Photo Credit: Pharrel Wiliams
The following is a summary of “Association of adherence to a MIND-Style diet with the risk of cognitive impairment and decline in the REGARDS cohort,” published in the September 2024 issue of Neurology by Sawyer et al.
The diet may have influenced the development of cognitive impairment and simulated decline; however, it remained undefined whether this relationship differed between Black and White American populations.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to examine the relationship between adherence to the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet and the development of cognitive impairment and cognitive decline in a cohort study.
They compared the Food Frequency Questionnaire in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study to MIND diet adherence with incident cognitive impairment and cognitive trajectory in Black and White participants. Logistic regression was used for the MIND diet score (as a continuous variable and using tertiles) and incident cognitive impairment, adjusting for age, sex, race, region, education, income, total energy, hypertension history, dyslipidemia, diabetes, estimated glomerular filtration rate, ischemic heart conditions, atrial fibrillation, and lifestyle factors such as sedentary behavior, obesity, and smoking. Mixed-effects models assessed the relationship between cognitive trajectory and MIND diet adherence.
The results showed that 14,145 participants with a mean age of 64 years (SD 9.0 years) with 56.7% female had higher MIND diet adherence linked with a lower risk of cognitive impairment (OR 0.96, 95% CI 0.93–0.99, P=0.02) in the study population. This association was stronger in female participants (OR 0.92, 95% CI 0.89–0.96, P<0.001) compared to male participants (OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.97–1.06, P = 0.64). Higher MIND diet adherence was also associated with slower cognitive decline, with a more substantial effect in Black participants (β = 0.04, SE = 0.007, P<0.001) than in White participants (β = 0.03, SE = 0.004, P<0.001).
They concluded that MIND diet adherence was associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment in female participants; it was a stronger predictor of cognitive decline in Black compared to White participants.
Source: neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000209817
