CNN
A new study analyzed the dietary patterns of over 84,000 dementia-free adults older than age 60 with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and/or heart disease or stroke who were part of the UK Biobank, a longitudinal study that includes participants from England, Scotland and Wales.
Each person was asked five times about their consumption of 206 foods and 32 drinks that were divided into levels of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory nutrients.
Medical records were examined over the next 15 years to discover whether there were any associations between eating the least and the most amounts of inflammatory foods and diagnoses of dementia.
In addition, nearly 9,000 of the participants also underwent magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, brain scans.
Foods that cause inflammation
Scans found people with cardiometabolic diseases who ate the most anti-inflammatory foods had larger gray matter volume — indicating less neurodegeneration — and lower white matter intensities, which are signs of vascular injury in the brain, compared with people who ate an inflammatory diet.
“Following an anti-inflammatory diet was related to lower risk of dementia, even among people with cardiometabolic diseases who are already at elevated risk of dementia.”
Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine who was not involved in the study, said via email:
“While more research needs to be done, overall, “the signal is clear above the background noise.”
“Even after one is contending with a chronic, cardiometabolic condition, the adoption of a higher quality diet appears to offer some protection to the brain, reducing and delaying both functional and anatomical signs of degradation … ”
