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- Previous research on how protective the Mediterranean diet is for cognitive health has been inconclusive, in part because many studies have relied on dietary self-reports..
- By tracking metabolites in the blood, scientists can gain a more accurate understanding of the foods a person eats because it is not based on self-reporting, which is often inaccurate in dietary studies.
- Now, a new prospective study based on an analysis of the participants’ metabolome has found more definitive evidence that consuming a Mediterranean diet promotes a slowing of cognitive decline in older people.
A strong connection between the Mediterranean diet and cognitive health remains elusive. This is most likely because many studies rely on participants’ self-reports of their dietary intake, a notoriously unreliable means of collecting data.
A new study takes a different approach to measuring diet and selecting cases and controls. The study was carried out in two French regions; one was the discovery cohort and the other was used to validate the findings. The researchers used a case-control study design nested in each city to reduce case-control bias.
In both cases, people with cognitive impairment after 12 years of follow-up and controls, those without cognitive impairment at follow-up, were selected from the same regional cohort (the “nest”).
The authors overcame inaccuracies in diet recall by using biomarkers in blood samples taken at the start of the study to measure how much of different components of a Mediterranean diet had reached the participants’ bloodstreams.
Using blood serum biomarkers rather than participants’ memories, the new study has found that people who follow a Mediterranean diet are less likely to experience age-related cognitive decline.
The study authors developed a scoring system that measures individuals’ adherence to the Mediterranean diet. They call their system MDMS, which stands for “Mediterranean Diet Metabolomics Scoring.”
The researchers analyzed the participants’ blood serum for the presence of metabolites that result from the cellular processing of certain foods, resulting in an MDMS score.
Data of the
None of the individuals had dementia at the start of the 3C study in 1999-2000, when cognitive tests were administered. Participants were evaluated repeatedly every two to three years over a 12-year period to detect any development of dementia.
At the beginning of the 3C study, researchers took blood samples from participants to measure 72 metabolites of interest.
In the new study, people in the Bordeaux region whose MDMS test results showed the highest adherence to the Mediterranean diet were 10% less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than people with lower test scores. In the Dijon region, they were 9% less likely to do so.
The study is published in the journal.
“Metabolites, which are products of various cellular processes, can provide information about the physiological state of an individual,” said Dr. Menka Gupta, a functional medicine doctor at Nutranourish, who was not involved in the study.
“[The] The decomposition and metabolism of consumed foods and nutrients generate various metabolites. By measuring biomarkers of food intake, researchers can indirectly infer the resulting metabolites in the body. “This helps us identify the promise of certain foods in cognitive decline research,” Dr. Gupta explained.
Metabolomics (studying a person’s metabolites) provides a greater degree of certainty regarding the foods a study participant consumes.
Michelle Routhenstein, a preventive cardiology dietitian at EntirelyNourished.com, who was also not involved in the study, said, “Tracking food consumption in Mediterranean diet studies typically relies on food frequency questionnaires that may lack precision because to subjective memory and reports”.
“This study is one of the first to evaluate the benefits of cognitive health and the Mediterranean diet through metabolomic signatures.”
—Michelle Routhenstein
According to Dr. Austin Perlmutter, an internal medicine physician and New York Times best-selling author, the metabolites tracked in this study are substitutes for key components of the Mediterranean diet. These include “polyphenolics and omega-3 fatty acids, including DHA and EPA, all of which have been linked to better cognitive health.”
He noted that “a diet rich in polyphenols, including, in particular, quercetin and kaempferol, has been correlated with slower cognitive decline, while consuming more omega-3 fatty acids is supported as a preventive strategy for Alzheimer’s.”
“One of the plant-based dietary biomarkers analyzed was enterolactone,” Routhenstein said, “which is created as a metabolite from the consumption of lignans, specifically flax seeds and sesame seeds. “Lignans have been shown to be neuroprotective and improve cognitive memory.”
Routhenstein also noted that monounsaturated fatty acids, “the heart-healthy fats found in the Mediterranean diet,” were included in the analysis.
“Studies show that oleic acid may have a beneficial effect on cognitive decline by improving memory functioning,” he said.
He
“The link between diet and cognitive decline has been examined in a number of studies and is of increasing importance as the world’s population ages,” Dr. Perlmutter said, highlighting that the most important threat to long-term cognition It is Alzheimer’s disease.
“With an expectation of more
Dr. Perlmutter cited research published earlier this year that reported an association between diet and Alzheimer’s disease and said, “Researchers determined that individuals who reported following a MIND or Mediterranean dietary pattern exhibited fewer brain markers related to Alzheimer’s disease.” with Alzheimer’s disease, even after taking into account reported levels of physical activity and smoking habits.
The MIND diet is a combination of the Mediterranean and DASH diets.
Dr. Perlmutter noted that the Mediterranean diet has also been linked to better memory and less brain atrophy in older people.
Dr. Gupta raised an additional issue
