MIND Diet

The MIND Diet and Alzheimer's

The acronym MIND stands for Mediterranean-DASH Diet Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay and, as the name implies, is the combination of the Mediterranean diet and DASH diet designed specifically to prevent cognitive decline. The creators of the MIND diet based food recommendations on data derived from observational studies measuring the effect of nutrition on cognition. For example, berries were shown to be protective against cognitive decline and therefore the MIND diet recommends berries. The same is true for leafy green vegetables like spinach.1

The MIND diet is composed of 10 recommended foods and 5 foods that should not be eaten. The ten recommended foods are: green leafy vegetables, other vegetables, nuts, seeds, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry, olive oil and wine. The 5 foods people should stay away from are: red meats, butter and stick margarine, cheese, pastries and sweets, and fried/fast food.

Studies Investigating The Mind Diet and Alzheimer's

One of the initial studies that examined the effectiveness of the MIND diet reviewed the eating habits of 960 participants of the Memory and Aging Project. The investigators scored the participants’ diet over an average of 4.7 years where higher diet scores correlated to better adherence to the MIND diet and lower scores were given to participants that did not eat according to the MIND diet guidelines. They found that people with the highest score had a slower rate of cognitive decline compared to people with low MIND diet adherence scores. The difference in cognition between the people that scored high and people that scored low on the MIND diet scoring system was equivalent to having cognitive score of someone 7.5 years younger. These results were the same irrespective if the participants were Apoe4 carriers or not. Participants with higher MIND diet scores performed better on all five cognitive domains tested: episodic memory, working memory, semantic memory, visuospatial ability, and perceptual speed.2

A similar study by the same group showed that not only does the MIND diet slow cognitive decline but they also showed that both strict and moderate adherence to the MIND diet correlated with reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease. The highest adherence to the MIND diet translated to a 53% reduction in an Alzheimer’s diagnosis compared to the lowest level of adherence. A moderate level of adherence to the MIND diet showed a 35% reduction in Alzheimer’s compared to the lowest level of adherence. The high adherence groups in both the Mediterranean and MIND diet showed similar reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease but for the Mediterranean diet, moderate adherence did not reduce risk. The high adherence to the NASH diet showed some decrease in risk (39%) of Alzheimer’s but the decrease in risk was not as high as it was for the MIND (53%) or Mediterranean (54%) diets. Like the Mediterranean diet, moderate adherence to the NASH diet also showed no benefit in regards to Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately for Apoe4 carriers, this particular study found that the MIND diet was less protective for Apoe4 carriers.2

One of the findings in the randomized trials of the Mediterranean diet was that it was difficult to replicate the positive results of the Mediterranean diet outside the Mediterranean region. When the MIND diet and Mediterranean diet was investigated side by side in an observational study in Australia, the results showed that the MIND diet, not the Mediterranean diet was correlated with reduced odds of cognitive decline over a 12 year period.3

There is currently a randomized clinical trial ongoing to study the effects of the MIND diet and cognition. The trial is a three year study looking at healthy people 65 years or older who are overweight and suboptimal diets. The trial will compare the MIND diet, the MIND diet with calorie restriction, the subject’s normal diet with calorie restriction and a mild weight loss diet. Cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s biomarkers will be analyzed.4,5