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By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, March 12, 2019 (HealthDay News) – A long-standing study challenges the conventional wisdom that healthy eating can help fight dementia.
European researchers followed more than 8,200 adults of average age for 25 years, looking to determine whether dietary habits influenced the chances of diagnosing dementia. In the end, people who ate their fruits and vegetables were not at less risk than those who preferred sweets and steaks.
The results, published on March 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, contrast with many previous studies.
These studies have linked healthy eating for the heart, reduced risk of mental decline, and brain abnormalities predictive of dementia. At present, groups such as the Alzheimer's Association suggest that people adopt these diets as a potential way of fighting dementia.
Most studies have however followed people for quite a short time – less than 10 years, said Tasnime Akbaraly, senior researcher at the French INSERM Research Institute.
This study is the first to examine the quality of diet from middle age and the risk of dementia in the long term, explained Akbaraly.
His team discovered that 344 people had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease during the quarter century when they had been followed. And rates were similar in one-third of study participants with "best" diet and one-third with "worst".
People in this first group usually ate several servings of fruits, vegetables and whole grains each day; at least a few servings of nuts and legumes each week; regularly had unsaturated fatty acids, such as olive oil; and limit red meats, sodium and sugary drinks.
Nobody, however, advises people to give up this type of meal.
"I certainly would not want anyone to walk away from this idea by thinking that a healthy diet is futile," said Keith Fargo, director of science programs and head of the Alzheimer's Association.
"This study must be placed in the context of the larger scientific literature on food and cognition – suggesting that there is a benefit. [from healthy eating]"said Fargo, who did not participate in the study.
Continued
According to the Alzheimer's Association, the best evidence concerns two heart-healthy diets: the traditional Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, which is a standard recommendation for reducing high blood pressure.
Diets differ, but both emphasize a familiar refrain: take lots of fruits, vegetables, legumes, high fiber cereals, "good" fats, fish and poultry – and limit red meat, sweets and added salt.
Akbaraly also pointed out that his findings do not imply that "the scheme does not matter".
On the one hand, it is clear that diet is essential to general health – physical and mental. Akbaraly noted that in an earlier study of this same group, middle-aged adults with the healthiest diets had a lower risk of depression over the next two decades or more.
And, she said, these results still leave many unanswered questions, including whether the diet is more powerful when combined with other lifestyle measures, such as Regular exercise.
In fact, said Fargo, studies like this – which ask people about their usual lifestyle – can not answer the main question: can changing diets – or any other habit – be to reduce my risk of dementia?
"You can not trust such observational studies to tell you what to do," said Fargo, because they prove neither the cause nor the effect.
More definitive answers, he said, come from clinical trials – which randomly assign people to adopt or not to change their lifestyle.
The Alzheimer's Association is sponsoring an ongoing trial that tests the effects of diet changes as well as other measures, including exercise and mentally stimulating activities. It targets older people at increased risk of mental decline.
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