014.11.009
What was done
A prospective cohort study assessed 923 participants aged 58 to 98 years over an average follow-up of 4.5 years. Diet was measured using a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. Adjusted proportional hazards models evaluated the association between incident Alzheimer's disease (AD) and tertiles of adherence scores for three dietary patterns: the MIND diet (a hybrid Mediterranean-DASH diet), the Mediterranean diet, and the DASH diet.
What was found
Compared with the lowest tertile (tertile 1): - MIND diet: Middle tertile (tertile 2) HR = 0.65 (95% CI: 0.44 to 0.98); highest tertile (tertile 3) HR = 0.47 (95% CI: 0.26 to 0.76). - DASH diet: Highest tertile HR = 0.61 (95% CI: 0.38 to 0.97); lower tertiles were not statistically significant. - Mediterranean diet: Highest tertile HR = 0.46 (95% CI: 0.26 to 0.79); lower tertiles were not statistically significant.
Why it matters
While high adherence to Mediterranean, DASH, or MIND diets relates to lower AD incidence, the MIND diet was uniquely associated with reduced AD risk even at moderate adherence levels.
Limits
Diet was self-reported via food frequency questionnaires, which are prone to recall and measurement error. The study is observational, leaving open the possibility of residual confounding or reverse causation. Average follow-up was relatively short (4.5 years), and specific demographic details of the cohort are not detailed in the abstract.
Cited by
- supports The MIND diet was developed from data in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, where higher MIND diet scores were associated with a lower risk of later dementia.