Mediterranean Diet Can Reduce the Risk of Alzheimer Disease

Posted on December 26, 2007 in Latest News

A study carried out in New York says that a Mediterranean diet might help Alzheimer patients live longer than patients who take traditional Western diet. It also found that eating a healthy Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

A Mediterranean diet includes a high intake of fruits, legumes, vegetables, cereals, olive oil, and low intake of meat, dairy products and, saturated fatty acids.The study was carried out on 2,258 non-demented people of New York City to follow a Mediterranean diet for four years. The researchers prospectively evaluated all the people every 1.5 years. During the course of the study, 262 of them were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Result of the study:

The researchers had developed a Mediterranean diet score, from 0 to 9, nine being the highest. Those with the highest Mediterranean diet score had a 40% lower risk of Alzheimer’s than those at the bottom. Those in the middle had a 15-21% lower risk than those at the bottom.

The researchers found that, for each additional point on the Mediterranean diet scale, the risk of Alzheimer’s dropped by almost 10%.

Finally the researchers found that the more people stuck to Mediterranean diet, the lower were their chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

This is the first large study that took a particular diet in general, rather than studying specific ingredients in isolation. The study was in Neurology, a medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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