Many of us are keen to minimise the visual effects of ageing. However, if you have experienced the pain of watching someone close to you succumb to dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, you are also likely to be interested in preventing cognitive decline as you get older. While there is a genetic predisposition to some neurodegenerative diseases, there is also a significant lifestyle component, which means there are active steps we can all take to preserve the health of our brain as we age.
Adam Liaw’s roast salmon with macadamia and rocket pesto recipe Specifically, in the area of diet, recent research has found that a particular dietary pattern is even more powerful than previously considered when it comes to preventing cognitive decline in our 60s and beyond. The new study, published in the journal Neurology , studied more than 14,000 people over 10 years, assessing them across different cognitive functions including thinking and memory. The average age of study participants was 64 years.
The diet of participants was assessed using a questionnaire that compared their usual dietary intake to the MIND diet – the Mediterranean-Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) – a pattern of eating previously shown to help reduce cognitive decline. It was found that 12 per cent of individuals in the group who followed a diet that was the least similar to the MIND diet developed significant cognitive impairment through the study period w.
