Mediterranean Diets Associated with Fewer Alzheimer’s Plaques and Tangles

Here’s a good rule of thumb: Do what healthy people do, and you’ll get their results. The Mediterranean dietary lifestyle famously produces some of the healthiest people on the planet, and scientists at the American Academy of Neurology show that it’s also associated with fewer plaques thought to cause Alzheimer’s.

The study looked at how closely 561 adults with an average age of 84 followed the so-called Mediterranean Diet, which emphasizes more fish than red meat, along with vegetables, fruit, olive oil and legumes.

After they passed, researchers examined participants’ brains to determine the amounts of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, and compared that with how well they had stuck to their Mediterranean diets over the past several years.

For the Mediterranean diet, there were 11 food categories. Participants were given a score of zero to 55, with higher scores if they adhered to the diet in these categories: whole grain cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, olive oil, fish, and potatoes. They were given lower scores if they ate red meat, poultry, and full-fat dairy products.

Get a Younger Brain

Researchers found people who scored highest for adhering to the Mediterranean diet had average plaque and tangle amounts in their brains similar to being 18 years younger than people who scored lowest.

When looking at single diet components, researchers found people who ate the highest amounts of green leafy vegetables, or seven or more servings per week, had plaque amounts in their brains corresponding to being almost 19 years younger than people who ate the fewest, with one or fewer servings per week.

“These results are exciting—improvement in people’s diets in just one area—such as eating more than six servings of green leafy vegetables per week, or not eating fried foods—was associated with fewer amyloid plaques in the brain similar to being about four years younger,” said study author Puja Agarwal, Ph.D., of RUSH University in Chicago.

Of course, this result doesn’t PROVE that the Mediterranean dietary lifestyle reduces the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s Disease, but the association between them is pretty strong!

Plus, people in the Mediterranean region enjoy long lifespans and lower incidences of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and cancer.

Note: Quality, Not Quantity

The Mediterranean Dieters in this study were marked down for the consumption of full-fat dairy and red meat—which the Mediterranean nations of Italy, France, and Spain eat at higher rates than almost anywhere else in Europe. Clearly this eating pattern isn’t hurting them, as these countries have some of the highest life expectancies on the continent, despite their love affair with cured meats and cheeses, not to mention pizza and pasta.

The key comes down to two things:

1. The food they do choose is higher in quality and does not consist of fried and ultra-processed foods.
2. The quantity of those delicious full fat cheeses, prosciuttos, etc that they eat is small. In other words they control total fat consumption not by what they eat, but by how much they eat.

The post is adapted from an article from the Good News Network.