Mediterranean diet adherence is associated with lower dementia risk, independent of genetic predisposition: findings from the UK Biobank prospective cohort study.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Prospective observational cohort study
PubMed 36915130 · doi:10.1186/s12916-023-02772-3
What was done
Researchers evaluated 60,298 participants from the UK Biobank followed prospectively for an average of 9.1 years. Adherence to a Mediterranean diet was quantified using two distinct metrics: the continuous Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (MEDAS) and the Mediterranean diet Pyramid (PYRAMID) score. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to assess the association between diet scores and incident all-cause dementia, including potential interactions with polygenic risk scores for dementia.
What was found
Higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet was significantly associated with a reduced risk of incident dementia using the continuous MEDAS score (HR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.65 to 0.91). When using the PYRAMID score, comparing the highest tertile to the lowest tertile yielded an HR of 0.86 (95% CI = 0.73 to 1.02). There was no statistically significant interaction between either dietary adherence score and polygenic risk for dementia.
Why it matters
This study provides large-scale prospective evidence that adherence to a Mediterranean diet is linked to lower dementia risk even in individuals with high genetic predisposition, supporting population-wide dietary recommendations.
Limits
The observational design precludes causal inference and remains susceptible to residual confounding. Dietary assessment relied on self-report. The abstract does not report the absolute number of incident dementia cases, detailed covariate adjustments, or the demographic diversity of the cohort.
Cited by
- supports A UK Biobank study found that removing individual foods or food groups from the Mediterranean diet did not alter the relationship between Mediterranean diet adherence and reduced dementia risk.